Pasta ? is not a question, its the name of an Italian restaurant in Palo Alto. We've been in Palo Alto a lot lately and we've come to love University Ave. Its great for walking and the range of restaurants is stellar. Whenever I ask Irina what she wants to eat its alway, Pasta, with an "!", so Pasta, with a "?" has become our go to Italian spot. Dinners there are not only delicious, but also very reasonably priced. Irina's favorite smoked Salmon pasta is only 11.95 and its the best I ever tasted at any price.
We go to this restaurant not only for the food, but for the atmosphere and great service. I grew up surrounded by Italians and their hospitality and the people at Pasta?, extend that same feeling. A review that I read of this restaurant said, "we visited Italy recently and we agree that visiting Pasta? is the exact same experience." We agree.
Well, great, inexpensive food is one thing, but Eating Out Cheap, is about how good of a deal can we get? Today we showed up at Pasta? at around 4:30, being somewhere between lunch and dinner we were kind of stuck. We weren't ready for a huge dinner and the lunch specials looked really well priced, the waiter even said he'd be willing to try to get us those, even though it was pretty late. He then suggested we check out the happy hour menu. Now we're talking! From 3-6pm and then again from 9pm to closing they have drink specials and an extensive happy hour menu. The selection was great and felt more like an Italian version of tapas. We decided to try a range of dishes to get a feel for the range of the menu.
While we mulled over the menu I started with a draft beer, Sierra Nevada for $3. Other drinks were, $3.50 for a glass of wine, $4 well drinks and $5 martinis, nice.
As another hearty dish we chose, Scampi al Limone, a beautiful plate with 5 med shrimp laid atop a bed of mixed greens topped with capers. It was accompanied by a warm dressing/dipping sauce, we used it for both and four pieces of garlic toast. I'm not even beginning to do this dish justice, suffice it to say this was a winner, paricularly paired with the pasta.
To round this out we had Caprese, which is sliced tomatos topped with fresh mozzarella cheese and drizzled with olive oil with basil, yummy. And last but not least a Piatto di Salami, which was an assortment of salami, the kind I've only had in Europe.
This was more than enough for us and the variety of flavors and colors was divine. Funny thing is we barely scratched the surface of the choices on the menu. There were several more pastas, ciopinno, etc, etc. It'll take several visits to get to them all, but we're up to the task.
The nice thing with this selection is that you can tailor it to your level of hunger. The choices we had today fit our needs perfectly, but if we wanted a more substantial meal, we would have order two pastas and one or two others.
We enjoyed coming early because there was a light crowd and it was nice and relaxing sitting by the big full length windows. Around six it really fills up and gets lively, so the timing is perfect for us.
