The pasta that I had tonight at Pastino’s in Oakland
was the worst pasta I have had in my entire life.
I am an old man. I have lived 300 years.
In all my years, I’ve never had pasta this bad.
And make no mistake — I’ve had bad pasta.
For about 60 years I lived in Bangladesh,
I was a reporter at a local newspaper
and — I kid you not — my “beat” was bad pasta places
and the pasta they made.
Most of which wasn’t
very good.
It was a difficult time.
As it turns out, those thin, flappy, granular strands of my discontent
were just the first course in an extended meal
at the heavy center of which, I now discover, sat
tonight’s fettucini bolognese.
I’m about to go to sleep. And all I can think about
is the fact that some small part of this pasta will probably become
my toe skin, or a ligament. My hip. A crumbly eyelash.
I have been cheapened by this pasta. I do not recommend you go to
Pastino’s.
cec, i usually agree with you 100.42%, but most of the reviewers over at http://local.yahoo.com/details?id=21496844 love pastino’s to the hilt. plus, pastino’s actually puts ‘pasta’ in their name, a clear sign of their confidence in mastering that which the vulcan god created (pasta that is, not fire and forge).
is it possible that your palate is off center? or, that you harbor ill will toward pastino’s? what is really going on? share.
I’ve found the Old Spaghetti Factory to be my 2nd worst on record, in both indivdual experiences and averaged over many employee parties. Dead spaghetti, limp linguine, tortellini in the water so long the sides opened and the cheese had melted out into a watery grains.
But worst ever by far was my sister-in-law’s mother-in-law’s, central valley spaghetti. Apparently you can leave it in the water so long each strand breaks back down into individual wheat molecules, each molecule a water balloon of lukewarm water. Mix that in with sauce indistinguishable from Campbell’s tomato soup mixed with greasy hamburger. It takes a special type of home cookin’ to make something so enourmously, hideously bad.
Of course when I made my spaghetti for their family, they couldn’t stand to eat it. The stench of garlic, basil, and fennel made them gag. They didn’t mind telling me.
As itto points out some people love Pastino’s. Perhaps spaghetti has been with us so long there are segments of DNA made of noodles, and each person fits some particular pasta. When the Flying Spaghetti Monster launches a tagliatelle virus, we’ll appreciate the genetic diversity.
Pastino’s has changed hands, maybe more than once, since back in the glory days when I used to subsist on their delicious pizza slices. Having been at Cecil’s side on this tragic gustatorial misadventure, I can assure you: Not. Good. Anymore.
Al dente, the way to go. Toothsomeness.
Thank you for the warning and:
at least you got a funny poem out of it.
(A poem even funnier for me in remembering how R Mills felt you were too much a booster, ever promotive, of movies!) *smile*
Good luck, and I hope the next place will pasta test.
Yes, Pastino’s jumped the fusilli years ago. There was a time when their pizza slice (actually two slices) was worth the trip, and their pasta was eh, pretty good. Like so-called Bill I used to subsist on that pizza, having many a lunch there in my care-free work-from-home free-lance writer, no visible means of support, no actual means of support days. But no more. In more ways than one.
Oh, and that number in the security code? It’s 290047. Just sayin’.
wonderfully simic-esque