Pasta Nite!

My friends and I had dinner at Italiannies in the Curve last Wednesday night. We deliberately chose that day of the week because it is Pasta Buffet night, all you can eat pasta at only RM19.99++.

WE ARE NOT CHEAP. WE ARE ECONOMICALLY SENSIBLE.

I am not too familiar with Italian dish apart from the occasional pizza at Pizza Hut and spaghetti cabonara at Murni mamak restaurant in SS2 so I intended to try a wider variety of pasta that night.

There were four of us and we were seated at a small square table measuring no more than 3' x 3' by my estimate. A Chinese restaurant would never get away with such small table. There won't be enough room for all the dishes. Small as the table may be there is still enough space for four plates of pasta and glasses of drink with room for everyone's elbows too :)
The ambience is warm and cosy and the service isn't too bad either. I don't frequent this kind of joint too much but they are definitely better than those buffet restaurant we can find in any 5-stars hotel in the country. In fact, for a 5-star hotel, I thought the service is horrible, not just in the restaurant, but in the reception as well. Unfortunaely we have all seems to accept that as the local standard of service. Another story for another time.

The format for the buffet is simple. Choose a pasta, choose a sauce, choose a topping, waiter will bring you the food and when you are done, repeat again. For the first round, I chose... Spaghetti Cabonara with chicken chunks. Yeah, yeah, I have that all the time but it's good for comparison sake. For my taste however, Itallianies paled in comparison with the cabonara served at Murni.
Unbelievable. To begin with, I don't know if that is the way to serve pasta but I like my food hot. Murni served a plate hot, generous with sauce and chicken chunks and sausages. In comparison, Itallianies's was warm enough with just enough sauce for the spaghetti and a relatively frugal amount of chicken chunks. No sausage. OK, OK, that didn't matter. Truth is, it wasn't that bad- I just like my Murni's spaghetti better.

I was more adventurous in the second round, ordering Linguine in aglio olio with salmon chunks. I wanted to try an oil based sauce and I heard seafood goes with this best. Somehow they messed up my order and it did not arrive until all my friends were done with round two. Computer glitch konon. Or are they trying to prevent a round three?

I was initially worried that I will not like this sauce, that the oil will be too thick. It wasn't. The sauce was quite mild but pleasant enough, and the pasta is served hot this time, with very generous topping of salmon. The only reason I did not finish it was that I was already full. no room for round three.

Despite the pasta buffet night, I noticed most people were not there for the buffet. The pizzas seem to be a popular choice. Must try that next time. Still, it is very feasible to select the buffet menu as a single plate of pasta normally goes for more than RM30. Unless of course, they served tastier pasta from the al carte menu. The pictures definitely looked more appetizing.
To sum it all up, the food and price is acceptable, service is good, I like the atmosphere and the girl who held the door open for me is quite cute too. I just might come back here again soon.