pastaholic
I love pasta. But much to boyfriend's chagrin, he is always stuck with small plates of pasta that don't really fill him up and yet quite expensive. But I read about a new place called Pastaholic where you can upgrade your pasta 1.5 times more by adding $9. Located in Mong Kok, right outside Langham Place, there seemed to be other people who had heard of this new place as there was quite queue.
Upon sitting down, we had an array of menus. Menus are in English and Chinese. They have two people dinner sets with optional drink upgrades. If you choose from these sets, the $9 pasta size upgrade is not available. They also have cheese fondue sets and a hot pot set.
And if you still not satisfied with all the sets, they have a la carte. They have tapas, salads, soups. Various pastas, paella and pizza. Even a sizzling steak plate. Interesting is that they have options for sizes so you can just add a bit of money and make it a bit larger. So, not just the option of adding $9 to get 1.5 more pasta. We weren't interested in some of the items on the sets so we ordered a la carte. While waiting, I noticed this seasoning on the table. What was it? It tasted like sugared pepper flakes. Addictive.
Coffee Caramel Frozen ($53). Boyfriend ordered this drink. It was sweet but boyfriend felt it could be even sweeter. It was thick and icy with a touch of coffee flavor.
Choco Fun English Tea ($38). I had this as I wondered ... what was choco fun? Apparently, the tea was infused with chocolate so when you pour it, you get wafts of chocolate scent. There was a very subtle taste of chocolate as well. Interesting tea.
Pumpkin and Corn Cream Soup ($28). As the price of soup was so inexpensive, we ordered that. The pumpkin and corn was ok. A bit grainy but it had the flavors balanced well and one didn't over power the other.
French Onion Soup ($38). But this was really good. Much better than the pumpkin and corn soup. Lots of onion. The broth was a rich beef broth as well. Loved the cheesy toasted baguette on top. Probably one of the more authentic versions of French onion soup that isn't found in a high end restaurant. This is definitely a recommend.
Deluxe Tapas Platter ($168). This included parama ham, calamari with tartar sauce, cheese croquettes with parma ham, baked stuffed mushroom with scallop and shrimp avocado bruschetta. This is a great platter and each item was really good. The best was perhaps the baked mushroom. Super juicy and soaked in all the scallop juices.
Handmade Fresh Linguine with Japanese Sukiyaki and Mushrooms ($78). This is the whole reason I wanted a la carte as this was not included in set menus. I was curious. What was this? This was definitely fusion pasta. Be open minded. It was actually quite good. Like a udon but not using udon. It was layered with a perfectly poached egg. The meat was the sukiyaki style and was marinaded in the sukiyaki sauce. I liked it as a different take on the nontraditional pasta.
Japanese Squid Paella Arroz Negro ($108 for one person portion). They do have a 2 to 4 people size but as we feared we over ordered like we always do, we chose the one person portion. It was still enough to share so portion size was good. The paella was ok though there was a huge dollop of hot sauce on top. I wish they had told me this before hand as it was pretty spicy. So, boyfriend scooped the top off.
Matcha Parfait ($58). We shared a dessert. This was ok. A slight matcha taste with lots and lots of cream.
Prices not expensive and with options for size upgrades is good enough for boyfriend to appreciate as he was full. Place was clean and service was fine. Would probably be back as a good option for inexpensive pasta choice with friends in the future.
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Pastaholic
Address: Shop 208, 2/F, Grand Tower, 639 Nathan Road, Mong Kok
Service Charge: Yes
English Menu: Yes
