Pasta235

235巷

Alley 235, No. 4, Ziqiang 3rd Rd, Qianjin Dist
高雄市前金區自強三路235巷4號
(07)241-6607

Monday-Saturday 
11:30am-9:30pm

facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pasta235

English friendly: yes
vegetarian friendly: yes
average cost: 150-250NTD

Tucked into a charming little alleyway off of Ziqiang 3rd Rd the informed visitor will find the (supposedly famous!) Pasta235.

Their menu is crazy big and diverse (English version offered upon entry for us foreign-looking folks). There are a few main flavors of sauce--red sauce, white sauce, and 香草 which apparently in this case means pesto, who knew?--which you can pair with a noodle of your choice: spaghetti, bowties or penne. They also offer pasta au gratin, Italian hot pot (random?), as well as those oh-so-neat squid ink noodles. 

Each sauce-noodle pairing has another seven or so variations of toppings/ingredients, with things like mushrooms and chicken and seafood and whatever else one puts on pasta... Be prepared to spend a lot of time looking at the menu.

I think the prices are unexpectedly reasonable, for a restaurant of this quality! The atmosphere is pretty upscale (while still cozy, a great place for a date) and the service was pointedly excellent.

If you choose a set meal (for an extra 60NTD) it comes with bread, your choice of soup or salad, and your choice of drink. 

The salad was fine! The bread had that faintly sweet taste that we all must come to expect from bread baked in Asia (sigh...) but it was still very edible--multigrain, even!

I think the pumpkin soup was the real winner here. The flavor was solid, if not life-changing, though it was less thick then I was maybe hoping, something between a bisque and a regular soup.

(Watch me pretend I know what a bisque is.) 

(Just kidding I just looked up a picture of a bisque, I think a bisque would describe it pretty well actually.)

I ordered pesto bowtie pasta with assorted seafood. It was what I would consider a standard pasta dish from a Taiwanese (key word) Italian restaurant, which after much contemplation I've concluded has two defining characteristics: slightly chewier pasta than I would expect from an Italian restaurant in America, and slightly thinner/less flavorful sauce than I would hope. I miss cheese everywhere, is what I'm saying. The sauce never sticks to the noodles... This is probably better for one's health, in retrospect, but it always feels kind of unsatisfying.  

...BTW I found the cheese you guys. This dish--lobster pasta au gratin, only 200NTD!--was pretty awesome. Aaaaaaall that cheese, so shameless. Highly recommended for those among us missing dairy products.

Anyway, if you're a foreigner who enjoys eating at Italian restaurants in Taiwan, I do recommend this place. Also, I recommend you contact me because I'm not positive that you actually exist.

OVERALL RATING: 2/5