Pastarrific

By Jeff Kovaleski
Tribune managing editor

January 30, 2006 03:21 pm

— Friends from out of town are visiting, and you want to treat them to a locally owned restaurant. Your boss asks you to book a banquet hall for a company dinner. You're looking for lunch from somewhere other than a chain establishment on U.S. 31.
Pastarrific, a South Webster Street fixture, fills the bill on all accounts.(MAP)
The Italian villa-styled restaurant, owned by Mehrdad and Cynthia Yazdani, has been at its current location since 1995, offering lunch, dinner and banquet facilities.
The decor is wonderful, the staff, knowledgeable. But the real strength of Pastarrific is its food. Though largely predictable -- this is, after all, an Italian restaurant, and as such, includes a house salad and two bread sticks with most entrees -- there are some surprises.
My server, Darla, recommended the Cajun Carbonara, a spicy twist on an Italian classic. It's ham, bacon, onion, tomatoes, green peppers and penne tossed in a creamy, Cajun-style sauce. A lot of sauce, as it turns out.
Pastarrific serves its pasta in bowls with ladles and ladles of sauce. And Darla informed me that it's not impolite to soak up all of that sauce with the bread sticks.
I, however, wanted something a little lighter. Darla recommended the All-Season Salad. Chef Cynthia Yazdani said it started as a seasonal item, then was picked up on the following season's menu. It has become so popular, it has a permanent place among the large salads.
It's breaded chicken, bacon, tomatoes, onions and salad greens, topped with shredded cheese and field fresh. Interestingly, the chicken is diced just like the other ingredients. You taste all the flavors with every bite, and, thankfully, Darla brought two small cups of dressing.
It's her favorite salad, so she knows how many dressings it takes.
Pastarrific offers several varieties of wine and beer, including Moretti, a sweet, brown beer with an unusually high alcohol content. I opted for the sweet tea -- iced tea made the way Southerners intended it: with sugar.
It also offers entrees other than those that include pasta: grilled chicken sandwiches, sesame salmon or Triple Sec grouper and a New York strip, as examples.
But its specialties -- the Cajun Carbonara and the like -- also can be purchased in 9-by-11 inch party pans for family get-togethers.
And you can bet the party pans come with a whole lot of sauce.