DW Pasta & Grill

We went to dinner here for the first time on Sunday night just because we kept seeing signs for pasta and we don’t have a close pasta place to us. We used to have Picasso’s down the street which was fantastic, but, alas, they went under.

We found the place – it was in a little mall-like spot where the Rogers wireless location is (beside the Golden Griddle) at 1118 Finch Avenue, a little west of Dufferin.

It was a clean looking spot, not over-the-top in decor but more modern and crisp looking. Oh, and the washrooms were clean too… I like that in a restaurant.

Anyway, we were there for pasta but they had a variety of different things on the menu, so I assume they’re not trying to be just an italian style spot since they had a thai dish, they had buffalo wings, they had steaks, japanese noodles and korean short ribs (I know Chef Gordon Ramsay would overhaul the place with that variety of foods and make it simply Italian).

I ordered the Rigatoni Vinni which was rigatoni with peameal bacon, sun dried tomatoes, and onion, sauteed in garlic. My snookey ordered Linguini Carbonara and my daughter had Fettucini Alfredo.

There was only one problem and that was with my dish. The rigatoni was like cardboard it was so ‘al dente’. They had also fried it after cooking so it had a crispiness to it. The crispy aspect was nice and I would have liked it had the rigatoni been cooked.

I ended up sending it back so that they could cook it some more. Then they brought it back to me and it was still undercooked the second time around.

The good thing? The executive chef (I’m assuming owner) came to me and said that he would recook the meal himself, and he did. This time I got the pasta back cooked – not under or over cooked. I wish he had fried it a little too since I had liked that but I was just happy to have the food cooked properly and the flavour was great. After tasting my daughter’s and my honey’s food, I think I got the best dish there with the Rigatoni Vinni.

For dessert I had a neapolitan cheesecake just because I’d never tried that before. I didn’t much care for the chocolate sauce over it, but then that’s not because there was anything wrong with it, more so that I’m not a big fan of chocolate sauce.

My snookey had the caramel praline crepe and it was fantastic. My daughter had the fresh fruit sorbet which was made with raspberry and had some strawberry on the side – also good.

Overall, I think the service was excellent, especially considering that they cooked my meal for me three times. Not a lot of restaurants will do that for you with a smile on their faces and a willingness to please the customer.

The food was good, and we’ll go back – next time to try some of the dishes other than pasta. You can check out their menu at their website: http://www.dwpastangrill.ca.