mindless ramblings

Recently I’ve been using a local website called Dinehere to check up on potential restaurants to try, and I came across a little Italian restaurant in Burnaby called Amarosa Pasta House (7874 Edmonds St, Burnaby) that had garnered very effusive reviews… so I just had to try it out! The reviews had mentioned that the servings were huge, so Esther and I had a small (albeit late) lunch to prepare ourselves for what lay ahead. We got there at 7, and we were glad we made a reservation, as it was rapidly filling up and the place isn’t exactly big. The menu offers a lot of choice if you like pasta; there are 28 different sauces and a whole range of pastas to choose from. You can even create your own pasta from scratch if you feel like beating the chef at his own game. The prices are affordable, with a small pasta for only $8.95 and large for $13.95.

Hot Chicken Caesar Salad
The reviews on Dinehere had mentioned the hot chicken caesar salad to try, and they are absolutely spot on! This has to be one of the most tasty salads I have ever had. I’d describe as a mashup between a traditional creamy Caesar salad and an Asian chicken stir fry. It sounds weird, but the results are fantastic! We had ordered some garlic bread (only $1.95 for 2 pieces) too, and we used it to soak up the sauce on the plate… very very yummy. We ordered the smaller size ($7.95) and we found it plenty enough for both of us. It eats like a meal and left us half full before the pasta even arrived.

Penne with Shrimp in Cream Sauce
Maybe this should have been called mini-shrimp in cream sauce. The shrimp was so small even the dried shrimp my mom brought from Singapore were bigger. Truly tiny shrimp! This resulted in the dish feeling more like penne in cream sauce. There wasn’t anything else to chew besides penne. The sauce wasn’t all that good too, it was bland and lacked salt. At least the penne was fairly well cooked. A HUGE disappointment.

Penne with Sausage, Chicken and Shrimp in Spicy Tomato Sauce
I ordered the large, figuring that I could pack the remainder for lunch anyway. The sauce was much better than the above, it had enough flavour but it was quite watery and didn’t coat the penne very well. The excellent salad had filled us up though, and I packed most of it home. There was enough for my lunch today, and even then I couldn’t finish it. A massive portion for 13.95!

My recommendation for this place would be to get a small hot chicken caesar salad and a drink for yourself. You stay just above the $8.95 minimum charge per person, and it is definitely enough food to satisfy the average eater. Despite all the glowing reviews from the people on Dinehere, we were unimpressed by the pasta. It is value for money though, a decent competitor to Anton’s. Their pasta dishes are of the same style: large servings, average execution. At least you don’t have to line up for an hour at Amarosa to get a table.