In Search of Lunchtime Pasta, from Disappointing to Excellent - Knead & Co., Pasta Sisters, Cento Pasta Bar, Bulgarini, Factory Kitchen and Drago Centro

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Carb fuckin heaven!!! Great job @Chowseeker1999.

wow. you are really making the rounds. another great post–thanks!

Another winning marathon review @Chowseeker1999 :+1:t2::+1:t2::tada:

Seems like drago offers the best lunchtime QPR…awesome deal for pheasant&morels. I see an upcoming meal in my cards

Hot damn. This is so great.

That beet pasta looks insane.

So Cento offers like 6-7 pastas now instead of just like 2-3 like it used to?

i wish you told us how you really felt about knead & co :wink: Great reporting as always @Chowseeker1999 bravo!

Thanks @LAgirl @Sgee.

Yah, I think there are some winners for QPR in many of the places, like Pasta Sisters Bolognese Tagliatelle at $8.75 if you were in the area, it’s worth stopping by.

Or Bulgarini’s pastas. It’s $20 but like 3 times the amount of food as Knead, and just amazing. And you get some fantastic Gelato or Sorbet after. :wink:

But yah, for relaxing, peaceful, great perks, service, bread and the pastas, I really enjoyed Drago Centro for lunch.

Hi @Aesthete,

No no, usually only 2 or 3 types of pasta per day. We went to Cento 3 different times to try it out. :slight_smile:

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While I think the food at Drago is generally pretty good, maybe even above average at times, the service at times can be tragically comical.

I’m there quite often for lunch (more out of convenience than anything else), and there are times (more than twice) where after our apps, no entrees were to be found anywhere despite one of us asking a server about it directly, and while we waited our water, sodas and teas were not refilled.

Then there was that one time when we found ourselves in the path of the “pepper nazi” – y’know that guy who usually comes around after the dishes are served and asked whether you want some fresh ground pepper. Except this gentlemen wasn’t simply your typical black pepper ambassador, but a man on a mission. His role in life must’ve been to ensure that no diner – and certainly no diner at Drago – ever took a bite of food even once milligram short of black pepper. Takes the whole “never take no for an answer” to another level. Entirely.

Impressive report as always, @Chowseeker1999. Thank you.

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Hi @ipsedixit,

I’ve never seen the pepper nazi before! Glad we didn’t bump into him, but then again, you got probably eat at Drago way more than me. :slight_smile: I usually make it out once every half year or so? And always for dinner (and service was always good then).

Thanks for the FYI.

@Chowseeker1999 You are my pasta hero! So much dedication to seek out pasta throughout the city. I adore the pasta at Drago, and look forward to trying some of your recs when I find myself next in the city.
If you ever come out to my neck of the woods, I would suggest La Tavolata (Cerritos/Artesia) and Cafe Hiro (Cypress). La Tavolata makes all of their pastas and sauces in house daily…the smoked chicken tortellini and papardelle being my favorites. Cafe Hiro makes an uni spaghetti that is just simply fabulous. Both are most reasonably priced, too.

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Always enjoy your posts, thanks for the pics and writeups.

Excellent reporting, @Chowseeker1999!

Knead & Co - Interesting. That sure doesn’t look like lasagnette! There’s usually some frilled/curled edges to the pasta (like the edge of a lasagna sheet). Having eaten there myself, it was good, but not blow you away. My porcini dish had a bit of grit in it, which wasn’t welcome.

Pasta Sisters looks pretty good.

The sauce used for Cento’s Ragu alla Bolognese is ABSOLUTELY LEGIT (no tomatoes - although, I would question the use of spaghetti as the pasta choice)!

EDIT: I totally concur with @ipsedixit assessment of the service at Drago Centro.

Thanks @iloveto8va @Novelli.

Novelli, what do you think of Bulgarini’s pastas? :slight_smile: Curious if you liked them or not. I definitely enjoyed Cento’s Bolognese; I think it should be on the menu permanently (better than their Uni Spaghetti).

Cento’s Bolognese looks similar to the British take on the dish ‘Spag Bol’ Heston Blumenthal did a version for one of his TV shows.

Hi @attran99,

Thanks for those 2 suggestions. They sound awesome. Bookmarked. :slight_smile:

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@Chowseeker1999

I’ve only had Leo’s pasta once. It was a Fettuccine w/ meat/tomato sauce. The pasta was great. Cooked al dente w/ a nice chew. The sauce was decent, but was missing some salt and was a bit too acidic from the tomatoes for me. CAVIAT: It was also given to me as a freebie in a cup, after I just ate dinner elsewhere and was already stuffed.

I surely want to go back and try Leo’s other offerings. Especially for a full dinning experience/movie night.

I’d love to have Cento’s Ragu Alla Bolognese made with tagliatelle (the proper pasta to be used for that dish)!

It does look similar, but it doesn’t contain HALF of the crap Heston puts in his ridiculous ragu alla Bolognese recipe.

Tabasco? No.
Thai fish sauce? no way
Worcestershire ? LOL
Ketchup? HAHAHA
Sherry vinegar? no comment

Fish sauce and worcestershire sauce are quite common ingredients in ragu often used by restaurants (and home cooks) to increase the umami factor