PastaWorks
3735 SE Hawthorne Blvd
Portland Oregon 97214
503-232-1010
This post is heavy on the visuals because tomatoes and pasta just photograph so pretty!
It’s somewhat surprising to me that I’ve had this blog for a little over a month now and I haven’t posted about PastaWorks yet. One of my favorite things to do on Hawthorne, is to wander in and check out all the different kinds of olive oils, vinegars, fancy beer, wines and other assorted tasty things. Oh, right, and the pasta.
While often tempted by the raviolis and tortellinis and other stuffed goodies, I must admit, I think my all-time favorite Pasta Works pasta is the bagged rigatoni. It’s just so good whether its served with a pesto, red sauce, cheesy alfredo or just good olive oil.
That being said, one of the ways I like best to have the above-mentioned rigatoni (especially in the summer) is simply tossed with some olive oil, a splash of balsamic vinegar, garlic, salt, basil, cheese and assorted fresh veggies.
How fortunate it was that while at PastaWorks, I came across a petit basket of cherry and other small, little tomatoes. Aren’t they cute? I am a sucker for tasty things in little baskets.
Eventually, I made it home with the tomatoes, pasta, some parmesan, a bottle of red wine, blackberry sorbet and two chocolate chunk cookies — all the makings of an indulgently delicious summer meal. I sliced and tossed the little tomatoes with the olive oil, balsamic, fresh basil, kalamata olives, red pepper flakes and a couple of cloves of minced garlic. Mmmm!
Pre-Pasta:
After adding the cooked pasta (an important step), I added some toasted pine nuts and shaved parmesan on top to round it out.
Post-Pasta:
Pasta Guilt — must add a salad
Of course, there’s something about a big bowl of pasta makes me feel like I need a salad too. Not that it’s a bad thing to add a salad, because I like salad but it also serves to give the illusion of healthier eating when paired with a big bowl of pasta (and all the extra parmesan cheese that is always added to the pasta). After being prodded slightly, jwa went outside to pick some butter lettuce from the garden and we had a nice green salad with our meal.
For the dressing, I just used a simple tarragon-mustard vinaigrette. Oh and this was fun (and really, what with cheese isn’t?), I took some goat cheese, formed it into a little ball and then rolled that in chopped walnuts and placed atop each salad.
As a marginally-related aside — and perhaps this is interesting to nobody except me — but there was a great pasta place in Flagstaff, AZ called Pasta Works, that jwa and I would go to a lot. Great pasta, uninspired ambiance (I Love Lucy posters on the wall) but we really liked it. They had a dish with angel hair, olive oil, tomatoes, garlic and basil. We would go through the whole shaker of parmesan cheese while we ate this — good times. Of course, Pasta Works isn’t there anymore as an Olive Garden opened up a few blocks away and took away a lot of their business — something that I still don’t understand.
In closing, when the opportunity presents itself, be sure to have a nice pasta meal with someone you love (and then go sit on the couch and watch the Scrubs dvd) or something like that.
Pastaworks in flagstaff (FLGAZ, as the hip switches call it) was the sh1znackery. The basil angelhair? Delectable! They also had fried ravioli. It was madness, pure lunacy.. who would fry dough? Oh, wait..
As I recall it came with a little marinara sauce for dippin’ .. quite tasty as a prelude to the spaghetti w/ Italian sausage. Oh man, was that good. That’s back when I could eat and eat and still remain *skeeney* ! (That time has passed.)
I learned how (and why) to enjoy red wine at Pastaworks. I also learned that fresh pasta is really good, and that parmesan cheese absorbs olive oil nicely.
ps: my dentist reminds me of Dr. John Dorian.
Oh, you left out the fact the PDX Pasta Works is right next to the mini-pix (I forget the exact name, but you get the picture.)
The tapas place? Yeah. Picture gotten. We should go there sometime. 🙂