New Italian in town

Published 12:00 am Thursday, July 28, 2016

The only thing that really disappoints me about the new Pasta House Bar & Grill, in the Bend Factory Stores on S. U.S. Highway 97, is its lack of fresh pastas. The restaurant doesn’t make its own pastas, and there are too few varieties of what it offers.

Beyond that — and partners Chip Simmons and Karen Davis assure me that future growth will address the pasta issue — this cafe is a delightful addition to its neighborhood.

Simmons and Davis opened shop May 3 in the space formerly held by Si Señor and offer Italian food with a New Orleans flair. Simmons, who also owns the 3-year-old Pour House Grill a few blocks north, said he’s long wanted a cafe to compete with the Olive Gardens and Pastini Pastarias of the Central Oregon dining world.

Davis’ domain is the kitchen. Trained at the Cascade Culinary Institute, with experience from New Orleans to Bend, she offers a menu highlighted by scratch-made sauces and breads, ranging from salads and sandwiches to steaks and Cajun-style desserts. With the exception of seafood and beef, nothing is priced above $15. It’s no wonder this restaurant is developing a regular clientele, as shoppers spread the word to family and friends.

The dining room is spacious, with a separate bar area specializing in beers and Italian wines. Paintings of Italy hang on sepia-colored walls throughout. Background music ranges from New Orleans blues to swing-era tunes and Frank Sinatra numbers.

Salad courses

In three recent visits, two with my regular dining companion, I’ve had an opportunity to try a dozen different plates. And I think the salads are my favorites.

Best of all may be the wedge salad ($9). A quartered head of crispy iceberg is piled high with crunchy diced bacon, hard-boiled egg, slivered almonds, blue-cheese crumbles and creamy dressing. Served with fresh lemon, it’s a meal in itself.

The fresh Caesar salad ($8) offers hearts of romaine with a lemony dressing, made with just the right amount of anchovy paste. The croutons are made in-house, and shredded pecorino cheese tops the greens.

The caprese bruschetta ($10) is dubbed “a twist on a classic,” coupling elements both of traditional bruschetta and the popular caprese salad. Baby Marzano tomatoes, like red and yellow cherry tomatoes, are halved and served with coarsely chopped buffalo mozzarella and ribboned basil leaves. These are seasoned with salt and pepper, then drizzled with olive oil and a heavy balsamic vinegar reduction. They are presented with thin sticks of crostini bread.

Midday meals

A meatball sandwich ($13) makes an excellent and filling lunch. Davis rolls ground beef, pork and veal into 4-ounce balls, then smothers them in a house-made pomodoro sauce of tomatoes, onions and garlic. They are served on a house-made roll of Italian sourdough, mozzarella is melted on top and extra sauce is provided for dipping. This is a great sandwich.

A couple of Parmesan specials, on the other hand, were carb and cheese bombs. Eggplant Parmesan ($11 lunch, $13 dinner), with its inch-thick slice of eggplant (two are served at dinner), was fried in a panko breading and submerged in mozzarella. A generous serving of linguine pomodoro took up more than half the plate; I was hoping to find something green, like zucchini spears, but realized I probably should have had a side salad to accompany.

Chicken Parmesan ($11 lunch, $15 dinner) was more of the same, although the panko-breaded chicken breast was tender and tasty.

Seafood and steak

A pair of seafood dishes — shrimp piccata and crab angel hair (both $18) — were presented with long, thin angel-hair pasta. The large, butterflied shrimp were sauteed in lemony, buttery piccata sauce and sprinkled with capers.

The crab, including good-sized chunks of claw meat, was mixed with pasta in a house-made Alfredo sauce of cheese, cream, garlic, onions, tomatoes and diced shiitake mushrooms.

Pasta House prides itself on the steaks it serves for dinner. I had a rib-eye ($26), a 12-ounce boneless cut of locally raised, grass-fed beef, seared medium rare and served with fresh veggies and, once again, linguine pomodoro. It wasn’t prime beef (there was too much fat and gristle for that), but it was perfectly cooked and as good as some for which I’ve paid $10 more.

We didn’t love the desserts, unfortunately. A tapioca pudding ($7) was no better than ordinary, and a chocolate cheesecake with berry coulis (also $7) was forgettable. But on another visit, I may come just for Davis’ bread pudding ($9) with bourbon sauce, ice cream and cinnamon powdered sugar, and accompany it with a carafe of French press coffee. That sounds like Cajun heaven.

— John Gottberg Anderson can be reached at janderson@bendbulletin.com.