As I was about to cancel my Myspace account, I browsed through some of my old photos and blogs which I was about to let go when I stumbled upon this blog/ review of a restaurant we dined in a few years back. I think it would be worth re-posting here. Brings back memories... and a pesto-like taste in my mouth.
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Saturday, February 10, 2007
Pesto Pasta P*ta
Category: Food and Restaurants
Sorry about the last word in the title, but that's exactly what came to mind when I tasted Pizza Volante's Pesto Pasta. I'm the adventurous type even when it comes to food, so I thought pesto pasta sounded harmless enough. But the moment I saw Rona's face as she wolfed down a forkful of the pasta, I began to have doubts. Hell, the moment the waitress brought something topped with green sauce, I already thought something was wrong.
Being a baked ziti addict, my taste buds are limited to red and white sauce, so green is a bit new. I guess green isn't really appetizing when we're talking about food. Don't get me wrong, I like vegetables, but pesto pasta tastes like grass. Maybe in Italy pesto pasta's taste is bearable, but not in Pizza Volante. Their pizza doesn't even taste like what pizza should taste like.
Of all restaurants in Baguio, the one place we picked to eat lunch just for the sake of deviating from the usual fast food was the worst. I don't know what Jom was thinking suggesting that we try it out. And we even ordered servings for four people (and there's only three of us.) If we knew right away how it would taste, we would have asked Jom to wipe the sauce off the second serving and perhaps request for hot sauce as alternative. That might have been bearable. I think plain pasta without that green sauce would have tasted better.
Despite my hunger, I was only able to force myself to eat two forkfuls. Rona didn't bother to taste it again and started complaining right away (being the hungriest of the three of us.) Even the iced tea tasted differently (or was it because of the aftertaste of the herbs?) Jom managed to almost finish the first plate but only did so because, according to him, he didn't want to offend the cook. As if the cook would care. We didn't even finish the pizza because it wasn't fatty enough to wash off the herbs from our tongues.
We didn't want to leave all that untouched food, and since we were in a hurry, we paid the bill and asked the humorless waitress to pack the leftovers for take-out. And because we weren't satisfied, we even forgot the doggie bag. The waitress just ran after us with our take-out. Right there and then we didn't want to remember the experience.
We were so hungry and pissed off when we left. To make matters worse, we had to make do with the light snacks (sandwich and juice) that we luckily kept (probably anticipating what's going to happen) on the way down to flat lands (a five-hour ride if traffic isn't so bad.)
And what's more disappointing is that we spent so much for that thing they call food. We could have just dined at Jollibee (for a change) and only spent a fraction of our bill at Pizza Volante and probably got more satisfaction. We swore not to eat at that place again or even taste pesto pasta in other restaurants.
As to the leftover, Jom offered it to one of our office mates who was happy enough to accept as he hasn't had his lunch yet. He even commented that it looked delicious. I bet Jom was thinking "Oh yeah it is..." The next day, we got curious and asked how the food tasted. All he could say was "Nanu ya ita?! (Translation: What was that?!) He didn't finish the pesto pasta but he managed to eat the pizza.
So much for food trips.
Postscript: The author is a fan of Italian food and loves watching cooking shows hosted by Italian chefs.
