Pasta Brown

On tuesday night my wife and I dropped in to Pasta Brown on the off chance they were still serving. It was late after the theatre. They were and greeted us with big smiles and a lovely looking menu. We both chose the shellfish spaghetti ( king prawn,mussels and clams). I was FANTASTIC! Probably the best plate of pasta I have ever eaten. Please give it a try, you won't be disappointed.
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gregnuts - View all reviews by this user
Overall rating
Food 10 | Service 10 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 7
Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Disappointing.

Another "Italian" restaurant charging a tenner (£9.95) for a bowl of pasta. Pasta is meant to be a course in an Italian meal - not the main thing. But to justify the extortionate prices, PB have to increase portion sizes, since the food cost of said bowl wouldn't have come to more than £2 (half a packet of pasta, check; ladlefull of passata, check; 2 miserly "meat" balls, check; seasoning & ubiquitous parmesan, check). The net result is a huge mountainous bowl of pasta, watery sauce that needed seasoning, flavourless meatballs that were high on binding agent and low on meat. We thought we'd like to order another course, maybe some dessert and coffee, but pasta was enough to leave us stuffed. Service was brusque, the floor was greasy and we couldn't get out of there quick enough. To top it all off, the bill came with a 12.5% "optional" service charge added on!!!! Now I wasn't going to raise a fuss when we were planning on a nice evening out, but I almost choked when I saw the bill. I paid the full whack, not willing to go through the demeaning process of tallying up and subtracting the service and having to suffer the embarrassment of asking the unfriendly waitstaff to charge the value of the meal minus the service charge. Optional, my arse.

Overpriced & overrated - what a complete mockery of Italian cooking and hospitality!
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Rudy
Overall rating
Food 3 | Service 3 | Atmosphere 4 | Value for money 1
Sunday, October 14, 2007

I had eaten pasta here a few years ago and remember it being quite good. However, last night my friend and I made the mistake of ordering pizza. There was nothing Italian about this pizza, more Asda value brand (and that's being quite generous). The base was a dry biscuit and the toppings sparse. The service was reasonable, if a little fast. We felt they were trying to get us out as quickly as humanly possible. Left extremely disappointed and will never eat there again.
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Heather
Overall rating
Food 1 | Service 7 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 2
Thursday, June 21, 2007

PB is trying to position itself as a "better" alternative to the comparatively much larger, almost invasive, Bella Italia chain. But you still end up feeling cheated. Don't expect anything remotely close to Italian cuisine. Stay away from the pizzas, which are ridiculously small, and extremely sparse in toppings. I tried the chicken, which was ok, but soaking in an aqueous "sauce". Shame, because PB makes a true effort to "look" nice, and service was very quick and friendly. Eventually, just another London rip off.
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Cambridge_Student
Overall rating
Food 2 | Service 7 | Atmosphere 5 | Value for money 3
Friday, May 25, 2007

A friend was in London for work so I agreed to meet her in Covent Garden. She arrived earlier than me and chose Pasta Brown. I would normally steer clear of chain Italian restaurants that I had not tried before, as I generally feel finding one with good standard of food is pot luck. Sadly, this was no exception. The pizzas were awful - they were smaller than imagined, the bases were too thick and doughy and the toppings meagre; not to mention the fact the side orders did not arrive until we had finished the main course, and that was with a lot of prompting. Overall, for what we received it was overpriced and the service was below average. I will not be going back.
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Hannah Ridley
Overall rating
Food 2 | Service 3 | Atmosphere 3 | Value for money 2
Tuesday, January 23, 2007

We recently visited Pasta Brown for a friend's 17th birthday. We went as a group of four, and were seated almost instantly although it was quite busy. Our drinks came as soon as we had ordered them, which was a pleasant surprise.

We ordered between us the swordfish, the linguini, the house steak and 'Italian Burger'. The consensus was the meals were very nice. The service ranged from good to mediocre, but nothing we could really fault. Our only criticisms of the evening were the seasoning of food; the swordfish meal was slightly to salty and when one of our party requested black pepper it was applied to all meals around the table before asking.

Overall, we enjoyed ourself and the experience. We would all go there again and would recommend to our friends
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Christopher, Sharif, Ersin and Robert
Overall rating
Food 7 | Service 6 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 6
Friday, December 08, 2006

My fiance and I went to ***** ***** for a quick lunch on Saturday and I really wish we hadn't bothered! The food was fine but the service was terrible and the whole experience was unpleasant. After sitting patiently for a good 5 minutes I asked if we could have some menus, which were then thrust at us in a very unpleasant manner. It didn't get any better, we sat at our table for 10 minutes, with all our efforts to attract someones attention ignored. In the end I had to shout across the restuarant to get anyone to take our order. We ordered a salad and a pasta dish (which were both fine) with a side order of olives. Our food arrived fairly quickly, minus the olives which we could see sat on the counter by the kitchen. I managed to catch the attention of our waitress and explanied that we were still waiting for the olives and we also ordered some more drinks. She gave us a very disinterested look and carried on doing what she was doing and did not say a word. The drinks never arrived and the olives appeared just as we were finishing our food. I was then horrified to find out that 12.5% had been added to our bill as an 'optional' service charge. We had been made to feel like an inconvience throughout the meal. The food was fine but over priced. I have never been to such a bad restaurant, avoid this establishment there are much better options in Covent Garden.
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Overall rating
Food 4 | Service 1 | Atmosphere 1 | Value for money 1
Monday, June 26, 2006

I visited Pasta Brown recently and found it very disappointing. My pasta was over-cooked (though may have been al dente when originally cooked), and though the place was half empty my homemade meatballs arrived worringly quickly. I asked for no parmesan then had to send my dish back when it arrived with the cheese clearly mixed in to the sauce. At this price there are so many better options in covent garden.
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Overall rating
Food 1 | Service 1 | Atmosphere 1 | Value for money 1
Monday, February 06, 2006

We saw a special set menu in the window and decided to go in. When we were seated we were not given the set menu and therefore felt awkward when we had to ask for it, especially when the response was less than friendly. We proceeded to order. 10 minutes later we were told that I could not have sauteed potatoes with my burger: I had to have boiled potatoes instead. This was annoying especially as the potatoes were dry and in rancid butter. Also the people who ordered after us got a big plateful of sauteed potatoes. My girlfriends pizza was horrible - tesco metro opposite the restaurant would have done a lot better. Overall the service was very poor. They put a tip on automatically and we had to ask them to take it off. Food is fairly cheap for london but the food is not worth a penny.
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- View all reviews by this user
Overall rating
Food 3 | Service 1 | Atmosphere 3 | Value for money 2
Wednesday, December 21, 2005