Despite being just off Marion, it’s really only recently that I have visited Pasquales(There should be an apostrophe but those nasty Google crawlers don’t like them). I had tried Pasquales as part of my Just Eat promo, but hadn’t been back since. In large part this is because I generally walk down the south side of the street, because that’s where the bus stop downtown is(I’m a creature of habit).
However, I figured it was time I got there, so a little while back I headed to the restaurant for a late-ish lunch. Despite being fairly close to one, Pasquales was quite full. I ended up with a seat in the mezzanine with a view over looking the rest of the restaurant and looking out onto Marion Street.
I was fairly hungry that day, so I started off with the soup of the day. I followed that up with the Penne Salcisse. I ordered a cappuccino to drink, and finished off the lunch with a cannoli.
The soup was cream of celery and with cheese melted into it. The soup itself was really creamy and the melted cheese burst on the taste buds in every spoonful. The Penne Salcisse was very good. It had plenty of zip as far as the spice was concerned and the pasta itself was just a little past al dente. Also, unlike a lot of places, there was plenty of sausage in the dish.
What makes a good Cannoli seems to differ a lot from restaurant to restaurant. I’m not enough of an expert in Italian food to say what qualifies as authentic. However, I found the pastry on this one to be harder than I like. However, I enjoyed the filling and there was plenty of chocolate
Back to Pasquales
A few days later I headed back to Pasquales for my second visit. This was again a lunch time visit. Again I ended up in the mezzanine. This time I was in more of a hurry and wanted something a little lighter as well. So, I simply ordered a small pizza with a side order of garlic toast. I ended up going spicy again. For the pizza, I chose the Ragin Cajun. This one comes with Italian sausage and baby shrimp. Much like the pasta, there was plenty of both as well as peppers on the pizza. The pizza had more of heat factor than the pasta dish.
The garlic toast was light and crisp, with plenty of garlic to it. It managed to do this without being greasy at all, which is a good thing.
On my first visit to the restaurant I had noticed a sign, the one at the top of this post, advertising a promotion they were running for the month of March. If you ordered their meatballs at the restaurant they would donate $1.00 to Siloam Mission. If you ordered the six pack takeout, they would donate $2.50. I decided to get the six pack. I cooked them up for supper, and I’m sure some will consider this heresy, ate them without sauce. The great part of it was that they didn’t need any. These are wonderful, savoury meatballs with enough flavour and spicing to stand on their own.
The service at Pasquale’s is very good. My orders came quickly enough, but also allowed me to enjoy my meals at a leisurely pace. I’m definitely going to be returning here in the future.
