Staple Dough — Restaurant in Petaling Jaya

Having heard remarkable things from people and always seeing the enticing pasta making ads that pop up on my Instagram, I had to give this pasta place a try.

Unfortunately, I'm basing my review off my experience at both Back Alley Pasta which is still the restaurant that executes the best pasta in Malaysia, and Natalina's, one of the finer traditional pasta places in KL.

Upon entering the restaurant, situated in the corner of the ground floor of the Megah Rise Mall, I was met with a great interior, the right wall filled with bottles of wine, and on my left, a beautiful kitchen, separating where the food is made and where the pasta is carefully crafted.

I didn't have to wait long to sit down at my table, which was promptly swapped out by the kind server there to a larger table. I found that to be a great gesture. However, the main problem I had was the Aqua Panna bottle on my table, in which they insisted they'd serve. Why I have a problem with this is because I do prefer to opt for tap water, to prevent paying that bulky mark-up price.

However, we swiftly move on to the most important aspect, that being the food. I grabbed the Truffle Fries as a starter, and two pastas, those being their Traditional Carbonara and the Smoked Duck & Miso Cream Tagliatelle.

For the fries, they were crisp, well seasoned and had an above average prominence of that truffle flavour.

In terms of pastas, a disclaimer for those coming here is to be aware that the pasta is cooked 'Al Dente' which basically translates to Firm-to-Bite, which may be a texture most aren't used to, but the question asked by the server if it were okay with me for the pasta to be cooked that way, shows proper training. Personally, I only ever want my pasta al dente so this was great for me.

For the flavours, we'll look to the Smoked Duck Pasta, which I felt had been oversalted due to the heavy handedness of the miso cream added to the pasta. Despite that, the flavours didn't get muddled or overshadowed, which was good.

The highlight of the night was easily the Traditional Carbonara, which used an interesting choice of pasta shape, being the Pici, which is a thicker/fatter style of spaghetti, which I thoroughly enjoyed. The flavours gave me that great essence of Italy, as they opted for doing it properly and not using any cream.

Now, straying away from the food, the pricing was overall decent. I'd stick the pricing in the Mid/Average tier as pastas can range from about the Mid RM35 to the High RM59; however, for the quality, I can't complain.

With regards to the Athmosphere, I had booked a 6pm slot, so the restaurant being empty and quiet was a given. I felt maybe the music could've been tuned to match the aesthetic of the restaurant.

The service itself, I had no problems with. Just a suggestion, as someone who works in the Industry themselves, I'd recommend having someone at the front of the restaurant, to prevent having someone run up to guests at the front, which in my humble opinion, looks unprofessional. Other than that, I felt that there's not much for me to comment on...

Came by for dinner with some friends to celebrate a birthday on a Sunday night, about 14 of us. The place was pretty packed. Ambience wise, I think they did it up really nicely. Open kitchen concept so you can look in - but probably not such a good idea. One of the chefs was not wearing a mask while cooking and talking while at it. It's not wrong, but if you're going to display your kitchen to the whole restaurant, at least have some hygienic measures in place.

Everybody arrived and we were ready to place our orders. Waitress came by and took our orders, and halfway through taking the 3rd order she told us 3 of the few pastas they had on menu wasn't available. It should have been communicated since the start when we were seated. Moving on, she took the order from about 5 of us on the left side of the table, then she just went away and keyed it in?? How about the other 9 on the table..? After that, whom I assume was the manager came by to take orders for the rest of the table and told us that they are out of pici pasta for the carbonara, so we had to get another.

Wine time, waiter gave the first taste to the birthday boy. Not sure how it happened - i think the waiter swirled a little too hard, too high and too close, it ended up spilling over and on to 2 people on my table. Ok fair enough, people make mistakes, and the waiter was super apologetic about it. Still, this shouldn't happen.

Orders trickled in a few bowls at a time. We were served across a span of an hour and a half - the last dish being a carbonara and coming so late because they missed it out from the ordering earlier.

Food wise, I was super disappointed by the pappardelle truffle cream. As a dish that commands a premium price (comparably to the rest of the pasta menu cause of truffle), it was severely underwhelming. The flavour was practically non-existent, felt like I was eating pappardelle with a dash of cream and mushroom. The pappardelle itself was overcooked. Tried a bit here and there of the rest of the dishes, generally some hits and some misses. The pesto lacked the pesto flavour. The carbonara was good in some servings, and lacking in some others - no consistency.

At the end of the night, it was time to cut the cake. The servers brought it out... but without the knife. Anyway, the manager was apologetic and explained that they were currently understaffed. While I do understand understaffing issues, I think the staff could also use some training in managing expectations and communication. As I mentioned earlier, nobody said anything about items not being in the menu etc. Should be communicated before even seating the group.

All in all, I had a horrible experience and I wouldn't come back. One or two mishaps are understandable but this was a night that just kept getting worse. Maybe I just came by on a...

Well where should I start…

Pros great homemade pasta texture in all the dishes I’ve tried decent portion for the price (though I hope some include more protein) great ambience, interior and seating area

Cons

-BAD SERVICE!!! The first pasta came 1hr before the last pasta, so badly unstaffed. The waitress that told my order, didn’t take order for rest of the guest on the same table, I still do not know why. came at 8pm for dinner and was told 3 of their pasta were unavailable and specifically pici pasta was also unavailable. My table ended up ordering 7 same carbonara because there weren’t much to choose from. Ordered a bottle of wine, the waiter spilled all over my shoulder and hair…. Luckily I wasn’t wearing any white dress or in a formal event.. After wine incident, I saw the waiter told the manager in white shirt and we had eye contact afterwards. He proceeded to ignore this matter for the next 1 hour and communicated with other tables guest instead of coming to apologise. I would like to know why I do not deserve a proper apology from the manager. But of course the waiter did apologised sincerely several times and I very much appreciated. One of the kitchen crew in purple shirt was the main chef ( I think?) and was not wearing a mask. I noticed it because they have an open kitchen. He was talking, eating and cooking at the same time. All the other crews had masks on so I do not understand why he didn’t. Regarding the unstaffed situation. I do think some were more trained than the others. I observed that some waiters were simply standing around and staring into the void while some were busy serving. A few of them really have no idea what they were serving to us, had to take the plates back to the kitchen to confirm orders and one of them was quite rude… I asked to pass the dish to me which he served wrongly to my friend, he proceeded to command my friend to pass it on.

-they provided free tap water, but sadly they had this strong chlorine taste. Many of my friends complained about it but we didn’t reflect on the spot because that’s all they have so I decided to not drink any during my dining time.

-Truffle pasta was literally tasteless and it’s a feedback from several of us that tried it. The mushroom risotto was decent, tasted more like a wok hey congee. Pesto pasta was equally tasteless. Other dishes we ordered was great and I really enjoyed it.

Regarding the bad service, we reflected to the manager afterwards and they gave us 3 apple crumbles on the house and apologised.

I sincerely hope the restaurant will take my review seriously ( i do not mean to degrade or to drag down your rating), please do actually focus on training your service crews, improvise the overall management and quality of food.

Overall: 3/10 will not...