The Pasta Shoppe — Restaurant in Port Washington

Based on the current reviews I was pretty confident booking a reservation to this local spot for my birthday dinner, I'm a sucker for pasta and I was excited to try out a new restaurant. Unfortunately, I was tremendously disappointed. It is incredibly duplicitous to charge $26 (in this economy?!) for chicken fettuccine alfredo served from a can. Do you know how easy it is to make alfredo sauce from scratch? I do it on a regular basis. Any beginner chef could do it, trust me I am no Gordon Ramsey. If you like Prego alfredo sauce, look no further. The Pasta Shoppe is where it's at. Other party ordered a cubed steak sandwich and he said it was mid, it looked mid (aside from the beautiful ciabatta bun it rested upon). I will say though, the garlic bread was amazing and the peach belini was excellent. A few of the parties near us ordered pizza and that looked amazing. The servers are kind and attentive, the atmosphere is incredible 👌 this place has potential. I will not darken this doorstep again, however, because I honestly feel scammed. Upon further inspection I see other reviews mentioning that they also feel the sauces come canned. I wish I had done such inspection before I settled on choosing this place over Olive Garden (40 minutes round trip ew).

Disclaimer: I did not complain at the restaurant. I should have done so, but having been a service worker, I would rather suffer the loss of money than subject a service worker to the awkwardness of a tantrum from a disgruntled customer. Management do better.

Edit: to reiterate, I make alfredo frequently, I agree that $26 is not unreasonable for GOOD alfredo. I do NOT want to be a jerk. But your alfredo recipe should mayyybe be modified. I did not get a strong parmesan taste in my dish. While I will absolutely take you at your word that it is made in house, I will not deny that it TASTES as if it was emulsified and preserved similar to canned prego sauce. I am not one to deny a local business credit where credit is due. However if you are looking for good alfredo, make it yourself. It's literally butter, cream, garlic and...

This place was less than satisfying… Definitely a tourist trap, I’m disappointed in myself for falling for it. It’s cool that they have two stories, and I LOVE the paper on the tables and cup of crayons, I liked drawing while waiting for my food. The upstairs bathrooms were weirdly placed in the back area where employees would go, that was really off-putting personally. All of the food was really expensive, and honestly nothing other than the pasta I got was good. We went with 5 people and got: Chicken Bruschetta Sandwich: 2/10, Burrata Caprese: 1/10, Angel Hair Spaghetti: 8/10, Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo: 8/10 (not worth the price), half Margherita Pizza: 2/10 half Cheese Pizza: 6/10 (not worth the price). I personally got the Fettuccine and it was very good, although definitely not worth the price at all, it was $26. There were a couple bites that the chicken was half fat and I wanted to hurl, which I wouldn’t expect that from such an expensive place. My pasta came with a garlic bread, which I was very excited for because normally garlic bread is delicious and soft, but this was honestly just sad: No garlic, butter not soaked in, and honestly tasted like a crouton. They had bags of breadsticks as the centerpiece that were very thin but they were pretty good. The thing that really put me over the edge was the price of normal drinks. I got a Sprecher’s Root Beer, the one in the bottle that you can get at the Dollar Tree for $1.00, maybe even $1.25. Guess how much that was? $5.15. In what world? Lemonade: $4.12, pretty good, not the price though. Kiddie Cocktail: $4.40, tasted just like sprite and not a lot of cherry. We didn’t get any refills for our expensive drinks. There’s no reason for pay $5 for drinks and not get a refill. So, all in all, I got Chicken Fettuccine and a root beer, and paid $32. That’s unreasonable for...

This place was recommended to us and we were informed it was rather busy so we made a reservation the morning of for a group of 5. When we arrived there were not many guests there which was good because the place was so small and the tables were too packed and you could barely sit comfortably with walking area behind your seat. We used their restroom only for one member of our party to get stuck inside because the door got jammed. Our meals were missing their side dishes when we were served and had to ask for them. We had to wave down our waitress who was nowhere to be found to get drink refills. And the drinks were highly overpriced for stuff out of a machine. We were not offered dessert, we had to ask for it after being brought the bill. Lots of things that you wouldn’t expect from a restraunt of this price range. The food was decent although we definitely were not eager to finish our plates or take to go boxes. Felt like food we could have easy cooked in our own kitchen. Not worth the price or even half it. Something of note was the way all of our bread, especially our garlic bread was cooked beyond edibility, it just hurt your mouth to even try and eat it. We were going to send back our food but our poor waitress seemed frazzled when we would complain. By the end of the experience we were just ready to flee. We ended up leaving to eat somewhere else downtown because we left half our food uneaten on the table. On a good note we loved the crayon table idea it was very original and gave the place a little something special. Definitely would not recommend or return, plenty other great...