Cabinas

11.30.06

We went out to eat with Meleah's parents' tonight before my worship practice. We decided to try out a new pasta place called Cabinas.

Now, I haven't mentioned this here before, but I tend to have reservations about pasta places. I mean, I can cook noodles, and even if I don't have time to make my own homemade pesto, there are some pretty decent sauces in jars. So why am I paying someone $15/plate for something I can make at home for $4 that will feed 10 people?

So, for instance, I have a bit of a disdane for a place like Noodles. I just don't see the point. The food isn't that great, and it costs me $8. Bah.

At first, I was a little worried Cabinas was going to be the same thing, only with a bit more atmosphere. I am happy to say I was pleasantly surprised! The pricing was about par with Noodles - around $8/plate - but the food was WAY better.

My wife had a six-cheese tortellini with pesto sauce. YUM! I had the Spicy Sausage Shells. YUM! We also got cheese bread, which was good but not out of the ordinary, and I ended up being more impressed with their standard breadsticks. I mopped up a lot of sauce with those things.

To top it off, the cashier lady came out halfway through the meal and offered us free pizza samplers - they had just gotten their pizza oven, and were trying out some new pizzas. This offering was a shrimp with garlic sauce, sun-dried tomatoes, and artichoke hearts. It was way good. They also came out with a barbequed chicken sample after we were finished eating, and we SO wanted to try that out, but the food had been so good that we had no room left. Guess we'll have to go back.

Personally, I would highly recommend Cabinas. It is what Noodles wishes it was - reasonably priced, good quality, and fast service (our food was out very quickly, and a friend of mine remarked that he didn't like paying that much for "fast food," but I figured if you're serving pasta, there's no reason not to be fast - have the noodles pre-cooked and the sauce pre-made, stuff it in the oven for a few minutes and you're done!).