Anton’s Pasta Bar – Plentiful Pasta

I still remember the first time that we visited Anton’s Pasta Bar in North Burnaby.  It was a dark and cold night over 20 years ago and the line up was outside the door.  As we’ve gotten older though, the amount of time that we’re willing to wait in line for a restaurant has diminished greatly.

When we found ourselves in the neighbourhood around 4:30pm for an early dinner, we thought the place would be practically empty.  We were surprised to find that the restaurant was still quite busy at this hour – there wasn’t a line up but almost all of the tables were full.  Guess some things don’t change after all.

They brought us out some complimentary crusty Portuguese buns.  Considering the amount of carbs that we were about to ingest, it might seem a little bit like overkill but we wound up polishing these off.  We also ordered a Mista Salad ($8.25) which had a slightly tangy dressing served on top of a bed of lettuce, tomato, and cucumbers.

The portion size at Anton’s is pretty crazy.  I’m not sure if anyone could dispath a whole serving in one sitting.

We ordered the Linguine Pescatore ($16.95) which had a creamy tomato sauce with mussels, squid, baby shrimp, scallops and mushrooms.  I thought that the linguine noodles were thicker than other varieties that I’ve had before but maybe that’s because all of the pasta is made fresh on-site.  The seafood in this was pretty good with the exception of the scallops that were overcooked and tough.  I really liked the squid (which had tentacles) as it was very tender.

We also had the Fusilli New Orleans ($16.95) which came with chicken, scallops, sausage, prawn, red and green peppers, and tossed in a spicy oil-based Cajun sauce.  Like the pescatore, the scallops were overcooked but the rest of the dish was tasty and had a decent amount of kick to it.

Naturally, we couldn’t finish our meal so we wound up taking most of it home.  I was actually surprised at how heavy our take-out containers were as we walked out the door.  Have you ever finished a full plate of Anton’s pasta by yourself in one sitting?

4260 Hastings Street
Burnaby, BC

www.antonspastabar.com

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