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Pasta Vita225 Elm St. Old Saybrook 06475 860-395-1452 By LINDA GIUCA Hartford Courant Published: 11/3/2005 When this column last visited Pasta Vita, the specialty pasta-making operation had a small take-out shop in the front of the industrial building. Parking was limited, and, especially during the pre-dinner hours, the store was crowded. In summer 2004, owner Rich Cersosimo renovated a building with a large parking lot down the street from his old location. Now there is plenty of parking, three cash registers to check out orders and a spacious store lined with refrigeration and freezer cases holding appetizers to desserts. Visit the shop during "prime time" - late afternoon, when the working crowd is on the way home - and you'll have lots of company. Unless you are a Pasta Vita regular, give yourself some time to make your choices. On any day, there are about 70 appetizers, soups, salads, pastas, entrees and side dishes. (The menu is 10 pages.) The signature striped ravioli offer an array of fillings, including exotic stuffings of artichoke and fontina, gorgonzola and walnut, and smoked salmon with dill. We took a more simple route to satisfy my daughter's craving for spaghetti with meatballs: a bag of nicely seasoned meatballs ($5 a dozen) and a container of marinara sauce, which turned out to be a peppery version of this simple gravy. All of the entrees serve two. Chicken Parmesan ($9.50) offered four good-size fillets of breaded and golden fried white meat rather than one whole breast. We also liked two of the stuffed chicken breast preparations: Apulia ($8.50) for its filling of roasted red peppers and smoked mozzarella with a hearty red sauce, and Alicia ($8.50), a more delicate mix of spinach, artichoke hearts and pine-nut stuffing in a light lemon-butter sauce. For light appetites, Pasta Vita dishes up a number of salads, some greens-based and others pasta-based. Those with a yen for the small plate approach could cobble together a few of the appetizers, which are together in one refrigerator case. Among them are spinach and feta cheese puffs, scallops wrapped in bacon and coconut shrimp with mango lime chutney. Desserts include Italian cookies and pastries, pies, and rice and bread puddings. Hours: Open Mon.-Fri. 8 a.m.-6 p.m. and Sat. 8 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Map | Printer-Friendly Page | Email to a Friend
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