Weekly Eater Nadine Kam

FL MORRIS / FMORRIS@STARBULLETIN. COM Owner Donato Loperfido pulls a pizza out of the oven at Pasta & Basta in Restaurant Row. CLICK FOR LARGE

Pasta & Basta by Donato

Pasta is one of those foods that gets no respect. No matter how good it is, everybody thinks they can boil noodles and toss some sauce on it, so when dining out, they don't want to spend a lot of money on it.

Veteran chef Donato Loperfido knows this, so he came up with Pasta & Basta, a casual, no-frills, order-at-the-counter pasta joint where you'll pay $6 or $9 for basic spaghetti, linguine, rigatoni, penne and tagliatelle dishes, day AND night.

Top-dollar fare of linguine scampi or risotto frutti di mare with calamari, shrimp, fish and Manila clams is a relatively reasonable $15.

It may be just the kind of place the $1 movie theater crowd has been waiting for.

Open: 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and 5 to 10 p.m. Mondays to Fridays, and 5 to 10 p.m. Saturdays. About $12 per person.

Nadine Kam's restaurant reviews are conducted anonymously and paid for by the Star-Bulletin. Star ratings are based on comparisons of similar restaurants:

	excellent;
	very good, exceeds expectations;
	average;
	below average.

To recommend a restaurant, write: The Weekly Eater, P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu, Hawaii 96802. Or send e-mail to nkam@starbulletin.com