Jalan Besar has moved to Keong Siak, on a row of shophouses which were formerly brothels, and they serve delicious pasta.

Ambience:  Simply decorated, with an imposing private room smack in the middle of the restaurant.

Food: Lots of dishes but we chose the portobello mushroom with mixed cheese,  side salad,  and 3 types of pasta.  The mushrooms were fresh and deliciously prepared with a small serving of salad.  $18.  Pricey but tasty.  The first pasta was the duckling pasta,  lots of duck meat in a very interesting sauce which had a hint of duck.  Quite unique as a pasta dish.  Duck meat, however was firm and tough.  Could have been cooked to a lesser degree to reduce the bite.  The squid ink pasta came next,  al dente spaghetti with a mix of squid, scallop, prawns and shells - mussels and clams.  Seafood was fresh and tasty but the scallop tasted neutral.  The squid ink was fresh (not from packet) and had good olive oil in it.  Best pasta of the night.  

We also tried their signature crayfish pasta.  The pasta, unfortunately was soft and lacked the bite,  overcooked perhaps.  However the pieces of crayfish and prawns??  we were cooked and the whole dish came in a paper pouch.  Tasty yes but spoilt bu the soft pasta.

Value:  Pricey for this simple pasta.

Service:  Friendly, helpful service.  Packed up out left overs in air tight plastic boxes.  

See full reviews & photos on my blog=http://chefquak.wordpress.com/2013/03/29/enjoyable-lunch-pasta-inc-on-29mar2013/


Pasta Inc has a simple nice uncrowded ambience and feel of a fine dining restaurant. It is at Kiong Siak Street, in a locale dotted with the more expensive restaurants like Ember, Nicolas le & Bistro Soori.
I only came to Pasta Inc once and that was more than a year ago when a few of us bought the S$38 4-course lunch set coupons. Somehow that experience did not leave any impression ie not some place I was wanting to go back soon.
Today though I had a really enjoyable 3-course lunch with my daughter using 2xS$15.90nett Bigdeal coupon (which is like S$13.50++pax) for the 3-course lunch set. The normal price was S$22.50++pax and judging from what we had, I thought it would still be a good value lunch.  The service was also good. The server, Alvin, who was also the one who took my reservation, was cheerful & professional, kept filling my ice water, and was not any less friendly because I ordered no other food or drink except to use my 2x$15.90 coupons. But perhaps that was because they were not busy as there was only 1 other table. We started lunch at 12pm & stayed & chatted until 1pm. 
We had toasted bread which was warm & crispy to start.
For appetizer I took the prosciutto, which came with a decent helping of 2 slices of parma ham wrapped over rock melon (rather nice to eat them together) with mesclun salad.
My daughter had the lobster bisque. I tasted a little of it. It was flavourful and had some pieces of lobster meat in it, but not as good as many restaurants these days which served a foam cappuccino version which delivered a much better overall experience. 
We both decided on the seafood spaghetti in squid ink sauce, and it was good here. The pasta was very al dente. It is less salty than many other places. The ingredients were good – scallop, several squid rings, mussel & littleneck clams, no prawns.  It was a pasta dish that I much enjoyed.
I had the tiramisu. It was in the good not overwhelming category. My daughter had her health-conscious lemon sorbet – probably quite forgettable. 
Being fast eaters, we finished in 35minutes or so, and chatted for another 25minutes. I drank lots of water & had many refills by Alvin. Great lunch!

I went with family and friends after reading the reviews.
For a restaurant that prides on using the best ingredients - I was let-down.

Starting from the bread.
They used off-the-shelf baguette that was less than fresh and butter came in supermarket type small packets. No different from the hawker center western food. For this price, shouldn't they be using self-baked fresh bread or at least better commercial breads?

We ordered pastas and three appertizers. Appertizers were ok, but the pastas were really a let-down, especially for a joint that names and prides itself on pasta.

My vongolle was too well done, with the clams hard and overcooked. The broth was bland. The other pastas were also quite forgettable according to my friends.

Service was better than the food fortunately - staff were enthuiastic and helpful, without being intrusive.

Spent on average $40 per person, after the 10% Amex discount.

Has there been a change in owner or chef since??