RESAURANT REVIEW : Sometimes Suggestions Fall Flat

I can’t remember who first told me to try Americo’s Pasta House in Canoga Park. I do know that over the past year a number of people have directed me there. “It’s nothing fancy,” they usually say, “just good and reasonable. You really should check it out.”

Nothing fancy, good and reasonable always sound fine to me, so one Sunday night I drove to the West Valley. I found Americo’s in a pink stucco building with a Burgundy awning.

Inside, more tones of pink prevailed: flesh pink walls, plum pink trim, emery-board pink oil cloth pads on each tablecloth. Opera played at a discreet volume.

Only half the tables were occupied, though a birthday party was being held at a long table. Still, one couldn’t help but have the sense of being surrounded by multitudes: The pink walls were paved with hundreds of snapshots of past customers. Large frames held displays for a Sports Connection party and a TV Channel 7 get-together. Dr. George the weatherman appeared at least four times on the walls.

“We’re not going to show up on the wall just for eating here, are we?” my friend Kirk asked.

Americo’s is a pasta house. The kitchen makes pasta, some for Americo’s customers, some for other restaurants. There are about 60 pasta dishes available--everything from spaghetti with olive oil and garlic to green spinach lasagna and baked gnocchi. There’s no doubt that, conceptually, this restaurant might well be a pasta paradiso.

As it happens, Americo’s pasta is pretty good. But the way it’s cooked and sauced is another matter. In the dish called Rudy’s special--spaghetti with shrimp, red pepper and a hint of anchovy--the pasta was overcooked to softness and the shrimp, to an advanced degree of hardness.

Once, I let the waiter talk me into the night’s special, agnolotti with fresh vegetables. I got large, round discs that were filled with ricotta cheese, undercooked and sauced with a peculiar foamy, blended substance of ground-up green and red things. When the waiter set the dish down at my place, he said, “I’m going to stand here as you take your first bite, so I can see what your face looks like when you taste this for the first time.” There may have been peppers in the sauce, and possibly tomatoes, but the only ingredient I could really taste was garlic. The waiter scanned my face intently. I managed the most pleasant grimace I could muster and nodded vigorously to make him go away. He left immediately without another word. I certainly didn’t want him to watch me take my second bite.

I might have never returned to Americo’s after my first dinner there--other highlights that night included some rubbery calamari in a standard marinara sauce and a bowl of too salty pasta e fagioli (white bean and pasta soup). But yet another person recommended it to me. I began to worry that I might have visited the restaurant on an off night. “It’s a very unpretentious place,” this acquaintance told me. “And it has the best pasta.” She told me how she often orders a lasagna to go for her family: “It’ll feed all four of us for dinner,” she said.

I returned to Americo’s for lunch. The first thing I got was a marinated eggplant appetizer that was too salty to eat. But the room was partially full of businessmen in white shirts and ties, all twirling pasta and drinking iced tea. This gave me hope for the pasta. But then I took a bite of the tagliatelle puttanesca. I blurted to my friend, “This doesn’t taste like something to eat.”

The problem: too much garlic. Now, I am a garlic lover, but this puttanesca was far, far beyond my capabilities. When the waitress came by and asked, “How is everything?” I had to tell her.

“This dish has way too much garlic,” I said.

She squinted at the dish. “Oh yes,” she said wisely, “that’s the way we make it here.”

She did eventually offer to bring me another dish, but after helping my friend eat her baked gnocchi in cream sauce, neither one of us wanted more Americo’s pasta. The gnocchi weren’t bad-tasting, just swimming in so much butter and cream that we both felt cloyed after a few bites.

I did take an order of lasagna home with me. Just as I’d been told, it was a portion large enough to serve four people, and might have, if in good faith I could have served it to anybody at all. It just didn’t taste good. The cheeses were flavorless, the tomato sauce was sour--there was nothing to recommend it.

So what about all the people who recommended Americo’s to me? What about all the people smiling down from the walls? I’d like to tell them that there is food out there-- reasonably priced food--that is well prepared and delicious. They, as consumers, have a right to such food.

But sometimes, even a restaurant reviewer has to remember that there’s no accounting for taste.

Americo’s Pasta House, 22047 Sherman Way, Canoga Park. (818) 346-2281. Open seven days. Lunch 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., dinner 5 to 10 p.m. All major credit cards. Wine and beer. Parking in lot behind restaurant. Dinner for two, food only, $20-$35.