The Old Spaghetti House

Have you tried the TOSH at Festival Mall? How was your dining experience? For me it was a Hit-Miss-Hit-Miss-Hit experience.

The HITS come from the fact that their house spaghettis are generally good and affordably priced. (Cheapest is Pesto at P90.) I like the variety of sauces too, compared to those of similarly priced Sbarro's, where you only get to choose between Meat Sauce, Tomato Sauce and Cream Sauce.

How do I like it? Let me put it this way: we've been at TOSH eight times in the last two months (yes, unbelievable-but-true). And in those eight times I've had Pesto with Grilled Chicken (top right) FOUR TIMES (yup, unbelievable-bordering-on-weird), and Pasta Negra (top left) twice. I had Puttanesca and Oriental Spaghetti the other two times.

Mike likes the Seafood Marinara (bottom left) so much he's had it FIVE times. [Yep, the man's LOYAL :)] The other times he's tried Pasta Negra, Arrabiata and Pesto, both of which earned his thumb's up. :)

My kids like the Four Cheese pizza, and the Nachos Supreme, which comes with salsa, cheese and aioli dips. We've also tried Cheese Logs (deep fried rolled pizza crust stuffed with cheese), Calamares. At one time, Gambel had their Grilled Pork Chops while my lola had the Pork Scallopine with Wild Mushroom Sauce. Both got good reviews.

The MISSES come from inordinate waiting time (to be seated; to be served) and inconsistent service quality. At one visit Mike's glass of red wine, and the pizza we ordered came when we had already finished our meal and had asked for bill out! On another visit one waiter simply slid my pesto from his tray to the edge of our table, turned his back and walked away, with the unspoken instruction of "Go get it yourself." (Gasp!) The tables are also so small, space is cramped for a party of four or more. You need to finish a dish or two and have them cleared out to make space for your other orders. They don't have condiments ready on the table and you'd need to ask for parmesan, pepper or chili flakes. And horrors! No knives! How do you cut your pizza?

The saving grace has been the taste of their food. Kundi lang yon, naku...