I remember coming here many years ago and the would be hour long lineups, but the place was near empty for Sunday lunch time. Odd. Maybe it's because it wasn't lunch time yet? (We were there at 12:30pm) anyways, no one greeted us at the front, and finally someone noticed as we walked in halfway to the counter and told us we'd be seated in a couple minutes.
Restaurant: Jimoco Café & Pasta (visit their website here)
Location: 1046 Austin Avenue, Suite A, Coquitlam
Cuisine: Italian, pasta, seafood
Price range: $20/person
Date of visit: December 10, 2017
Atmosphere: 4/5
Staff/service: 2/5
Food variety: 5/5
Food quality: 1.5/5
Buck worthy? 1/5
Looking at the menu, prices have gone up by about $3-5 per dish, such was expected due to inflation and whatnot over the years. From the 2 for 1 menu we ordered 4 dishes for 5 people. First to arrive was the Risotto Al Frutti Di Mar ($21.95) with rose sauce (you can choose from tomato, rose, cream, wine, or curry). It was a pretty small portion if it weren't 2 for 1. The risotto was about 0.5 inches deep and although it tasted great, it definitely needed more cream to the rose. Tasted like plain tomato sauce. The mussels were hit or miss on freshness, some of them have definitely gone bad.
Next was the Linguine Al Frutti Di Mar ($20.95) in white wine sauce. Portions got smaller for this one, definitely not like the pictures on the menu. The was about a cups' worth of pasta on the plate. There were scallops, mussels, clams, and shrimp in this dish. The flavors were great and noodles cooked al dente. Again, the shellfish was not fresh, tasted fishy and smelled pungent.
Then the Fusilli Alla Lucana ($22.95) arrived a little on the burnt side. Interesting presentation since it's covered with pizza dough on top, which helped keep the dish warm while we finished the others first. At this point I didn't understand why they used such large plates if they were only going to fill them 1/3 or halfway because it just looks bad. Anyways, only dish that wasn't seafood, the sausage and pasta was decent. Pizza dough was very dense and although interesting in design, felt disconnected to the whole dish.
Last was the Linguine Soul Bianco ($21.95). Last time I came here I got the Linguine Soul which is the spicy tomato base, but I wanted to try something new, the Bianco is a white seafood sauce base. This was very delicious with fragrant herbs and succulent seafood sauce infused in the pasta as it bubbled in front of us. Unfortunately the mussels and clams weren't all fresh, more than half were inedible.
It's sad to see such a great restaurant come to this. The flavors and execution were amazing, but subpar staff, ingredients weren't fresh, and portions were tiny. I was disappointed and unsatisfied with my revisit. I guess good things don't last forever :(
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