Little India becomes Pasta Italiana Organic Italian Restaurant in Woodley Park

by Prince Of Petworth December 9, 2010 at 1:30 pm 23 Comments

“Dear PoP,

Little India in Woodley park is now an organic italian restaurant. is it run by the same people? seems like it switched overnight.”

Yeah, I happened to snap some photos but just assumed is was run by new people. Looks like there’s been a bit of restaurant juggling going on in Woodley Park. Hot N Juicy Crawfish is coming into the old Trattoria Italiana space but Cafe Paradiso has been completely renovated and reopened.

Anyone happen to check out the newest Italian offering in Woodley located at 2623 Connecticut Ave NW? Here’s a taste of the best from their menu:

Timmy

I remember when that place switched from a Mexican restaurant (Acapulco) to Indian overnight.
EPF

Maybe one of the most uninspiring menus of all time.
- Anonymous
  
  Why do most of DC’s Italian restaurants have exactly the same uninteresting, heavy foods on their menus? As a half-Italian it embarasses me that most people around here think this is what Italian is supposed to be. I can’t even find anything on this menu I would enjoy eating– it’s all red meat and cheese and cream sauce.
Anonymous

Woodley Park restaurants are a disgrace, 90% of revenues are from transient convention- or zoo-goers … no incentive to put anything decent/memorable there
Anonymous

I was always amused by the two Indian places being right next door to each other. I always assumed it was some family feud.
- Christopher-NYC
  
  Yes. Family feud. Like Chinatown. They’re all related.
Greta

The two Italian places were right next to each other as well until the recent reorganization.

Maybe the Little India people figured that being one of two Italian places was better than being one of three Indian places?
fl

At least they have a creative name.
Maire

Seems pretty expensive for pasta-based dishes.
- NE Groover
  
  Right!
MAR

It drives me insane when restaurants fail at one of the very first experiences to draw in the customer — look at how many spelling errors are on that menu!

When you can’t even take the time to make sure that is right…it kind of makes me wonder what else they are taking short cuts on.
- Anonymous
  
  Agreed. This boring, misspelled menu is certainly not going to inspire me to come.
ma

And all this time, I thought eggs came from chickens! No more need to debate on which came first, because clearly eggs come from plants! Mystery solved.
- Anonymous
  
  :)
Randall Stevens

Its the same dudes who ran the indian place. I stopped to look at the menu yesterday when the indian dude came flying out — Come and try, all of our food is organic! Organic? I said, what does that mean? To which he responded — “i don’t know, but its delicious.”

Sigh, why must the food in our neighborhood be so terrible!
- g
  
  same thing here.
  
  i never understand why cleveland park is opening up so many new awesome places and woodley is like the lowest of the low. hopefully this will change.
- Anonymous
  
  My aunt was in town a couple months ago, staying in Woodley park. We decided to go to one of those Indian restaurants, and since they both looked identical we decided to go with the one that had the “organic” sign even though we had no idea what that meant. The food ended up being extremely oily and not very flavorful. Good riddance!
A

I think this might be fine if each entree were about $5 cheaper. Then you could say, “Oh it’s just a basic Italian food place.” As long as the food’s decent you won’t be disappointed. But the prices are more like some fancy place, say http://www.altiramisu.com/Menu.aspx (in Dupont, where the rent can’t be any lower) without any apparent corresponding higher level in the quality or creativity of the food. It’s just a mismatch.
Anonymous

As a resident of Woodley Park, it’s disappointing that so many of the businesses on those blocks of Connecticut Avenue fail to cater to anyone but tourists. These places attract weary tourists coming from the Zoo who just want to sit down in the a/c and have a decent meal. The food ends up sucking, but they would probably never end up going there again even if it was good.

Open City is pretty reliable for diner food, and Lebanese Taverna used to be good, but that’s about it.
Monkla

Tono is the only place that will bring me near Woodley Park. Good food, prices, and service.
- Anonymous
  
  Yep, Tono has great sushi that isn’t overpriced, and Mr. Chen’s is occasionally pretty good, but there isn’t much to draw locals to Woodley Park beyond that.
Anonymous

Never ever eat somewhere that get the majority of its business from tourist/non-repeat customers. It will be disappointing. They have no interest in making someone come back, only in making a buck, so they are going to use the cheapest “organic” ingredients, frozen veggies, etc. True the world over, even in Rome, where I mistakenly ate one meal on a beautiful plaza at a lovely looking restaurant that was serving something worse than Chef-boy-ardee. The rule might not apply in Paris, but that is pretty much the only place on earth — the French are too proud to let even their tourist food suck.
Spellchuck

Looks like another menu that could use Spellchuck!

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