I went to PastaZio in Akasaka ^[1] today. They just opened October 25 and is a new concept from Global-Dining, the company that runs La Boheme, Gonpachi, Monsoon, Zest and many other cool restaurants. PastaZio reminded me of Hashiya, one of my favorite pasta places in Yoyogi Hachiman. The concept is to make a high turn-over pasta shop designed like a ramen shop. A counter around a big vat of boiling water and chefs hustling pasta as if it were ramen. PastaZio was a bit more fashionable and the taste less Japanese than Hashiya. The volume of pasta was a bit less too I think. There wasn’t enough salt for my taste, but there was plenty of rock salt in a funny pump style salt dispenser at the table to fix that. If you only have 10 minutes for lunch and want some pasta, try PastaZio.

Disclosure: my business partner is on the board of Global Dining and he took me there today.