2.5 stars \n\nI have visited PastaBar twice now. Both times I have been left with the \"Eh.. it's ok\" opinion about it. \n\nThe first visit was during their opening week, I believe. When we walked in we were warmly greeted and seated immediately. I noticed the very stark decor and the nice big mirror they had to make the room look huge. We were seated in a corner booth that is not very comfortable for two people that want to sit next to each other, not across from each other (just a note). We took the time to look over a simple menu. They had just obtained their liquor license and our waiter was stumbling on the wine selection. While I understand that the liquor license is new, your knowledge of wine should not be. For such a nice place, the servers should have a slight knowledge of wine and be able to advise on them. When it came time to ordering our meal, our waiter was nice enough to advise us to order a side to split with our pasta if we were hungry. Good to know! \n\nOn my first trip, I ordered the Chitarra alla Carbonara. I enjoyed the dish, except for the fact that it was a tad salty and it had a lot of black pepper in it, personal taste is one thing, but when you're chewing into black pepper...woah. I couldn't even enjoy the flavor of the guanciale in the dish because of the pepper in the sauce. The pasta was very good, I like my pastas al dente and this pasta met my expectation. My date ordered the gnocchi. It was again just ok. On the side my date and I split the meatballs. I thought they were ok. The sauce wasn't your run of the mill spaghetti sauce. It had a smoky, almost barbecued flavor to it. It was good, but again a little crazy with the black pepper. At the end of that trip I was left with a \"yeah....uh...I think it was good\" and vowed to come back to render my final decision. \n\nThe second trip sealed the coffin for me. We were greeted and seated immediately, once again. I took the time to really check out the place. Oh! They put new artwork up....um... I will refer to the art as \"Signs of the Apocalypse\". Timothy McVeigh? Really? I found it tasteless, but to each his own. Knocked the restaurant down a notch for me, personally. We ordered the Fried Buffalo Mozz, Marinara \"crudo\" to start. Our waitress left us to take our time looking at the menu. I decided on Orecchiette with homemade sausage and greens. My friend and I shared the Slow Roasted Pork Shoulder. We noted that our appetizer was taking forever and when I spotted the waitress to ask her about it, she was delivering our dinner.... HUGE pet peeve. I gently said \"You delivered our entrees before our appetizer.\" She stood looking astonished and said \"OH! Yes I did!\" and continued to stand as if she was lost. Well after we told her we still wanted the appetizer, she came back MUCH later with the incorrect appetizer, and offered to leave it and not charge us for it. NO. Wrong. If the customer ordered an appetizer, they wanted that one for a reason. Our appetizer finally made it as the dessert course of our dining experience, but that's not it folks! Rewind to our meals. My pasta was lukewarm at best. It was like I rewarmed leftover pasta and didn't warm it all the way and decided to eat it out of a Tupperware bowl. This was definitely not the marking of a 17 dollar bowl of pasta. By the time I was about 5 bites into my dish, it was cold. At this point, I was so irritated, I truly didn't care. \n\nI know we're not in Scottsdale, but does that mean we need to sacrifice quality and service due to a different zip code? I know we're in America, but do we need to offend patrons with artwork of mass murderers while they're trying to eat? Again, to each his/her own, but I doubt I will visit PastaBar again. I'm sure it will thrive without a few people with discerning taste. \n\nIt's not a place I will crave, it's not a place that I would jump to visit again.