Goodbye Hello Pasta

I discovered one of my favorite restaurant chains, Noodles and Co. while visiting Matt in college.  It's an amazing quick service restaurant that puts together delicious pasta/sauce combos.  Unfortunately, it does not exist anywhere remotely close to where I live.  I thought I was finally lucky enough to get a Noodles and Co. knockoff in my area when Hello Pasta opened in the city.  Wrong.

I could tell it wouldn't be another Noodles and Co., but the menu still looked great with plenty of sauces to choose from.  I couldn't decide which to get, so I ordered two: the Al Funghi and the Salmon with Tarragon.  Big mistake.  That just meant I had not one but two disappointing meals.  The mushroom sauce on the first dish was sour and basically free of mushrooms.  The salmon was a little better, but it was very blah and didn't even come close to what I could make for myself on a bad day.  I thought it was a nice touch when they offered to top my pasta with parmesan or mozzarella but was sad to find they just dumped some of the fake parmesan from a can on top.  The only good thing about the experience was that I was allotted a free Vitamin Water with each order.  I suppose that softened the blow of bad food - but just barely.  I was so excited to receive my loyalty card with all its great benefits, but I see now I will not be putting it to use.