While health advocates lament the size of restaurant portions and the rotten quality of fast food menus, at least one eatery is trying to change that.

Pasta Ya Gotcha, a chain based in the Puget Sound-area, opened a restaurant in Mill Creek three weeks ago that is owned by a Mill Creek family. It is located in the Albertsons shopping center in the spot previously occupied by Seattle Home Cakes.

Pasta Ya Gotcha’s menu is, of course, pasta, with a variety of sauces, all for inexpensive prices and portions that are the opposite of the super-sized items served at most quick food places. And unlike those items, the meals at Pasta Ya Gotcha won’t send your bad cholesterol rating into the stratosphere.

After ordering, the food is prepared at the main counter from prepackaged ingredients and include free slices of soda bread. My girlfriend and I went there for dinner on a recent Monday night, and found that we had the place almost to ourselves. We arrived an hour before the 8 p.m. closing time, and while we were there, one other customer came in and ordered something to go.

We ordered three entrees, the Spaghetti Don Corleone, a traditional spaghetti in meat sauce dish ($4.25); Tennessee Jack Penne, a penne served in a cajun barbecue sauce ($5.75) and Fetuccine Alfredo in a four-cheese sauce ($5.65). We also ordered a small side salad with ranch dressing ($1.75). The salad itself was prepackaged, but featured a diverse array of greens and no iceberg lettuce. The beverage selection were sodas from a fountain ($1.65) and bottled beverages, such as Sobe and Powerade ($1.75).

It wasn’t long before we were served at our table, and we found the food more than adequate for a quick meal out on a tight budget, a far better option than a burger joint drive-through. The jack penne’s sauce was billed on the menu as being spicy, but the sauce’s kick was mild.

Our total bill, including tax, came out to $24.56, a low amount considering how much more formal sit-down Italian restaurants can cost, and far better for one’s waistline and cholesterol number than a place with a drive-through.