Angel hair pasta with marinara sauce, diced chicken, Italian sausage and vegetables is one of the custom creations diners can order at the twice-weekly all-you-can-eat Pasta Nite buffet at the Hillside Country Club in Rehoboth.

The Providence Journal / Sandor Bodo

REHOBOTH, Mass. Nothing can make the eyes of some people light up more than the words “all-you-can-eat buffet” except maybe the added phrase “for $11.95 per person.”

So when we heard about the $11.95 “Pasta Nite Wednesdays and Thursdays” at the Hillside Country Club, an all-you-can-eat buffet where the chefs prepare your pasta dishes right before your eyes, we were on our way.

Shrimp, scallops, calamari, clams, chicken, Italian sausage, broccoli, scallions, red peppers, tomatoes, black olives, mushrooms and more were part of the promised bounty, along with sauce choices that included marinara, pesto, aglio e olio, zuppa, carbonara, Alfredo, red or white clam sauce and more, even Dijon. You also get a good-sized house salad and warm sliced Italian bread with a delicious garlic butter spread.

The Pasta Nite has been going on for 17 years, said club manager Diana Hammond, except for the interruption after the clubhouse burned down on May 17, 2001. Things have long been back to normal, however. Although the Hillside was bought earlier this year by the Lombardi family, which owns the fabled 1025 Club in Johnston, Hammond said in a later phone call that nothing has been changed in the kitchen operations at Hillside.

Armed with a map and directions to the country club, which is about a mile off of busy Route 44, we set out. But we soon discovered that getting to the pasta was going to be the most difficult part of the “nite.”

Street signs are difficult to see on this dark highway, especially when you’re whizzing by at 50 miles an hour looking for a darkened sign. Unfortunately, River Street was even darker than Route 44. When we got to the next landmark, a four-way stop, there was only a small Hillside C.C. sign nailed to a tree with an arrow marked on it for guidance.

As we drove down the road, you could see lights on in houses that sat off the road behind thick stands of trees. We lurched along, wondering if this really were the right road as it became more forested with no signs of a golf course on the horizon. I said that I wouldn’t be surprised to find Hansel and Gretel hitchhiking through this part of the forest and, if they were, we should stop to give them a lift.

Eventually we got to the Hillside entrance, with a big, but unlighted sign. Was this the right night? The parking lot seemed quiet, considering that an $11.95 all-you-can-eat pasta buffet was going on inside. Perhaps the other diners were still lost in the forest.

It was fairly quiet inside, too, although as we moved down a hallway we began hearing the sounds of clinking glasses and cutlery against plates. This being a country club, which I’ve always equated with a touch of elegance, and expecting a fancy dining room along the lines of what you’ll find at Kirkbrae or Quidnesset, I was surprised to look into a room where several young men, dressed as though they’d just come from a day fishing in the lake rather than toddling around the golf course, were gathered around a small table where executive chef Paulo Rodrigues and Sean McBride worked six gas-fired burners, the kind you see at omelet stations at other buffets.

Could this be it?

Indeed it was, for at that very moment Lindsay, the most vivacious and cheerful waitress one could ever imagine, came down the hallway from another room to welcome us.

The dining room, which had been partitioned in half by a roll-away wall, had all the ambience of a hotel meeting room, with a few pictures breaking up the starkness of the white and beige walls. A dozen or so tables were spread from one end of the long, narrow room to the other. At the far wall were large windows and a French door, but all one could see outside was pitch blackness. In front of the windows were three large tables with maybe two dozen people who obviously were friends, apparent from the shrieks of laughter coming from that end of the room. The women were smartly dressed; the men had the look of casually dressed golfers.

Near the door was the pasta station where, on a long table, the cooks manned the burners, while the diners made their selections from — as promised — a large selection of meats, shellfish and vegetables. Behind the cooks was another table with big trays of angel hair pasta, linguine and bow-tie pasta, as well as ingredients for the sauces. As we looked over the choices, Rodrigues advised that we might want to start with only a half order of the pasta, in order to savor a different sauce later.

But first, Lindsay brought our drinks from a limited wine list — Corbett Canyon White Zinfandels ($5.50 a glass) — our delicious bread and our salads — crisp greens with slices of cucumber, pepper, red onion, red cabbage, grape tomatoes and Zinfandel dressing “from the wedding.” Lindsay told us that this dressing wasn’t normally on the menu, but had been requested by a wedding couple. She quickly added that the wedding reception was going to be held in three days, so not to worry that we were eating leftover dressing. It turned out to be perfectly fine, though it tasted like Cains. My dining companion chose a creamy Parmesan peppercorn, which was more interesting. Hammond said that they do indeed use bottled dressings, “except for the Thousand Island, which the chef makes himself.”

At the pasta station I first tried the zuppa sauce. Zuppa means “soup” in Italian and this was indeed a soupy concoction of light tomato sauce that barely stuck to the linguine. I chose the very tender calamari, scallions, diced red peppers, mushrooms and diced tomatoes with a bit of an added bite from the red pepper flakes the chef sprinkled into the skillet at the start. It was not a hearty sauce, with most of the flavor coming from the vegetables and red pepper flakes.

My dining companion was very satisfied with the pink sauce, a savory and creamy blend of tomato sauce and a touch of cream, here with a choice of an all-vegetable accompaniment of mushrooms, olives, diced red pepper and tomatoes.

For my second go-round, I chose a winner in the marinara sauce. It was nearly as soupy as the zuppa, yet had more clinging power over the angel hair pasta and was bursting with the sweet flavor of fresh tomatoes. If they could bottle it, it would be a big seller. I added some diced chicken and sweet Italian sausage, which maintained their integrity in the sauce.

My companion’s second choice was that Neapolitan favorite, puttanesca. It tasted very traditional, even though it was made with anchovy paste rather than anchovies themselves. The anchovy paste and the black olives gave it a duskiness that olive lovers savor in this dish.

I’m not all that fond of Alfredo sauce, the cheesy sauce that some have called “heart attack on a plate.” But one bite of my dining companion’s choice from the third visit to the pasta station and I became a convert. This was a lighter Alfredo than one usually finds, with a robust Parmesan cheese flavor.

When the chef seemed disappointed that I only expected the minced clams to go into his white clam sauce, I added bay scallops and tiny shrimp to the mix. With that selection, this light sauce gained a good taste of the sea that would indeed satisfy any seafood lover.

Our pasta craving had been more than satisfied at the Pasta Nite, and we had come away with one of the cheapest dinner checks we’d ever had on our dining adventures. We swore we couldn’t eat another bite, yet couldn’t resist a slab of the carrot cake. None of the desserts are made on the premises, but the carrot cake was moist and rich. Maybe it wasn’t made in the kitchen at Hillside, but it was a yummy slice and the only thing on the menu we didn’t have to concoct ourselves.

mjanuson@projo.com