Customer Reviews

Atlas Manual Pasta Extruder Regina - Made in Italy

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have bought and tried just about all the Chinese Pasta Mixer-Extruders that are being sold today, including the Ronco disaster and the Pasta imPerfect (and its' 3 or 4 clones that have interchangable parts with the Pasta Perfect.) and have decided that you need to invest at least $200 to get a combination unit that has a ghost of a chance of performing decently.

I have had good luck with two different units: The somewhat pricey Kitchen-Aid pasta extruder attachment (which requires the ownership of a Kitchen-Aid mixer, and this cheap little Atlas manual pasta extruder. Both units require you make up the dough in advance. With the Kitchen-Aid you have the dough hook and all the other great equipment. With the Atlas, you can use a fork, flour, eggs, your hands and whatever else, to create your dough.

With the dies included, you can make spaghetti, macaroni, noodles, lasanga and cookies. Who cares about the 8 other dies that don't work very well in the other machines anyhow? It is a manual machine. Nothing to jam or burn out. Easy to clean. And it does its' thing quite well! This is the unit to get if you want do what pasta extruders do best. Roller type pasta makers also have their place, but you can easily afford this little angel and a roller machine as well! Obviously I love it!

I haven't tried any other machines so I don't have anything to compare to. I do have a regular pasta maker by another manufacturer that is easier to use but it only cuts noodles. Overall not a bad machine. I am happy with it and it does make good pasta, easy to use but can be a workout. You definitely don't have to feel guilty about eating the pasta because you burn off the calories making it.

Pros: simple design, comes apart, and easy to clean; does have additional attachment for dough mixing and meat grinding you can purchase separately; works good for tubular pastas.

Cons: takes some strength to crank the dough through; is mostly plastic (my other pasta machine is all metal which I prefer); haven't had any luck with the rotini pastas

If you don't have this yet Get it! :-)

I make a lot of bread and Pasta, added this to my collection as I enjoy manual methods over electric.

This machine works great.
It's not however for tender handed persons, some of the dies make egg dough very hard to crank.

I was surprised how clean it remains as you use it, the inner storage area stays spotless.
Changing dies it very quick and it does not have razor sharp edges like some Pasta machines, very nice quality on this.

For the price you cannot go wrong, order one now!

After reading the reviews for this item I wondered if purchasing this pasta maker would send me running to a message therapist or a chiropractor. Reviews from adults saying they could hardly turn the hand crank had me concerned. I was, however, intrigued by the review that stated this was the sleeper. That said, I found someone on eBay selling ten of these for less then half the price, I figured, why not?

This item is made of plastic. I've never seen such heavy grade plastic. If I dropped this on the floor (or my foot) the plastic wouldn't be the thing to break. My kids (ages 9 and 3) made pasta the first night we had the item. My 3 yr. old in particular, enjoyed turning the handle to make rotini. We have not made pasta from all of the dies yet, I'm braced for at least one of the items being too hard for them to turn. The directions do say that if the dough is too thick/dry that water can be added, other pasta recipes I have state that dough that is too dry will make it hard to roll pasta in a machine. It may also be that I let the dough sit for half an hour for the gluten to relax. The directions do not mention this vital step.

Overall, I would buy this again. I would buy this if I didn't find the deal on eBay. This was a fun activity to do with my kids, at least until they took over, then it was fun to watch! It sets up easily, it cleans easily, it really doesn't take that long to make.

You really need to use the clamp to clamp it to a table or counter. Takes considerable effort to crank it when making the smallest pasta size, and if it isn't clamped down, probably impossible to work it. Also, doesnt make spaghetti. Just the round traditional macaroni shapes in various thicknesses.
Solidly built and easy to clean.

I've tried them all, and in terms of easy use, clean up, changing attachments, this is the best quality and best performing pasta extruder. Kitchen Aid is great, but you have to manually pick out all the dough from the rollers, it's expensive, and you still have to do the work of making the dough, forming into little balls, and passing (shoving really) the dough down so it stays even and dense as it comes out of the attachment. The Marcato is perfect as long as you read the directions. Put extra flour on the little pieces and you'll have perfect pasta. One request I have from Marcato is to expand the number of inches for the holder. Many counter tops are wider at the base now and to have those extra inches on the holder, would allow people to attach the pasta extruder machine to ANY counter top.

The product itself is not bad at all, it makes great pasta. But as the other reviewer mentioned, it takes a lot of work. Pasta extruding is best left to a machine you plug in