I don't know how some places do it, but the noodles are still al dente somehow. What's the secret to that? I once had a baked lasagna where the noodles were perfectly al dente. I really like my pasta al dente. At one point, I even thought of investing in a small private enterprise where it was a single lady who made pasta the old fashioned way, kneading the flour in freezing cold water, cutting the pasta with bronze dies, and drying them in a special low heat oven.