#1 ur top few stalks of asparagus is getting more exposure than the rest, what light source u using here?
#2 nice shot, but not appetizing, and one of ur pasta fell out of ur composition.
#1 - the handle of the pan is a little distracting. Either crop it out or if you want to include it, give it more DOF but need to recompose as the position of it is neither here nor there and thus not adding to the photo
#2 - i quite like this but maybe there are just too little pasta. I think it will look great if you have more pasta.
#1 looks good to me. Ask yourself: is it pleasing and appetizing? And I would add: do you want to create pictures about food or technical studies about minimum DOF and maximum bokeh? A viewer would like to see the whole dish (or at least 2/3) in focus, not just the tips if asparagus or pasta. Found this link here in an earlier posting: http://ieatishootipost.sg/