Roman Cucina Restaurant Review

Thu, 28 Apr 2005 00:35:50 -0400

There are a surprising number of Italian restaurants in downtown Fullerton (at least five), but it just so happens that the newest and closest (being located directly across the street from my home) is also my favorite: Roman Cucina. Though the menu isn’t huge, the items within it are top-notch, and the atmosphere both classy and homey at the same time.

The menu consists (mostly) of lots of pasta dishes, and you can order things the way you like them. The pasta “items” start with you picking an entrée by sauce, such as alfredo, pesto, or (my favorite) rosa. Each entrée can be had with one of three pastas, such as fettuccine, penne, or linguine. You can also add a meat selection, such as beef milanese (which tastes like veal to me), chicken parmesan, etc., to any entrée. I didn’t do the math, but there must be at least 100 possible pasta dish combinations. Entrées come with a choice of Italian dinner salad or Italian wedding soup.

I myself normally get Rosa Penne with Beef Milanese, which is so good I usually get goose bumps because it is so reminiscent of my Grandma’s. My wife usually gets the Fettuccine Alfredo with chicken. Both sauces are creamy and rich and full of big flavor. All the pasta forms are consistently magical: never being too firm or mushy, and tasting fresh. The wedding soup is a little heavy on the cabbage and light on the meatballs for my taste, but it is full of hearty flavor without resorting to excess salt. The menu also has a number of sandwiches, appetizers that are really mini-entrées of their own, and perhaps the best meatless lasagna west of the Mississippi river. Diners in the mood for pizza will be disappointed, however; there isn’t any. I don’t consider this a problem, but I have friends who do.

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Roman Cucina Restaurant Review