When in Roma, eat like Italians
Big, swoonable flavor bursts from every dish
By Cathalena E. Burch
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
Review
Roma Imports
627 S. Vine Ave., off 15th Street and South Kino Parkway; 792-3173
Hours: 8:30 a.m.-6 p.m. Mondays-Fridays, 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturdays
Family call: A perfect place for young and old.
Noise level: You can easily hold a conversation, although it tends to get loud at the lunch rush.
Vegetarian choices: Several
Dress: Tucson casual
Reservations: Not a chance
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Roma Imports is a hole-in-the-boonies kind of out-of-the-way place, if you've never been there.
We've been there plenty — for lunch, for the sweets, for the fresh Italian bread. We've walked out more than once with bags of fresh pastas, sauces, imported Italian olive oils and trays of pop-in-the-oven lasagna and ziti.
We remember when the dining area in the back was a small unimposing space with a few tables and white walls.
The walls are now salmon colored, with flecks of glitter sparkling off the lights. There are about a dozen tables and a cart with a coffee pot of strong, hot brew for the asking. But if you arrive late, you'll still have to wait for a seat.
It's worth the wait.
You still order at the counter, then seat yourself, and a few minutes later, give or take a minute, they deliver your food to your table.
Ah, the food. Swoonable, gushable, downright write-home-to-the-folks-back-East — this is good Italian food.
The tomatoes in the crushed marinara sauce bathing the spaghetti ($4.59) and the sweet, aromatic basil in the tomato mozzarella salad ($5.99) both tasted as if they were just picked from the garden.
Flavor — bold, fresh, with stunningly sharp exclamation points — abounds from the simplest sandwich to the most complex pasta, like the earthy mushroom ravioli ($6.99).
The portions are big enough for two, or for leftovers. The ravioli boasted about two dozen of the pasta pillows stuffed with ground mushrooms and dressed in the marinara sauce. On another day, the pasta special was cheese tortellini swimming in a velvety alfredo cheese sauce ($7.99) that elevated the dish to the realm of sublime.
We could've scooped up the cheesey sauce with the spongy, crusty Italian bread if we weren't so filled up on the meatballs from the spaghetti. Fat and firm and perfectly seasoned, this is what meatballs are supposed to taste like.
About six of those meatballs were bathed in the sauce, topped with provolone cheese and served on a roll of that heavenly Italian bread in the Milano Meatball Magic sandwich ($5.75).
In addition to the pastas and sandwiches, Roma Imports sells dozens of sweets, from packaged Italian candies to fresh pastries, like filled cannoli ($1.75). We were also partial to a filled cupcake ($2.95) that had us scraping the paper wrapper for flecks of chocolate icing.
Review
Roma Imports
627 S. Vine Ave., off 15th Street and South Kino Parkway; 792-3173
Hours: 8:30 a.m.-6 p.m. Mondays-Fridays, 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturdays
Family call: A perfect place for young and old.
Noise level: You can easily hold a conversation, although it tends to get loud at the lunch rush.
Vegetarian choices: Several
Dress: Tucson casual
Reservations: Not a chance
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