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| - If you want authentic Italian meats and cheeses in the Valley of the Sun, Romanellis should be your stop.
From the outside, it looks like your basic store in a strip mall, but you walk in and you can see immediately that these people are not fooling around. Besides the various Italian Pride type of shirts and other tchotchkes, there are aisles of various foods either made at the deli, or shipped in from elsewhere. Do you need olive oil or pasta? They have plenty of those along with sauces and preserved veggies.
The real draw though is the deli. Skip the Boars Head branded meats and sandwiches made with them because you can get that anywhere, you want to go for the real meats and cheeses, which are further to the left. Since there are multiple brands of some items, do not be afraid to ask the person behind the counter which ones are the best. Highly recommended are the pastrami, hot cappicola, and genoa salami.
Their signature sandwich seems to be the Italian Stallion, which is very very good, but there are are a wide variety of sandwiches that you can pick up. Besides that they also offer plenty of pasta salad and antipasto to take home, and on the day I went, you could pick up sausage and peppers for your lunch. The staff itself come from areas like NYC and New Jersey so don't be entirely surprised if they keep things short and sweet, it's nothing personal against you.
There's also a bakery case with various desserts, go for the sfogliatelle and cannoli, they are excellent.
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