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| - Swaaaeeet!
There's a new kid on the College Street block. The Slow Room is a twist on the traditional espresso bar, serving sweet and savory items that change daily. Its owners, Sandra and Roberto Mandarino, are proponents of the slow food movement and are one step ahead of the soy nation (you won't find any here. The eatery sticks to almond milk). So what should you order at Slow Room? The porchetta is a neighbourhood fave, as is the eggplant meatless meatball sandwich.
The Slow Room takes its espresso seriously, too. Resident barista Drew Randall is a veteran of Bulldog Coffee, who does his thing on a shiny new La Marzocco Linea espresso machine. He's also a classically trained cellist, so it's not unusual for him to pop in a latte-sipping soundtrack of Italian baroque.
Seating is limited in the closet-sized space, but owners are going for a friendly, cozy vibe anyway, and hoping to pull it off without depending on Wi-Fi. Accompanying the sandwiches is a modest selection of pastries, some made in-house, like the gluten-free pistachio or almond cookies ($3 and $2, respectively) and others from La Strada Bakery.
Decor is trendily vintage, with tributes to the motherland thrown in here and there (red pepper garlands and a rather ferocious boar's head known as Hugo). With ingredients this fresh, supplies are often limited--"when we're out, we're out," Roberto says--but that's OK, because as the closed sign eloquently points out, "shut happens."
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