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| - My husband and I came here on a recommendation for a special occasion. The seating area is small, but cozy. We made reservations based on the web site's recommendation. When we got there it was fairly empty. We were seated quickly and given our menus. The waitress working that evening was very nice.
We were given some sliced bread (I'm guessing an Italian loaf) and olive oil to dip the bread in. It was OK, but nothing special. The bread wasn't warm, and both it and the olive oil were unseasoned in any way.
We did get the roman style riceballs for an appetizer. They were really good - although I can't say the risotto had a particular flavor to it, I think it was mostly the cheese at the center that made the dish. Either way, I'd order them again.
It took a little while for the waitress to come back and take our order. I got the carbonara with shrimp (an extra 4 dollars) and my husband got the penne with vodka sauce.
When the food came out I was disappointed to see that the extra 4 dollars I paid for shrimp only got me 4 shrimp. The carbonara was really salty, maybe the combination of pecorino romano cheese and pancetta was too much for my palette. Either way, there was A LOT of pancetta in the dish, not much sauce to speak of, and the pancetta seemed like it hadn't been cooked for very long before being put into the dish. It surprised me how much fat hadn't rendered out of it during the saute process. It didn't really have any color on it to indicate that it had carmelized or anything.
I've had carbonaras at other places, and have always really enjoyed them, so I was surprised to not care for this. There was only the pancetta and onions in the dish, and a bit of the sauce. Salty and boring.
My husband liked his penne okay, but we both agreed that we probably won't come back to this place.
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