A tale of Romio’s

Dine in or dine out, Romio’ss delivers a satisfying experience

By Andrea Miller
Enterprise features editor

Getting ready to drive home on a dark, rainy night, I was tired -- and hungry. A hectic work day had left little time for a decent lunch. Then I remembered that I’sd received a menu in the mail from an Italian restaurant in Mountlake Terrace. Digging around on my desk, I found it: Romio’ss Pizza & Pasta. Maybe I could pick something up and take it home to an appreciative family.

Romio’ss offers an expansive menu of traditional Italian fare: from pizza, to pasta, to calzones, to salads and sandwiches. There are the standards for the traditionalists, of course -- various combinations of meats and/or veggies, with the option to create your own palette of flavors. The Mountlake Terrace location has a list of specialty pizzas unique to its menu, including BBQ chicken, garlic chicken and "Patate e Prosciutto" (roasted red peppers, prosciutto, mozzarella, mushrooms, potatoes and tomato sauce). Specialty pizzas that can be found at other Romio’ss locations include eggplant parmigiano, the "G.A.S.P" (garlic, artichoke hearts, sun-dried tomatoes, pesto and mozzarella) and a seafood pizza.

For pasta dishes there is spinach canneloni, chicken marsala and putanesca (black olives, artichoke hearts, tortellini, capers, mushrooms, Parmesan, feta and pesto with marinanra sauce), among others. The Greeks are also well represented on the menu with gyros, tiropeta and spanakopeta (spinach and cheese puffs), specialty pizzas like the “Zorba” (onions, tomatoes, Greek feta cheese, Greek olives, Greek gyros meat, mozzarella with a tzatziki sauce) and salads.

It was difficult to narrow it down to just three dishes, but finally, I arrived at my choices and gave them a call.

The timing couldn’st have been better -- it turns out this location is just up the road from the office. By the time I got there, the food was just coming out of the oven. If I didn’st have a hungry bunch waiting at home, I would have gladly taken a table in the cozy dining area, romantically lit by a central fireplace. A friendly server helped me with my bags of food and I was soon off into the night.

Jump ahead to the warm welcome I received at home. The still-hot dishes were quickly dispersed and devoured, with plenty of non-verbal sounds of approval. The pepperoni pizza, a requirement for certain family members, was given high marks for its homemade pizza sauce and crust, smothered in fresh mozzarella cheese. So was the cheese ravioli (beef and salmon versions are also available), swimming in a thick red sauce and generously topped with fresh Parmesan cheese.

The absolute pinnacle of the meal, however, was the Portobello calzone. It was enormous, almost the size of the 12 inch medium pizza. The filling had sounded intriguing -- pesto sauce, goat cheese, red onions, Portobello mushrooms, roasted red peppers, spinach and mozzarella. It tasted even better than the description. As much as I would have liked to finish it in one sitting, the thick, crispy on the outside, chewy on the inside crust was just too filling. All the better to save for next day’ss lunch.

After topping off the meal by splitting a slice of tiramisu between all of us -- and wishing I’sd brought home more -- we agreed that meals like this could easily become a habit.