Restaurant Review Rome: Taverna de Pasquino Pizzeria

La Taverna de Paquino 

A couple of months ago Endira was telling me about a really good restaurant right by her house, so finally one evening in November we decided to go so I could try it out. We'd walked passed it dozens of times on the way back and forth to the grocery store and to various other bars in her area, so I was extremely curious to see how it is.

Beautiful Table settings

From the outside you can see that it is quite charming and small,. It doesn't look like much surrounded by
graffitied metal, but it is worth a second look. It has a very old school feel with lots of wood. We decided to sit outside because of the lovely weather even though the entire was very clean with lovely low lighting and atmosphere.  The outdoor seating consists of a couple of tables under a couple of small trees that lend beautifully to the ambience. It is set up with umbrellas, lights, colorful tableware and menus. I thought it was quite fun.
The menu was small but had quite a nice range of

La Bruschetta

dishes, those traditional and slightly more un-traditional. We decided to share a couple of dishes: bruschetta with fresh tomatoes, cicoria ripassata (our favorite Roman vegetable dish), a traditional matriciana dish using bucatini and an untraditional veal meatball dish served in a lovely lemon sauce.
The bruschetta was quite good, simply done and very traditional but it packed a lot of flavor especially because the tomatoes were so fresh. Fresh tomatoes have such a lovely texture and flavor. They're not mealy or grainy but crisp and tender and the flavor bursts in your mouth with every bite.

La Cicoria

I was a big fan of the cicoria as well because it packed quite a lot of fresh flavor as well and wasn't overly
heavy on the garlic.
The matriciana was good but not my

The Matriciana was pretty good

favorite I've had since being in Rome. It was good and had a lot of flavor but the sauce was a little too runny for me. The sauce needed a little something to pep it up. Next time I go to the restaurant I would like to try one of their more non traditional pastas to see how it stacks up.

Veal Meatballs in a lemon sauce

My favorite part of the meal (and I think Endira would agree) were the veal meatballs. They were unique and amazingly light with a wonderful consistency. They were not dry even though they weren't cooked in the sauce. I'm not sure if they were baked or sauteed on the stovetop, but they were cooked perfectly and the slight gaminess of the veal was counteracted by the sweet and sour of the lemon sauce.
At some point I would definitely like to go back for the food and also because the waiters were quite friendly.