Roma redux: New-old eatery draws crowd in West Carthage
WEST CARTHAGE — Greg Petitto has been around restaurants for a long time.
His grandparents were in the restaurant business. They founded Gouverneur's Roma Restaurant in 1948. His parents took over the ever-popular Roma in the '60s, continuing a family tradition until it closed in 1997.
Greg grew up working at the Roma while in high school under the tutelage of his father and was an integral part of the business for a decade after. In 1984 Greg left the Roma to open his own restaurant in Gouverneur that bears his name to this day.
At age 53, Greg Petitto thought he was ready to retire from the restaurant business. Earlier this year, he turned the reins of Greg's Restaurant over to his son Carl.
But retirement didn't last long. When a fully equipped former restaurant building in West Carthage became available, Greg snapped up the space and was back in the restaurant business again.
The Roma Restaurant opened last month in West Carthage, with the original family recipes and the blessing of his grandmother.
Whether it was from the hype of a new restaurant in town or word had gotten out about the Roma's great Italian dishes, there was a nearly packed house when we visited last Nov. 13.
Takeout caused a bit of a bottleneck at the entryway with customers carrying away pizzas, calzones and Italian specialty sandwiches of meatball, sausage and chicken Parm.
In the dining room, it was lasagna to the left of us, spaghetti to the right of us, the plates at the tables painted with the colors of red-sauced pasta and bright green salads. Senior citizens were there, families were there — there was even a young couple having dinner with their infant in its carrier right on the table.
Appetizers are generally breaded this and battered that, with a few other food groups represented with green beans, cottage cheese, sautéed mushrooms and broccoli florets. There were a few Italian favorites in the appetizer category, too, like meatballs or Italian sausage patties with sauce, and spaghetti with red sauce, butter or garlic butter.
The four-member WDT Reviewing Team began our evening by sharing a small (13-inch) garlic pizza ($8.50), made with Roma's fresh homemade dough, mozzarella cheese, garlic and a blend of spices.
Perhaps it was cooked a little too long, because most of the cheese had disappeared, leaving a nicely crusted circle of pizza dough with a good smattering of herbs (mostly dried oregano and basil, we analyzed) and garlic flavor in the form of garlic powder.
Salads were just like I remembered from the original Roma — a generous, chilled plateful of crisp iceberg lettuce, shredded carrot and red cabbage, a large flat slice of tomato, all doused with a perfect tangy house-made Italian dressing that you just can't find in a bottle anywhere.
Finish it off with the should-be-trademarked grated (not crumbled) blue cheese, a ritual seemingly started in Gouverneur by the Roma years ago and still served at most every restaurant in that village today.
For entrées, we tried a variety of the restaurant's offerings.
From the beef category, although prime rib was tempting, we went with New York strip steak ($17.95), a current favorite of mine over Delmonico/rib-eye (less fat, more firm, full-flavored).
And it did not disappoint. All of the above attributes, perfectly grilled, juicy as can be, and a sizable hunk of meat that must have weighed a good 14-plus ounces.
A side of perfectly cooked buttered broccoli was an additional plus, along with a homemade sausage patty side ($2.50) smothered with a marvelous, smooth, well-balanced tomato sauce they call "red magic."
From the poultry (actually chicken and that's about it) portion of the menu ... we first asked about their chicken cordon bleu, but upon learning it was a prefab product, opted for chicken Parmesan ($12.50).
There are two versions of chicken Parm — grilled or breaded. We didn't make it clear — and our waitress didn't ask — but we intended to get the grilled version and ended up with breaded. Ordinarily not a big deal, except the breaded version, I'm pretty sure, was deep-fried chicken fingers covered with a cheese and tomato sauce.
And while this wouldn't upset the average diner, I generally have no use for chicken fingers that are mostly salty breading with a little chicken somewhere underneath.
The Roma is known for its Italian fare, and we were most impressed with its Italian combo platter, a chance to sample a portion of lasagna, manicotti, stuffed shell and a meatball, usually a $13.95 deal, but we took the add-on option of eggplant Parmesan that upped the price to $15.95.
Lasagna was especially good, with big chunks of sausage. Manicotti and shells, both tubular-type pasta with the same cheesy stuffing — ricotta, Romano and Parmesan — were noteworthy, and an exceptional meatball (definitely a family recipe) left you wishing there was more than one on the plate.
The eggplant Parm was merely a breaded, deep-fried and sauced slice alongside the pasta samplings.
On the other hand, broiled haddock ($12.95), from the "specialty dinners" section of the menu, left us a bit ambivalent.
It was a decent portion of fish, but seemingly overcooked — or at least more mushy than flaky, for whatever reason, sitting in a pool of butter.
The only other seafood items on the menu appeared to be prefrozen, prebreaded haddock, shrimp, scallops or clam strips.
Desserts? None made in-house, and we appreciated the honesty of our waitress. Prices averaged around $4.
But that didn't stop us from ordering a slice of "fruits of the forest" pie, rhubarb and strawberry, according to our waitress, but it looked and tasted more like apple and blueberry. It was a very good product, especially the crisp, flaky crust that could have passed for homemade.
A wedge of French silk pie was as expected: pudding-like chocolate with machine-made curls of chocolate and machine-piped whipped topping trim on top.
Our total tab for the evening was $91 before tipping our server.
A closing note on the service. Fast and efficient, for sure. And if there's such a thing as too fast — call it rushed — we got it.
Our waitress asked if we were ready to order before we barely had time to open our menus. She was probing for a dessert order while we were still eating our entrées. And I ran out of fingers counting the number of times she used the word "yiz."
Plural of "youse?"
Guests seated after us were out the door before us. Maybe mainstream America judges a restaurant on how fast you can get in and out, but we still prefer to make it a relaxed evening out that includes some friendly conversation.
If you're familiar with the menu at Greg's Restaurant in Gouverneur, you'll find lots of the same items on the new Roma Restaurant menu.
You can contact Walter E. Siebel via e-mail: wsiebel@wdt.net.
Roma Restaurant
19 Bridge St.
West Carthage
493-0616
A new restaurant in West Carthage owned and operated by descendants of the owners of the original Roma Restaurant in Gouverneur. Italian dishes are the specialty.
HOURS: 4 to 8 p.m. Wednesday
4 to 9 p.m. Thursday
4 to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday
Noon to 8 p.m. Sunday
Closed Monday and Tuesday
Italian combo platter allows you to sample lasagna, manicotti, a stuffed shell and a meatball, all from handed-down family recipes, doused in the testy tomato sauce they call "red magic."
Grilled New York strip steak is one of the best we've had in a long time
RATING: 3 forks
