I had a few people ask me about this place as its pretty new. As part of Christina's birthday surprise, I decided to take her to dinner there.

While making our way to the Dive Bar from the blackstone tap some weeks ago, we stumbled upon a new restaurant called Roma's, on Harding St. We said out normal 'oh neat, we will have to try that some day' and trudged on in search of Racer 5.

On Christina's birthday we made it back to Roma's. Its located on Harding St., and parking can be a little sketchy, but we managed to find a spot. The restaurant seems to be half kitchen and a small but loud dining area. We seemed to get there at 'just the right time' as we were seated quickly, others that came after us weren't so lucky.

We were seated by an exuberant lady and attended to by our waitress soon after. Then came the good news and bad news. The good news, they are BYOB, the bad...we didn't 'b' any 'b'.

We started off with the Calamari, served as many places do now, with banana peppers. I have a few high water marks on Calamari prepared this way, tops, believe it or not, is Ma Glockners. Honestly, there is nothing else there I will eat, but their calamari is just outstanding. The other is Providence Prime in...well...Providence. It is about as close to perfect as you can get, but, you pay for that premium.

Any way, the Calamari was ok, really, borderline bland. The calamari was small and light as I like it, but also chewy and not very flavorful. I think I would skip this one in the future.

We had a hard time deciding what we where going to get, before deciding on a sausage and fresh mozzarella pizza and a linguine with a white garlic sauce, spinach, prosciutto, and sun dried tomatoes.

*side bar #1* While waiting for our dinner we had some time to people watch, which is among Christina's top 5 little pleasures in life. As I said before, the dining room is small, so tables need to keep moving. There was this group of people that probably hung out at their table for a half hour, maybe more, after their dinner was done...just drinking their brought in booze. Meanwhile people are lining up to get in. Just seems rude to me.

After 15 minutes or so, my linguine dish comes out, and we are assured the pizza will be out soon. Christina and I shared the linguine in the mean time, both of us exclaiming how excellent it was. The sauce was thick and creamy, the prosciutto was plentiful, the brazed spinach a nice addition, and the sun dried tomato, while very good, may have been just a bit too much, but that is just being nit-picky.

You can tell there are still growing pains, as the pizza didn't come for yet another 15-20 minutes after. Normally, this would have been pretty annoying, but I was trying to buy time before we met some friends at the dive bar after dinner for a mini surprise party.

The pizza wasn't really what we expected. We both had in our heads that it was going to be a thin crust type pizza, but instead was more of a medium thickness. The crust had a nice consistency however, doughy in the crust, a little lighter in the center. The sausage was nice and spicy, and the fresh mozzarella, while good, could have been more plentiful...though take that with a grain of salt, as I can never have enough cheese.

We each had a slice, but after waiting so long, we where pretty full from the linguine, sort of a blessing in disguise. The bill came to about $40 or so, which we didn't think was bad for an appetizer, 2 entrees, and a soda. The BYOB thing would have been nice to know upfront, but I comforted myself through dinner knowing racer 5 was in my immediate future.

*side bar #2* IT WASN'T! The dive bar didn't have racer 5 on tap that night. I wept and had to try other beers.

I think we will go back again, but I would more than likely do it on a weekday when its less likely to be busy and hard to get a table.