In My Hood/Food Porn Friday - Roman's

Roman's is an Italian restaurant that opened this past fall in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. It's from the same group of people who opened the offbeat Williamsburg, Brooklyn restaurant, Marlow & Sons and the traditional butcher shop, Marlow & Daughters, which specializes in grass-fed meats and makes its own sausage (they've got another restaurant, Diner, too...busy people!). All of these places are pretty well known and notoriously delicious, so I wanted to see how this team would tackle Italian cuisine.

Roman's doesn't take reservations, but my friend MY and I were there early on a weekday night. This restaurant isn't that big, so I can only imagine what it's like on a weekend night.

I will say that what I love most about my area are the many neighborhoody restaurants that it has. Roman's has the feel of a small neighborhood place, but they take their service seriously.

For our appetizer:

Warm Beets with Goat Cheese, Walnuts & Horseradish

Yum! Beets are the best of both worlds, aren't they? Sweet and a vegetable. Score!

Lamb Chops with Saffron Turnips & Brocoli Rabe

This was MY's dish. I had a smidgen of this and thought it was flavorful and quite tender.

My dish: Chicken Leg Polepettine

Definitely not what I imagined it would be. It was essentially like a chicken meatball wrapped in spinach in a broth. It was extremely simple but slightly salty for me (maybe I am losing my salt tolerance in my old age?).

Finally the dessert that MY and I shared:

If I remember correctly, this was a ricotta cake with baked pear and fresh cream.

What a perfect way to end a meal! The cream was so smooth and whipped to utter perfection. I could have had anything with that cream, and it would have tasted great. The cake was moist, spongy and had more of an almond vanilla flavor. Baked pear is really nice to have at this time of year, and dessert with fruit always makes me feel like I am eating something relatively healthy. Ha! :)

I am definitely going back to Roman's later this year, since the menu changes constantly (if not daily).

Roman's

243 DeKalb Avenue

Brooklyn, New York

Happy Weekend!