Pasta Pomodoro

A photo of the beautiful interior of Pomodoro's Orange, CA location.

On the take out menu of the restaurant Pomodoro, you will find this quote: “Riding a Vespa through traffic can be tricky. Doing it with a plate of take-out penne balanced on the handlebars – that’s impressive.”

Let me be quite honest, I’m not really a huge fan of Italian restaurant chains. I tend to think that Italian food is best kept to family restaurants, or in some rare cases, sister restaurants, which don’t really count as chains. Pomodoro is a huge exception. They have 46 locations throughout California and Arizona, and to be blunt, this is the kind of Italian food that would make me completely and totally willing to risk life and limb for in the attempt to eat it on a Vespa.

To continue in this trend of honesty, I’ll say that I have a preference for Northern Italian food. Why? Because I like pasta with stuff in it. I like red sauces that aren’t really red anymore because they have chives, and mushrooms, and vegetables, and stuff in them. Pomodoro completely satisfied that.

The penne melanzane with smoked mozzarella and eggplant in a spicy tomato sauce.

They have a huge variety of great dishes, and it’s not like so many restaurants, who have the same thing over and over again. It’s not angel hair with marinara, and spaghetti with marinara. Instead we found Rigatoni Caserecci (“beef, veal, and pork sugo, roasted mushrooms and a touch of cream”), and Penne Melanzane (“with smoked mozzarella and eggplant in a spicy tomato sauce”). The pasta was al dente without being too raw and the salad was delicious and well presented.

Don’t you just love pretty food? We love it! Preparation gives it that too cents worth of persuasion, and between the beautiful food and a beautiful restaurant you forget for a little bit that your across from a huge mall, squishing in lunch between tedious errands.

At lunch, for under $9.00 each, we got those great pastas, and it came with great salad, great bread with yummy pesto sauce, and great service. We attended the Village at Orange location, and the staff was beyond excellent. Our glasses never went empty, and when we had to send the salads back because of our allergy to blue cheese, there wasn’t so much as an unhappy look on the waitresses face. We got new salads quickly, and weren’t kept waiting for any length of time. When we needed a to-go box, they didn’t hand us a box and make us package it up. They take your food, and package it for you!

I’m raving so much about the service because I’m genuinely surprised. I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed this, but waiters at lunch don’t usually end up being as good as dinner waiters for some reason. It wasn’t the case here at all. It was probably the best service I’ve had in the last month. I must’ve passed by this restaurant over fifty times, because I figured it would be some horrible little place inside, and it was simply wonderful.

In short, expense doesn’t make a meal. We oved this restaurant because it was well priced, with great food. Regardless of it being a chain, in comparing this to other restaurants on a whole, we’re giving this four and a half out of five stars. It only loses that last half star because there aren’t table clothes on the tables at lunch. Though we applaud them on having the nice paper napkins that feel like fabric. Well done Pomodoro! You are proof of one of my favorite universal constants – Good food is good food, and a good restaurant is a good restaurant, regardless of the price range.

P.S. Check out www.pastapomodoro.com for their catering menu. It’s as well-priced as the rest of their food. There website also has a list of locations.