Sunday, September 22, 2013

Romeo & Juliet's: A Love Affair With My Belly




Whenever I'm home in Buffalo, I always, always, always hit up Romeo & Juliet's Bakery Cafe on Hertel Ave so this post is long overdue. R&Js is a North Buffalo institution and one of my all-time favorite places to eat. It specializes in panini, pizza, pasta, insalate, and the tastiest Italian desserts I have ever consumed, hands down! The menu fare is fresh, delicious, affordable, and made with the extra special ingredient of love. You can tell that this family-owned business of 15 years is directed by a passionate food lover and creator, Vito.

It's been quite difficult to choose which specific meal to discuss here as I have enjoyed numerous lunches, dinners, and sneaky snacks there over the years; I finally settled on my last visit there with my two friends K & A on a lovely Friday eve in July. 

A overjoyed by our insalates!
We sauntered down to Romeo's and as always were warmly greeted by one of my bests, B who works there. Did I mention it helps to have friends in high places? ;-) He got us a great spot outside under the awning so we could enjoy a bit of people-watching entertainment along with our meal. Drinks were ordered, a glass of Pinot for me and a highly-recommended blood-orange Italian sodas for K & A. The Pinot was perfection and the italian sodas wonderfully refreshing. You can get the bottled Boylan's sodas here but Romeo's also makes Italian sodas to order which is awesome. 

For starters, we shared the Spinaci Insalate with fresh spinach, gorgonzola, mushrooms, avocado, and olives topped with crisp pancetta, tossed with raspberry vinaigrette and the Insalate di Arancia that has mandarin oranges, walnuts, and raisins tossed with mixed greens and walnut dressing. As always, the starters were accompanied by homemade ciabatta with hummus & tapanade. The portions at Romeo's are very generous and always easily shared among friends. 

Pizza w/ blood-orange soda & Pinot
Feeling proud of ourselves for loading up on veggies with the insalates, we ventured on to some much-anticipated carbo-loading for mains. The DEK-oven pizza at Romeo's has won awards for years now so it was an easy choice that we would pick pizza as our main. Not so easy is actually narrowing down to one as the pizza combinations are all so delicious (and we definitely wanted to save room for dessert!) We settled on the classic Pepperoni and Mozzarella, so simple yet so so satisfying! 

PB mousse & pastaciotti: divine!
To cap off a most wonderful meal, we ordered two desserts from the bakery section: the Peanut Butter Mouse and the infamous Pastaciotti. Romeo & Juliet's freshly bakes their desserts daily and offers classics such as cannoli, tiramisu, napoleon, and many more luscious treats. Again, the portions are ample so do make sure to leave room, at the very least order for take-out, as they are not to be missed!

From start to finish, we thoroughly enjoyed our dining experience at Romeo's. The service as always was outstanding and the food, oh man the food! Absolutely amazing. Love is it at R&Js and I look forward to many more years of delicious dining here!  

Romeo & Juliet's Bakery Cafe
1292 Hertel Ave
Buffalo, NY 14216
716.873.5730
http://www.rjcaffe.com/index.html 

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