Go Roma. See Roma Go. Go, Go Roma.

Go Roma. See Roma Go. Go, Go Roma.

Fast Food as an LTH topic has been getting a lot of attention in the past week or so, and as I’ve done my duty this past week by posting about a traditional but heretofore un-posted about place, I felt I earned the right to post about another unposted about place that would probably, fairly or not, be put in the fast food category.

On the train downtown for dinner, The Wife and I were sitting across from a guy who was regaling his pal with tales of having eaten a KFC Double Down. We momentarily made eye contact, so I had a brief conversation with the guy.

ME: You had one of those Double Downs, hunh?
GUY: Yeah.
ME: You like it?
GUY: Yeah, I did.
ME: Wasn’t it hard to hold? I mean, I heard the stuff inside – bacon and cheese and stuff – kind of slips out of the fried chicken “sandwich.”
GUY: No, it comes in a paper wrapper, so you can hold onto that, plus I didn’t get the chicken fried; I got it grilled.

This seemed a little odd to me, in that if you’re going for the Double Down from Kentucky FRIED Chicken, why wuss out with the healthy option? Not that there are not healthy options with fast food, which brings me to last night’s dinner at Go Roma on State Street. I was invited to dine there by Go Roma’s publicist, and as usual I could order whatever I wanted, and as with many dinners like this, they knew I was coming but it’s hard to imagine how the food would have been made differently for me than for anyone else.

Go Roma trades on “healthy” food, by which I do not mean ugh-worthy “health food” but just stuff that is fresh, not heavy, and relatively lower in calories, fat, etc. Upon entering the downtown location I ran into a one-time personal trainer of mine, who also lives in Oak Park, and who also apparently felt the trip was worth it: he’s one solid muscle and the fact that he chose this place says a lot about the perceived healthfulness of the food. And it is…good, not on the level of Spiaggia or Spacca Napoli, but heavy on vegetable, light on fried items, and very reasonably priced (case in point: 500 ml of wine is about $8, less than a single glass at many other local restaurants).


Toasted (not fried) Ravioli – tasty

We enjoyed a “Country Style” rigatoni, which was largely veg and featured sausage as a condiment rather than the dominant flavor, which for a warm night was welcome. We tried a pizza, which the menu said was “hand-stretched,” and it was just fine, with a slightly chewy crust. A little heavy on the toppings, but this kind of excessiveness is pretty much expected. Authentic? Probably not, but we liked it fine, and it would have rated well in terms of this week’s Timeout Chicago survey of local pizzas and their rankings on the char index.

The sign outside boasts “real chefs,” and that may be the case, though our Pear and Walnut salad had pear pieces that were all kind of stuck together, suggesting perhaps precutting and rapid assembly, but that’s a small point.

We felt a little bit rushed in that apps and entrees came out very quickly and almost all once, but the very name of the place suggests motion; “easy in, easy out” is written on their windows as a kind of motto, so speedy service was to be expected and I'm sure it's usually appreciated.

This is not food that will worry Mantuano or even Maggiano’s, but aside from being fast (which does matter to a lot of people, especially at lunch time), Go Roma’s food is fresh and we pretty much cleaned our plates.

What we call “fast food” franchises are popular, and like popular movies or popular music, they reflect a culture. As such, I feel they are worthy topics of discussion, perhaps even in a meta-food way, as emblems of a zeitgeist. Not to sound too cerebral about all of this, but Go Roma’s healthier focus strums a cultural chord that contrasts with KFC’s currently most-talked exercise in conspicuous excess. Honestly, I’m starting to feel an obligation to eat a Double Down in the same way that I felt an obligation to eat at Alinea.

Go Roma, multiple locations: http://www.goroma.net/content/menu.html

PS. I’m wondering whether the term “fast food” actually makes much sense anymore. What, exactly, constitutes a fast food place? If speed matters most, then Manny’s is fast food. If multiple franchise locations is the key differentiator, then Al’s Beef is fast food. If soul-less mass produced chow is the hallmark of the fast food joint, then based on reports from two family members, Mother’s Day brunch at the Signature Room is a kind of relatively expensive fast food.


In the backroom at Gene and Jude’s right before yesterday’s breakfast, also fast and good

having trouble seeing your pics, just see red box?

anyway, i believe the industry term for the "order at counter, we'll bring it out to you" model is Fast Casual. i've only been to go roma once but I think it was acceptable food.

dudefella wrote:having trouble seeing your pics, just see red box?

anyway, i believe the industry term for the "order at counter, we'll bring it out to you" model is Fast Casual. i've only been to go roma once but I think it was acceptable food.

Will repost pix tomorrow when my Flickr account is refreshed.

dudefella wrote:anyway, i believe the industry term for the "order at counter, we'll bring it out to you" model is Fast Casual.

Hi,

What puzzles me in these situations is tipping. I am usually getting no service beyond my food arriving to the table and not picking up after myself later. I tend to leave a dollar or two as an acknowledgement.

Regards,

As "Fast Casual" goes, Go Roma seems a couple of notches up from Corner Bakery (where I eat frequently, not because I like it but because it is steps from my office) or Cosi, which was a couple of steps from my previous location. The salad I had on several occasions (the pear and walnut, with chicken) was fresh and tasty, and did not seem to have been assembled by being pulled out of tubs of pre-cut parts (which were previously poured out of bags).

I had not realized it was also supposed to be healthier, which is a big plus for me. At one ambitious point, I investigated the calorie count of the CB salad I was eating, and compared it to a salad I might bring from home (if only I was a better person ); I couldn't create a salad with anywhere near the number of calories at home without making something that was obviously ridiculously overboard. Alas, Go Roma is much too far from my office for a regular lunch.

Interesting writeup. The last time I went to Go Roma was with multi-generations including a vegetarian and a couple of infants too young to take to "regular" restaurant. Everyone was left happy.

Judy H wrote:I had not realized it was also supposed to be healthier, which is a big plus for me.

The "healthy" marketing scheme at Go Roma is dubious at best. A cup of "pasta meatball" soup has 1,110mg of sodium, almost twice what's in the average cup of Progresso and other much-malingned canned soups. The "Chicken Pomodoro" sandwich at Go Roma has 1,156 calories, 75g of fat and a whopping 4,150mg of sodium! That's substantially more than double what people are supposed to eat in a whole day! At least it's less that the "Classic Italian" sandwich, which has 5,010 mg of sodium!

Kennyz wrote:The "Chicken Pomodoro" sandwich at Go Roma has 1,156 calories, 75g of fat and a whopping 4,150mg of sodium! That's substantially more than double what people are supposed to eat in a whole day!

That's over 2X the calories, 3X the salt, and 2X the fat of a fried KFC Double Down.

-Dan

dansch wrote:

Kennyz wrote:The "Chicken Pomodoro" sandwich at Go Roma has 1,156 calories, 75g of fat and a whopping 4,150mg of sodium! That's substantially more than double what people are supposed to eat in a whole day!

That's over 2X the calories, 3X the salt, and 2X the fat of a fried KFC Double Down.

-Dan

Yeah, there is neither a nutritionist nor a mathemetician in the Go Roma marketing department. Some more fuzzy math here: a "full size" order of the country style rigatoni has 1384 calories and 93g of fat, while a "half size" order of the same dish has 924 calories and 62g of fat. Hmm.

Kennyz wrote: a "full size" order of the country style rigatoni has 1384 calories and 93g of fat, while a "half size" order of the same dish has 924 calories and 62g of fat. Hmm.

Wow. We desperately need nutrition information printed on menus, in a readable typeface. And I need to pack my lunch at home. You don't quote any salads, but I'm assuming from what I know about other places, the salads are often worse that the other stuff. Where's the nearest KFC to my office? Maybe I'll have a Double-Down.

Judy H wrote:

Kennyz wrote: a "full size" order of the country style rigatoni has 1384 calories and 93g of fat, while a "half size" order of the same dish has 924 calories and 62g of fat. Hmm.

Wow. We desperately need nutrition information printed on menus, in a readable typeface. And I need to pack my lunch at home. You don't quote any salads, but I'm assuming from what I know about other places, the salads are often worse that the other stuff. Where's the nearest KFC to my office? Maybe I'll have a Double-Down.

The salads have a wide range. Here's a link to the nutritional info. Note that the dressings are listed separately from the dressingless salads.

Kennyz wrote:
The "healthy" marketing scheme at Go Roma is dubious at best.

Whoa....I wonder why a chef would end up with that much sodium in things that are supposedly not processed food ingedients?

Maybe the head ingredients person is a pack a day smoker with no taste buds left?

Here's their Nutrition Facts for their menu items:

http://www.goroma.net/content/pdf/gorom ... tional.pdf

David Hammond wrote:Toasted (not fried) Ravioli – tasty

I wonder if the menu I liked to is for the wrong "Go Roma". It's hard for me to imagine anyone - even PR people - calling the place I linked to "healthy", and the menu of the linked place clearly calls the appetizer "Fried Ravioli", with no "Toasted" version listed. It has a whopping 680 calories, making it unlikely that "fried" is a euphemism for "toasted". Perhaps I'm talking about the wrong place, or perhaps they gave Mr. Hammond a still-in-testing item that hasn't made it to the website yet?

Kennyz wrote:

David Hammond wrote:Toasted (not fried) Ravioli – tasty

I wonder if the menu I liked to is for the wrong "Go Roma". It's hard for me to imagine anyone - even PR people - calling the place I linked to "healthy", and the menu of the linked place clearly calls the appetizer "Fried Ravioli", with no "Toasted" version listed. It has a whopping 680 calories, making it unlikely that "fried" is a euphemism for "toasted". Perhaps I'm talking about the wrong place, or perhaps they gave Mr. Hammond a still-in-testing item that hasn't made it to the website yet?

The menu on the site I linked to describes the ravioli as "toasted," but as with other critical terms here, this term may be open to interpretation, though what we had definitely did not seem fried in any usual sense of the word.

After Memorial Day dinner, I'm sitting down with Jelly Belly Superfruit Mix, which I'm assured is "high in antioxidant Vitamin C" -- feeling healthier already.

making it unlikely that "fried" is a euphemism for "toasted"

That's the popular customary term for shallow-fried ravioli, as originally prepared in St. Louis's Italian 'hood.

Per today's print Chicago Tribune, Phil Vettel is a fan of the Go Roma meatball.

Go Roma to go national via franchising - http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ ... wrap-12711

Everything at Go Roma is decent, but I really like their tomato soup.

I like go roma. I go to the one in warrenville. they have pasta dishes in two sizes and we usually split a dish and a caesar salad. the portion is immense. sometimes we add a meatball which was good. I have never thought of it as particularly healthy. Frankly, I think a lot of folks are scared to death to post anything about fast food on this forum as it seems to be a charged topic. Food doesn't know where it is.