Located at: Ground Floor, K-zone Ja-ela, 525 Negombo Road, Ja-ela, Sri Lanka

Visited on: 09 Nov, 2017

I decided to give the new place a second shot. Two types of pizzas, take away again. This time my first pick was Siciliana – with salami, capers, anchovies and black olives (LKR 1,450 for Medium 13”). The first thing you notice when you open the box is that the salami is scarce. In fact, some wedges had just a tiny, cut piece of a single salami chip on them. I was expecting salami to be one of the main components of the topping, but this was clearly not so. Which made the pizza a little plain, as a whole. To add to this, there wasn’t a great deal of black olive either. I guess you could say the same about the capers too. All in all, it looked like it was missing some topping and, needless to say, this reflected on the fullness of the taste. The other thing that strikes you as you eat through it is the anchovies. The pang of saltiness in the fried, dried anchovies (quite like karawala) is unmistakable and, in my opinion, a little overwhelming. Not really my kind of thing, and definitely not helped by the lack of salami. Hence definitely not on my list of favourite toppings at Romana.

The second choice was Capricciosa – with chicken ham, mushrooms and artichoke (LKR 1,700 for Large 16.5”). This one, I enjoyed. It was visually pleasing too, upon opening the box. There was a substantial amount of ham, with plenty of artichoke and mushroom. No topping missing here! And it tasted good too. Not bursting with flavour, but nice on the palate with the subtle blend of textures – particularly of the ham and artichokes. I wouldn’t mind a little more tomato and mozzarella, to be honest, but it was fine as it was too. This Capricciosa reminded me of Round Table Pizza’s (Dubai) Alfredo Contempo pizza (topping description: alfredo sauce, freshly roasted chicken, turkey ham, roasted onions, spinach, artichoke hearts, three cheeses and shredded parmesan). Of course, the latter had a lot more going on, but the ham-artichoke combo on this one sort of rang a bell.

Rather unfortunately – as I just learnt while Googling the Alfredo Contempo topping, Round Table Pizza has apparently shut down completely in Dubai this year (http://gulfnews.com/business/sectors/retail/round-table-pizza-in-dubai-has-shut-down-1.2090387 – for those of you who might know of it). Which is very sad news because, truth be told, they did some seriously good pizza! And their garlic twist, with the accompanying garlic dip, was absolutely fabulous. So many good (and mouth-watering) memories. Ah well, all good things come to an end, they say. And new ones move in to take their place. Let’s see how well Romana will fare as time goes on – more on this next time.

Yummy Rating: 3.5 / 5.0

>> Read Part 01 of The Eat Log’s review on Romana @ https://theeatlog.wordpress.com/2017/11/05/romana-pizza-ristorante-k-zone-ja-ela-part-01/