Immediately after wrapping up at the RISD we decided to go to lunch. We were starving! It had been a very busy morning full of lots of walking and beautiful views so we decided to head to Federal Hill to get some Italian food.
My bestie, Ang, had given us a killer recommendation (that I can't currently remember) but I hadn't realized it wasn't open for lunch so we revamped our plans spur of the moment and it worked out incredibly well.
We went across the street to a place called Trattoria Zooma. It was incredible. I strongly recommend going there on a Tuesday for lunch.
The food is amazing and the specials are too. They have a lunch special which gets you three courses for 15.95 a person (18.95 if you choose to get a hand made pasta which I strongly recommend) and on Tuesdays they have a half off wine bottle special. It's crazy! And the food really is great.
We ordered a typically $60 bottle of wine for only $30. It was the perfect red for our food. The name is Primo Antico and after googling it, it looks like it's a wine that can only be ordered by the case and usually for restaurants.
We each got an appetizer: an order of meatballs and some eggplant parmigiana. The eggplant parm tasted like home. I immediately flashed back to Gram's eggplant parm. It was so good that I almost didn't want to share... The meatballs were also very tasty (not Gram's but still really good).
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| Our beautiful eggplant! |
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| Hubby with our appetizers! |
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| The meatballs |
After the appetizers we both had lovely pasta dishes to share. We opted for the hand stretched farfalle and the hand stretched papardelle. I'm sad that I missed taking pictures of them making them. In the front window, when we arrived, they were making pasta, but I decided to wait until after eating (we were starving). But by the time we left, they were done for the afternoon so I missed a picture opportunity.
We got the Rigatoni alla Zooma (although we switched out for the hand made farfalle instead) which is housemade spicy sausage, green peas, shallots and garlic pomodoro. We also got the Rigatoni Bolognese (with hand made papardelle instead) which is a traditional housemade bolognese sauce. I really wanted Baros to try some traditional pasta sauce (and I've never made a bolognese before so it's something I wouldn't make at home).
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| Look at those beautiful noodles |
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| Zooma papardelle and delicious wine |
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| Our beautiful farfalle |
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| The master at work! |
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| Our Farfalle sprinkled with parmigiana |
These pastas and sauces were incredible. The fresh pasta was cooked perfectly al dente and was just the right texture and consistency. And the sauces were incredible. The spicy sausage sauce was a little heavier but it was so flavorful. We cleared our plates and were in such a happy full state.
Which kind of made dessert difficult. The menu had a lot of beautiful options for dessert but we were so full that we opted for the gelato as it was the lightest option. Baros got pistachio and I got the salted caramel. His pistachio was rich and creamy and a beautiful pistachio flavor. I wasn't keen on the salted caramel. The flavor was good but it was icy in consistency. But it's the only negative of everything we ate.
I really enjoyed Trattoria Zooma as it had beautiful, delicious food, wonderful quiet ambience (at least on this lunch hour), great lunch and Tuesday special and an incredibly friendly and patient wait staff. Our waitress was wonderful and helped us make the best decisions for our meal. I definitely recommend going there!
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| The bar area |
After lunch we were so full that we had to take another walk. We walked around the federal hill district admiring the shop windows and random pineapples floating around.
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| Follow the Italian Pride |
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| Walking out of a story book! |
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| I'm so entertained by these |
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| A giant chicken in our midst |
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| Welcome to the Federal Hill... where pineapples grow? |
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| Pineapple love! |
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| I love the Italian Names on the sidewalk |
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| We're really cute |
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| And... more pineapples |
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| Welcome to Italy |
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| A lovely fountain |
Eventually we meandered our way down the hill and found the state building! It was gorgeous. We spent a little while taking pictures and just relaxing. If we go back, we'll plan to go back earlier in the day and take one of the tours inside.
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| Stunning from afar |
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| loved the gorgeous architecture. |
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| We sat near one of the memorials for a little while. |
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| We even caught a rally of sorts |
As it started to cool down for the evening, we wandered to the mall to warm up and then grabbed some drinks on the way home. We were so full from lunch that we couldn't even eat dinner! It was crazy!
And then the next morning we headed to Boston for some more adventure!
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