Providence Adventures and Trattoria Zooma Review

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.

This was a seriously delicious bottle of wine!

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... but don’t worry, I shared with Baros because I love him. The meatballs were also very tasty (not Gram's but still really good).

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).

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.

Being so full 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. However, I wasn't as keen on the salted caramel. The flavor was good but it was icy in consistency. The pistachio was definitely creamier and better.

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!

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.

Welcome to the Federal Hill... where pineapples grow?

I love the Italian names on the sidewalk

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.

We sat near one of the memorials for a little while

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!

Providence Adventures: Day II and Trattoria Zooma Review

Adventures in Baking: Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies

Providence Adventures: Day II