Karthik Shetty of the blog Gastronomical G-Spot invited us to be his guests for the food review column that he regularly does for the Bangalore Mirror (click on page 28). The point of rendezvous was Pizzeria Romano in Koramangala. I looked up Pizzeria Romano on the net and it turns out to be a new joint that specializes in Italian cuisine albeit vegetarian. Now this would be interesting; as I told Karthik, the thought of Italian and vegetarian doesn't really go together but then it would be an experience to see how they pull off their act.

Since we ordered a huge variety of dishes, I will make this a picto-review. And so here goes.

For starters we ordered the garlic bread (top) and Bruschetta (below). The garlic bread was average. The Bruschetta, as is common with most Italian veggie places used regular and not cherry tomatoes and did not have the hint of olive oil and basil that it is supposed to. Moreover it was drowned in shredded parmesan, completely drowning out all taste

For the drinks, Sudhakar went in for the ice tea (below), and it was just another one of the many ice teas around.

The photographer who accompanied Karthik had a green apple drink, Splendidoand his verdict was that it was enjoyable.

I had a Virgin Pina Colada (foreground) and Karthik another drink Nice n Naughty, a litchi drink which he said was really nice. My drink was filled with a lot of crushed ice which ended up diluting the drink in a while. Nevertheless, I did like it.

Now for the main reason that we were here - pizzas. Pizzeria Romano specializes in wood-fire pizzas and what better way to test the place that to order the classic Margherita (below). And no complaints here, it was tasty right down to the last cheesy bite.

Karthik selected a shitake mushroom pizza (below) which was also very nice, with the mushrooms being generous in number. But my personal opinion with any basic mushroom or tomato sauce is that if there aren't multiple elements used to spice things up, you tend to get bored with what you are eating no matter how great the taste. So while the shitake mushroom was really nice... one slice is the max for me

The veggie supreme pizza with Thousand Island dressing was hands down the best pizza of them all. Each morsel you put in your mouth had a new combination of flavors thanks to the multitude of veggies packed into it.

We thought Anoushka would like a pasta and therefore opted for the penne with arrabiata sauce, except we asked for the penne to be replaced with spaghetti. Now this was one spicy pasta thanks to the chilli flakes. It was Indian-Italian at its best, it was really really nice.

The Pizzeria Romano Special pizza was really nice and spot on. The toppings were generous and taste and feel, that of an Italian pizza

Now for desserts - Sudhakar ordered the Portuguese rice pudding (below), which in one bite, he passed verdict as being rice payasam with a piping of cream and sprinkling of nuts.

Another dessert ordered was chocolate mousse - creamy, nice and chocolaty without being an overkill.

And we also took the pizza deal a step further and ordered the banana dessert pizza, which was a thin crispy pizza base, dollops of caramelized sugar and slices of banana cooked in sugar syrup. Yummmmmyyyy!!!

Overall, the place is great for pizzas simply because they do live up to being as good as their non-vegetarian counterparts. But I would still have loved it if the place was non-vegetarian (call it a bias or whatever. Pizzeria Romana is reasonable with all of this coming to roughly Rs 1800. A small case of confused identity - with the decor being contemporary, the staff being largely north-eastern (again, no issues, just an observation) and the music classic rock. Restrooms are clean with the ladies loo actually having glass tiles... A nice place and definitely a one up on places like Little Italy. Parking can be an issue since they don't have an exclusive parking area. Pizzeria Romano is located right above Sprocket in Koramangala, 6th Block. Park in the first available spot you see on the road. There are plans to introduce a non-veggie section and you can be sure that I will be there again.