Roma Restaurant — Restaurant in Sunderland

Searched around Sunderland for a good Italian which is where reviews come in, settled on 2 venues which received positive reviews so we tried to book, and after a couple of calls, found Roma who could easily accommodate our party of 4,only thing is the place closes at 8.30 so get yourself booked in early enough as they probably stop cooking at a certain time,.anyway shown to our table where the staff member gave us our menus, there was loads to choose from, with a varied range of starters and mains which were laid out on the menu to choose from, took me ages to eventually choose a starter and main, the poor staff member had to comeback twice lol, anyway I settled on some tomato and basil soup for starters and a pizza for mains, and we also got some chunky chips to share as sides the soup came out after about 10mins and my goodness it was a massive bowlful,.with some crusty bread to accompany it, it was absolutely delicious.and very very filling, hence when my main arrived I could only eat half, as I was stuffed, however the staff member suggested I could take the remaining pizza away in a box so I did just that, we also had another family member who also couldn’t eat all their mains and they as well took their remaining food home as takeaway, so nothing was left, it was no hassle for the staff who were only to happy to deal with the request, absolutely loved the food in general, with 4 meals starters and mains coming to around 107pound... really not bad at all considering the portions and the fact you can take your excess home,.would definitely recommend to anyone who wants a nice filling Italian meal, no complaints at all, well done Roma, one of the best restaurants I've...

The food is only ok (although cook can defo prep scallops well- if willing to pay high price). Been going before theatre shows recently. By ok I mean tastes home made but not varied tastes across your dishes of choice. DONT GET PATE STARTER - very overpriced-it's jam with a small teaspoon of admittedly decent pate on a small tangerine half (not hollowed out : just smoothed across top of fruit to barely cover it).. if it was 3 quit fair enough BUT ITS NOT. Chicken dishes all been fairly dry as meat overcooked - don't expect juicy ... in fact all meats are dry- meatballs are really hard. BUT what makes this place defo 'just ok' is the over use of garlic in everything.... if it says a touch on menu beware as its more overpowering than a touch... Best ask each time for them to go easy if you want to taste something else on plate... it doest have subtle fresh garlic appearance or flavour ... may be dried or sqeezed from concentrate tube... as so strong and hard on aftertaste. This is a chain I think as other towns have had same experience - formula recipes perhaps who knows.. service excellent btw ... its always fully booked so if you want pizza it's a winner. . they know their pizzas and no...

I'm afraid to say this little restaurant let us down. The food was okay but not great but the wait time was what let us down most. I think they might have forgotten about us but if they did they didn't say so. There were at least 4 other tables that came in after us and had starters , mains and 1 had dessert and they were all done before we were served our main which was the only course we had as we arrived at 6:15pm and had to be at the theatre for 7:30pm. Our mains arrived at 7:05 after asking staff at 6:45pm if they could chase it up for us. The big positive for this restaurant was the atmosphere and to be fair the price was really reasonable so in conclusion if you are looking for reasonably priced food that's alright and you want to make a night of it then this place may be a good choice. If we were forgotten about it would have been nice for someone just to say so, then we would understand and probably not have...