Antico Caffè Castellino

We ended up in Piazza Venezia after making our way through the Colosseum, Roman Forum, Capitoline Museums, and Altar of the Fatherland in the morning. With all the walking we’ve done, it was time for us to refuel. Next door was quite busy so we took a chance on Antico Caffè Castellino. It had a pretty good crowd which led us to believe that there might be something tasty on the menu.
There really wasn’t much to write about as reflected by my overall rating. I’m easy to please, but at least give me something to be happy about. The Shrimp Pasta, which contained mini-​shrimps, was bland and watery. The Pasta Carbonara was weak, but my younger daughter found a way to remedy the situation by waving her magic wand; or should I say, her magic parmesan cheese! The pasta on both dishes were straddling the line between al dente and undercooked — more like it remained on the molto al dente stage. My older daughter had the best meal that time as her Boscaiola Pizza (sausage and mushroom) hit the mark… well, almost. They somehow found a way to mess this up by overly burning most of its edges. In fairness, the ingredients — sausage, mushroom, mozzarella, and tomato sauce — had good, well-​blended flavor and the crust had a nice crispness. Burnt edges are actually expected, but this one just had way too much.
Our experience was not satisfactory as we probably expected a little bit more. The Boscaiola Pizza would have been the saving grace, but the charred crust somehow left a bitter taste in our mouths, both literally and figuratively…

I sometimes struggle with the star ratings, especially when I am trying to be fair. In this case I think this is pretty accurate when you take everything into account.
Pros: Good location, free bathroom (kinda nasty my daughters tell me, but still…), fresh-​made crepes (didn’t try one but they looked good), and a tobacco/​shoppette.
Cons: food. Well it isn’t horrible, in fact my carbonara was not really too bad at all. The pizzas were very generic and rather flavorless.
Prices were a bit high: € 10 for a margurita pizza (no basil) and € 4 for 1 L of water. So I spent probably an additional € 5 over a better place, but we were hungry and the restaurant we wanted to go to was closed so we ducked into this one. It kept us going so no dining experience but no illnesses either.

After hours of running around Rome, doing the tourist thing, I was famished. We chose a nearby café that looked busy, you think that would mean it’s half decent. We were in a touristy part of town so we knew not to expect much. We sat out at a sidewalk table to people watch. The bathroom inside was difficult to get into, even my husband had a hard time figuring out the door. There are 2 separate private toilets, I thought I had used the gross one, water on the floor and dirty, but my husband said he used the other and it was worse. The restaurant itself was clean.
I thought our waiter was rude, I think he was attempting to be funny, but came off as an inpatient, smartass. He was slow to service as well.
All we ordered was a large pizza with prosciutto and some drinks. It was pricey and the pizza was one of the worst I’ve ever had. Think cardboardy crust covered with flavorless toppings. My husband thought it was okay and ate most of it, but if he’s hungry he doesn’t really taste his food.
I couldn’t wait to leave. The only overall bad food experience I had in Rome.