RESTAURANT REVIEW : Here’s a Place That’s Worth Talking About

My hairdresser, herself an expert at conversation, told me about the Talking Room. “It’s small, simple,” she said. “And you can really talk there.”

She was right. People do talk in the Talking Room. There are a lot of movie houses around and when the films let out, the place really fills up. At one table, there’s an older couple acting very much in love; at another, there’s a cluster of five Art Center students all dressed in black and drenched in hair gel. Against the wall, there’s a single woman drinking tea and eating toast. Otherwise, there are many movie dates. The espresso machine hisses nonstop and the music plays at the perfect volume--one that simultaneously allows conversation and provides cover so one’s talking does not spread.

The first time I visited the Talking Room was after the twilight matinee at Pasadena’s new AMC 8. Two of us wanted a place to relax and warm up. The room is long, narrow and yellow. In an attempt, I believe, to impart a patina of age, the deep-yellow walls have been sponged with white paint; the result could only be called a faux-faux finish. The landscape paintings hung on the walls hark back to the evocative California plein-air school, only these are wrought in fluorescent and pastel hues. There is dark wood wainscoting and craftsman-style wooden cabinets with built-in padded benches where people presumably could perch and talk, but the majority of customers go for the little wooden cafe tables and chairs.

Seated at one of these tables on my first visit, I ate minestrone. It had a hearty broth and was filled mostly with white beans. My friend had a bowl of good, winey onion soup.

Hot soup, hot bread, good sweet butter, good conversation--the Talking Room left a good taste in my mouth.

A few days later, when a friend asked me to dinner on the spur of the moment, we ended up at the Talking Room and had pizza, salad and pasta.

A dinner salad was fresh, pretty and well-dressed and the Caesar was a standard, acceptable version. The pizza toppings were good enough--I’ve tried both the combo with goat cheese and Kalamata olives and the Italian sausage with mushrooms and mozzarella--but the spongy, bready, too-thick crust needs some work.

The pizza dough is also used to make big, buttery discs of focaccia for sandwiches, a use for which the dough is only slightly more suited. But I later found that I especially liked the Talking Room’s smoked turkey sandwich with tomatoes, cheese and watercress.

A plate of angel hair pasta with bay scallops and Roma tomatoes was ample and delicious; spinach fettuccine had tender pieces of well-seasoned chicken in a pleasantly bland light cream sauce. On one visit, I really wanted a meatless angel hair dish and asked if the fettuccine with peppers and tomatoes could be made with angel hair instead. Absolutely not.

Still, the service here is young, good-natured and good-looking, however inexperienced. One young waiter couldn’t believe I’d ordered plain steamed milk. He’d never heard of such a thing, he wasn’t sure it could be made--but sure, he’d ask the owner if it would be possible.

The coffee is decent, desserts are the usual, overwrought restaurant cheesecakes and bundt-style coffee cakes found in many a pie case. And the steamed milk was just fine.

The Talking Room, 58 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, (818) 449-9390. Open seven days for breakfast, lunch and dinner. No alcohol. Neighborhood parking. MasterCard and Visa accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $13 to $39.