When in Roma, Mangia!

To understand chaos theory, stand in the foyer at Roma D’Italia on a Saturday night and watch.

I did that recently, and it left me amazed that the place functions at all. It was bedlam.

People surged to the front to put their names on the waiting list or check (for the third or fourth time) whether their tables were ready. A steady stream of take-out customers flowed in for pizzas. Waiters raced around the jam-packed dining room. From the open kitchen came a loud clatter of pans and plates.

A few minutes of this left me dizzy. So, after getting my party on the waiting list (a vital job here), I ordered a preemptive carafe of wine and joined my friends on the patio. We had to wait more than an hour for a table, even though we’d reserved by phone half an hour before we arrived.

This is nothing out of the ordinary at Roma D’Italia. The heart of Saturday night--and most other nights--in Tustin can be found in this colorful pasta and pizza palace, which has been an unrivaled institution of Italian food in the city’s old downtown strip for 40 years.

The place has all the trappings of a neighborhood red-sauce-and-Chianti joint, with its red-and-white-checkered tablecloths, plastic grapevines and poster art of a toddler with a bowl of spaghetti spilling down his face. Cute. But Roma D’Italia takes what it serves much more seriously, offering an impressive array of creative pasta, chicken, veal and seafood dishes.

The appetizer selections are particularly varied, and they include a number of pastas, smaller portions of standard pasta entrees. To judge by the gnocchi (chewy, served in a smooth, creamy tomato sauce), I can tell you that just the appetizer portion is quite enough for a meal. Order the entree portion at your own risk.

Because my party of four wanted to share our appetizers, we got the large order of calamari fritto. The plate covered nearly half the table and it was piled high with deep-fried calamari in heavy, salty herbed breading. The fresh marinara dipping sauce added a nice sweet flavor to the mix. Shrimp are also served fritto style, and they’re better than the calamari.

Roma D’Italia certainly likes its pasta dishes. The menu lists 28 of them, from basic spaghetti with sausage to pasta amore: penne in a creamy Marsala sauce with mushrooms and prosciutto. The choices vary, but they tend to be hearty dishes with big flavors and little subtlety. The lighter dishes--such as linguine Giovanni, tossed in garlic and oil with fresh spinach--are best. Fusilli with sausage and green peppers suffers from flavor overload, an oppressive dominance of green peppers in the simple tomato sauce. Tortellini Gustavo--a particularly rich dish of chicken-filled tortellini with mushrooms and chunks of chicken in the creamy tomato sauce--is dominated by the flavor of salty chicken stock.

In fact, as we worked through the meal, I started noticing that many of the richer dishes were rather salty. This especially was true of two of the more popular chicken dishes. Chicken d’Italia includes a heady mix of eggplant, ham, sliced tomatoes and provolone, all covered in a thick mushroom sauce. The eggplant and tomatoes add texture and flavor, but adding the ham to an already salty dish is a bit excessive. The same is true of chicken carciofi, a nice chicken breast on a bed of fettuccine covered with creamy white sauce mixed with artichokes--and salty ham.

The seafood dishes mostly avoid the saltiness of the other entrees, the exception being the salmon Alfredo. (Yes, the Alfredo sauce was a bit much, but on the whole, it was compensated for by the tender salmon.) There are 14 seafood selections, including a robust, sloppy cioppino, and choosing can be difficult. If you’re having a hard time, get the mixed seafood platter of clams, mussels, shrimp, calamari and halibut sauteed in a garlic and white wine sauce (it’s practically a soup) and served on linguine. The seafood is wonderfully fresh and the sauce is light, with a hint of garlic and mussel flavors.

Ordinarily, dessert is out of the question after a large, heavy meal, but Roma D’Italia does make a few light ones, such as a tart lemon sorbet served in a lemon skin. The spumoni ice cream cake can also hit the spot without being too filling.

Many Roma D’Italia customers see the place primarily as a take-out pizzeria. By comparison with other places, Roma makes pies that are a bit undersized and expensive: $11.75 for a small Roma special, for example.

Some of the specialty pizzas are definitely worth the price, though. I particularly enjoyed the Calabrese pizza, which features loads of sliced tomatoes plus basil, garlic, Romano cheese and sauce on a crunchy crust.

By the way, this pizza may be rich with tomato flavor, but it’s definitely for garlic lovers. There’s enough garlic on it to ward off a battalion of vampires, not to mention first dates.

Roma D’Italia is moderately priced. Appetizers and salads are $5 to $12. Pasta specials run $9-$11, pizzas $6-$14.75 and entrees $11-$17.

BE THERE

Roma D’Italia, 611 El Camino Real, Tustin. (714) 544-0273. Sunday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-9:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 11 a.m.-10:30 p.m.