Eur China - Menu

"Review of EUR Cina Restaurant, Viale America, EUR, Rome New to the city or not, the EUR Cina Restaurant comes highly recommended for good value dishes, friendly service and a comfortable place to share a meal with family and/or friends. Looking back, we’ve been to the restaurant many times over the years and, typically, when sharing with others given the convenience of everyone getting there easily. Whether you’re travelling by car or Metro (EUR Palasport Linea B this is an easy place to find, always open for an early evening meal and, once inside, it’s quiet and easy to talk across the table. Over the years we have come to appreciate the reliability of everything – table, menu, costs, parking space, etc. Try doing that in Trastevere or in the Centro Storico! There’s also the pleasure of re acquainting yourself with the novelty of EUR – celebrating the Esposizione Universale Roma. A glimpse of Ancient Rome courtesy of the early fascisti governments of almost 100 years ago who first proposed the idea. Celebrating the facsimile images of the ancient structures – Il Colosseo, Il Vaticano, Il Pantheon, etc. amongst a collection of neo classical architectural design features in other buildings/street images. They invoke the heritage of the original Roman Empire through to the demise of the Western Empire in the 5th C. CE. The fascisti, of course, failed to complete their grand schemes and it wasn’t until the late 1950s that the EUR quartiere was finished. So, the main commercial/office buildings date from the 1960s. What was obvious in 2023 was the considerable makeover underway to recycle/redevelop the original high rise structures to take account of the >60 years that have passed and, equally, the modern working routines that have changed traditional city centres forever change that has been exacerbated by the Covid 19 pandemic that showed the potential for working electronically at a distance. The EUR Cina Restaurant is at the edge of the EUR commercial centre – overlooking the parklands where the lakes were excavated for the 1960s Olympic Games. Rising into the sky behind the restaurant this year were the skeleton structures representing the original high rise buildings fenced off from the streets with promotional boards illustrating what the makeover building was expected to look like when completed. In a word this is the ‘multi purpose’ future of modern urban centres with focus upon ‘re use’, ‘recycling’, circular economy’, ‘minimum/nil waste’, CO2 neutral, etc. that will boost the use of resources. (Well, in several ‘words’ then. Check out the earlier reviews of the EUR Cina – two pre Covid 19 and the other from 2022. Findings this year are much like those from earlier and re emphasizes the pleasure of the familiar foods, service people (same people – you can easily recognise them , over flowing pavement seats/tables, cars parked front on to the pavement with people walking past, coloured night lights and the effervescent atmosphere of the place. The restaurant provides for the takeaway trade too, with all the inconvenience, unthinking, selfishness, etc. approach to parking that leads to double/triple parking outside. Every 20 minutes or so there’s a driver on his/her horn blasting the diners outside before the offending driver comes running out with his/her cynical/half hearted apologies to move the car. ‘Why couldn’t you exercise some patience’ you can see him/her saying to himself/herself. Would they if the situation was reversed? It was Wednesday evening, and the place was close to empty when we met our long time friends for 18.30 h. A couple of hours later when we were leaving the place was about half full. Inside seated by the window in the smaller of the two dining rooms we had enjoyed the comfort of air/con with the fish in the tank behind lazily circulating – I hasten to add, these were decorative fish. Routines? Of course. Always. With personal choices of meats, veggies and fish mains, and a handful of antipasti to start the meal – veggie spring rolls and fish patties, for example. We had not enjoyed a meal there for almost a year and, following previous routines, shared contrasting dishes complementing the one to the other – meats, fish vegetables – for the opportunity for everyone to taste the different foods. For antipasti we shared veggie spring rolls and fish patties. Long term favourites/mains included duck/orange, chicken/potatoes, gamberetti/vegetables/spicy sauce, vermicelli/carne, cooked/greens and the one contorno riso Cantonese. For drinks we typically chose popular Italian beer acqua frizzante. We did much the same this time too. And, just to re emphasize the pleasure of eating at EUR Cina, we returned three weeks later with another couple of friends for much the same enjoyable experience. Did I say that the food/drinks are good value. We paid E15/each – total E60 for the meal/drinks. Oh, and one difference noted this year. Across the parklands/lakes in front of the EUR Cina and on the slopes leading up to the Palazzo dello Sport a ‘kidult’ theme park has opened. ‘This is Wonderland: Una favola dal vivo’. Bright coloured lights dominated the evening sky, and we could hear music … as we left the restaurant. Peter Steele 12Dec23"