restaurants in rome

I've found at normally-priced Rome restaurants that pasta primi courses tend to be a tad smaller than U.S. main course portions, and are priced accordingly, 8-10 Euro. If there is pasta involved in a secondi course, it's usually with some seafood or meat, priced higher, and because of the added seafood or meat it's a larger portion overall, but still not huge.

Only order what you feel like, and don't feel bad about it. Our usual order on our trip last month was a shared appetizer, shared insalata (neither of which were very large but fine), we each would order a primi or secondi, shared dessert, shared half-carafe of house wine. Worked well.

Many restaurants allow you to order half-portions of pasta. Secondi usually come without side dishes, which you can order separately.

When my wife and I ate out, we would look ( discreetly) at the other diners there to see what size portions the restaurant served.

Many times we would order one of each and share and leave well fed.

There were times when the portions were more modest and that gave us the opportunity to order a variety and sample from each other.

Always found the restaurants willing to accommodate us.

Enjoy!

We often share an antipasto (often my favorite part of the meal) and then each order either a pasta (primo) or a secondo plus contorni (side dishes). Sometimes we share an item for each of the 3 courses. Italian restaurants are very flexible and we have never had an extra charge for splitting an item unlike in the U.S.

If there is pasta involved in a secondi course

I'd be very interested to learn about a roman "Secondo" course (aka the main course) that involves pasta.