I love history and one of my favourite ancient civilizations is the Romans. They were a practical civilization, building amazing architectural works such as the aqueducts, networks of roads and concrete buildings including huge entertainment centers like the Colosseum and Circus Maximus. Without the Romans, we wouldn't even have indoor plumbing or long lasting arch bridges.
Vatican City
Since we got to Rome late at night, we decided to stay near the hostel and explore the area around Vatican City. We walked by Borgio Pio and noticed that there were a lot of restaurants with servers standing outside shouting and advertising their menus. At this point, we were starving, so we sat down at the nearest restaurant to grab a full four-course Italian meal with the antipasti, primo, secondo and dolce. It seemed like a good deal for 20 €
Antipasti: Insalata and samabucca
The salad was just washed and still watery. Meanwhile, the pork appetizer with bacon was drenched in salt and oil.
Primo: Spaghetti arrabiata
Directly translated, arrabiata means angry in Italian which refers to the spiciness of the sauce from chilli peppers. The arrabiata sauce wasn't that great in this dish.
Primo: Tortellini in panna sauce
The alfredo sauce was creamy and heavy and the tortellini were okay.
Secondo: Pork Medallions
Contorno: Fries
Lovely portion of fries right? This is what happens when you wander around desperate for food and stumble upon a tourist trap in Rome.
I forgot to take a picture of the Dolce (and I forgot what I ordered) either way it wasn't memorable.
After the failure of dinner in Rome on our first day, we were hoping for a better meal the next day.
We started off our day at the Colosseum.
As we were walking to the Metro Station on Via Camillo Benso Conte di Cavour, we picked up a treat at a Gelato shop and lunch at a Sandwich shop:
Crema and Tiramisu Gelato
Crema (cream) is a popular flavour in Italy, so I decided to give it a shot. The crema had a subtle flavour and you could tell that it was richer than a normal gelato. The tiramisu gelato at the shop wasn't that great.
Since Italy was super hot (30°C to 40°C) during the summer, we had a LOT of gelato everywhere. It's a fantastic cool treat especially in the hot and dry weather since we were spending our days tirelessly exploring. My favourite motivational phrase was "Great, we've seen <insert famous Italian sight/attraction>, I think we deserve a gelato break".
The restaurant was quite busy selling Porchetta, Pizza and other grab and go items.
Porchetta Sandwiches
Amazing! The porchetta sandwich was simple: cheese, fresh tomato, mayonnaise and the crispy porchetta.
The rosemary and garlic also added a fragrant touch to the meat. The bread was toasted as well - delicious!
After lunch, we headed to Piazza Navona,
Tre Scalini
While exploring Piazza Navona, we caught sight of a sign indicating that Tre Scalini is the home of the original Truffle (Tartofu). Of course, we had to grab a treat there:
Delicious chocolate ice cream with whipped cream and a wafer. It was chocolatey goodness.
Next, Trevi Fountain!
After fighting the huge crowds at Trevi Fountain for the best picture, we were super tired and hungry.
We originally had a list of recommended restaurants from travel guides, friends, acquaintances, etc.
We went to about 3 of them - only to find out that the restaurants were closed for the month of August!
So we were reduced to eating at another tourist trap for dinner:
Top: Cannelloni and Meat lasagna
Two words: Very Cheesy
There was so much cheese in both these dishes that they should have been called Cheese cannelloni and cheese lasagna with meat sauce. It was okay.
We finished the day at the Spanish Steps (Scalinata della Trinità dei Monti)
The next morning we started out bright and early with breakfast at a little cafe on Via Ottaviano right next to Piazza del Risorgimento. Two espressos and croissants.
Inside Vatican City
Paradiso Pizzestre Di De Maio Fabio
After the Vatican, we went back to Piazza del Risorgimento and saw a huge line up for Pizza.
We joined in the line and grabbed some pizza al trancio:
Top: Sundried tomato pizza and Bottom: Shrimp and Artichoke
€8.50 for both
Top: Tomato and mushroom and Bottom: Eggplant and chicken
Really delicious! When we ordered, they immediately threw the slices of pizza into the wood-fire oven.
So the crust was perfect: crisp on the outside from the oven, but the juices from the toppings soaked into the crust making it moist and tasty. My favourites were the shrimp and artichoke and the tomato and mushroom pizzas and they were such a bargain too!
Suppli
Suppli is a rice ball with tomato sauce, egg and mozzarella inside and it's crunchy outside from being deep fried. We thought it looked really good and it was only €1 so we gave it a try. It was good!
Sabatini
Website: http://www.ristorantisabatini.com/
After extensive research using the Hostel's wifi, we found one of the recommended restaurants had a website and it was open in August! (Eureka!) So we headed over to Piazza di Santa Maria in Trastevere:
Oxtail Osso Buco and Abbacchio allo spiedo
I was super excited to eat Osso Buco in Italy (since it originated in Italy). However, I was a little let down: the meat was not as tender as I would have hoped and I was actually disappointed with the bone marrow because the inside was still rock-solid and I couldn't dig my fork into the marrow to eat it. I was expecting ossobuco like Il Fornaro.
The lamb was good though.
Dolce!
The far cake slice is a creme pistache (Pistachio Cream on Raspberry tart) and a Tiramisu.
The pistachio cream was spoonfuls of delight! SO GOOD! It was perfectly offset by the tart raspberry cake portion and together they created dessert heaven!
The Tiramisu at Sabatini ristorante was the best we had in Italy (still not comparable to Paese though)
Up close with the cake - you can see the yumminess!
Giolitti
What better way to end off our Roman adventure than with gelato from one of the "oldest and best" Gelato Cafes:
Pesca (peach) and Pera (pear)
The pear was refreshing; it was an intense and true recreation of the fruit flavour. However, I kept comparing it to my previous experience with Hollywood Gelato's pear flavour in Toronto and I found that I liked Hollywood Gelato's pear much better because it was sweeter and creamier than Giolitti's.
The pesca was okay, but the pear was definitely the better of the combination.
Chocolate and Pistachio
The pistachio was delicious! Creamy melt-in-your-mouth (and hand) goodness. We weren't particularly wow-ed by the chocolate though.
Conclusion: I've had a lot of my friends who've been to Rome tell me that some of the most amazing food was found here. And we did try to find the restaurants recommended by friends, food critics, and fellow hostelers - however, a lot of the restaurants were closed because August is the month most Italians take off to go travel around Italy. Therefore, what was left behind was the Tourist Traps! So we got stuck eating terrible over-pricey food in Rome on our trip and we were very disappointed.
Therefore, a word of caution: Don't go to Italy in August! The food's not that great, it's boiling hot and the tourist crowds are unbearable.
No comments:
Post a Comment