u m a m i

Rome III- let's tuck in!

                   

We didn't eat as much pizza as I would have liked; it wasn't because the pizzas were no good, in fact what we had were absolutely yummy, but the stomach couldn't accommodate more. The first pizza I tried was at one of the many casual joints that sells them by the slice, there the quality ranged from stunning (green tomatoes and fresh mozarella) to bleah.

                   

C took me to Pizza Ciro (Via della Mercede, 43/45, T: +39 066786015), she had eaten there before and liked it. From the outside it looked quite ordinary and even a bit like a fast-food place but inside the space is huge and the pizza we shared was very good- see picture above- soft, chewy bread with slightly crisp edges, fresh mozarella, sweet grilled aubergines.

                   

A stone's throw from our B&B is an old-school trattoria which C had managed to eat in every time she visits Rome. Da Sergio is quirky and rustic and though smack in the middle of Campo del Fiori it is popular with the locals.

                  

On my last day I was determined to try tripe, because braised tripe and other dishes made from offal and animal parts make up an important part of the Roman-Jewish cuisine. At Da Sergio I ordered their tripe in tomato sauce. It is typically served as a second course after the antipasto and pasta, but I requested it as an appetiser. It arrived looking innocuous enough, almost like pasta, but upon closer inspection the intestines had been cut into bite-sized wobbly chunks. The texture was chewy but not rubbery, soft and toothsome at the same time, but the tomato sauce, bacon bits and parmesan failed to mask its inherent strong flavours which takes a bit of getting used to. I managed about 5 pieces before giving up.                     

If there is one dish we ate a lot of in Rome, it was pasta. Yes we were aware that they are other dishes in the menu, but well, pasta has its irresistable lure. On our first day we walked into Ditirambo, also within walking distance of Campo del Fiori, and all I could smell was black truffles. Unfortunately my dish of pasta with bolleto mushrooms sprinkled with the grated truffles, in spite of its beautiful perfume, was rather stodgy and bland. C fared better with fresh pasta sheets cooked in a sauce of salted cod, it too looked a mess, but was adequate enough. The rest of our pasta meals were much better, such as linguine tossed with a sauce of baby squids in La Campana, a hearty agnolotti at Piperno and a wickedly rich spaghetti carbonara at da Sergio- all shiny with an eggy, olive-oily, bacony sauce and crowned with a mountain of shaved parmesan.

The best pasta, for me, was the papardelle with a ragout of wild boar meat and duck sausage at Al Bric, tender broad noodles with springy bite tossed with the long simmered meat sauce. If food has the power to move one to tears, this dish would stand a pretty good chance, I was in raptures, absolutely adoring it willing myself to eat each mouthful slowly to draw out the pleasures.

                  

And what better pairing for such a magnificient dish than an equally magnificient wine. The wine list at Al Bric, when it appeared, impressed with its weight and heft. It is almost 3 inches in height and is bound in thick worn red leather, the pages yellowed and feathery. C has a friend who gave her the name of 2 wines she absolutely must have while she was in Rome. We looked in the section for half bottles and the names were not in the page. But I saw a Barolo, surprisingly it was one of the less expensive options at about 32 euros, the price is for half a bottle so it was not exactly a bargain. The sommelier whisked away the wine glasses on the table  and came back with more grown-up looking glasses (deeper rounder bowl, smaller rim). It was only my second time drinking Barolo but it is so easy to love, so full bodied for a single-varietal wine, so smooth and so sophisticated even for such a young wine. Before we knew it, we had drunk up the last drops.

Feeling slightly bereft, and enjoying our happiness with the wine and food, we asked for the wine tome again. This time we ordered another half-bottle of Tignanello 2003 which cost slightly  more than the Barolo but was not quite as seductive, I think it is hard to measure up anyway so we just sat back and enjoyed the wine and our conversation. 

The next day, at Piperno, C saw one of the names and ordered us a half-bottle of Amarone 2004. Drier and more tannic, it more than matched the fried yummies and hearty pastas with its rich raisiny perfumes.

                  

Onto the final course. Desserts. We didn't manage to eat a lot of it. The pastas do occupy a lot of space in the tummy, but at Piperno they lay out all the desserts at the entrance so one can mentally prepare and make appropriate room for the tiny sweet strawberries with ice cream.

                  

Or fruit tarts served on its own. Bitter sweet orange marmaladey tart with tender pastry and the other a cherry filling with a nuttier crumbly crust. The orange tart won by a small margin but only just. To me, these tarts embody the spirit of the food we enjoyed throughout our holiday- traditional, unpretentious food with bold yet comforting flavours using simple, quality, local ingredients. It's food that is good enough that they don't need, or have, many 'ethnic' restaurants. It is also seemingly so facile that there are Italian restaurants all over the world, just that after this, for better or for worse, I know better.

Rome II- the appetite whetters

                   

When I typed in the post title I was also thinking of "Rome" the TV miniseries. C, who doesn't have a TV in her London flat, had brought it over and we spent the weekend watching the first season, as a sort of prelude to our trip. It's a HBO/BBC production therefore has both glamour, flash and solid acting, and of course a sumptuous line up of male characters; my top three favourites are "woah, yummy" Lucius Vorenus, passionate and oh-so-manly Titus Pullo and of course the powerful Julius Caesar.

The second season is available in the shops but I am happy to wait for a while. Because now I have figured out (better late than never) that French TV prime time starts from 8.40 pm and in the two hours that follow there is usually something watchable on telly. Tuesday nights poses a big problem: would it be Brothers and Sisters or War and Peace? The former I had been following against my better judgement because the combination of three attention-seeking divas (Sally Field, Calista Flockhart and Rachel Griffiths) irks me but Rob Lowe is in it though not as often as I would like. War and Peace, or Guerre et Paix as it is known here, is a major European production- 6 countries involved in the production including France of course, filmed in St Petersburg plus various beautiful locations. Natasha is played by very up-and-coming French actress Clémence Poésy. They'll show it on local TV in four weekly installment. I had actually watched my first episode in Rome, it was subtitled in Italian but I could figure some words out and the plot develops quite fluidly, so for this week we're OK, but how about next week? I could watch War and Peace and follow the repeat of Brothers and Sisters on Sundays but sometimes they transmit the Sunday version in French which is a bit of a pain. Decisions decisions.

That's the problem with too many choices. When we saw the antipasto spread at La Campana (Vicolo della Campana, 18 T: 06 686 7820) C and I decided we were going to share a plate, and I was tasked to do the selection. In my younger days I would have tried to pile my plate high but now I am a bit more self-conscious, boy it was difficult to choose, everything looked and smelled so appetizing and tasted mamma-mia delicious. Grilled okras,  spiky green cauliflower, aubergines, peppers, sardines, runny omelets, all bathed in herbs and olive oil yet each item held their own interest and no two tastes were alike. My friends, if you are ever in the same situation don't go all prissy like me, just abandon yourself and fill the plate to the brim.

                   

For this trip I was in charge of food and shopping. C for the sight-seeing. Food was easy for me, I asked the legendary Chaxiubao for advice and he came through with a list. From the list I made reservations for four meals and e-mailed C with the news who was mighty impressed. The second night we went to Al Bric (Via Del Pellegrino, 51 T:06 6879533). This was an intimate and secluded place, the signboard is hardly visible and from the outside it looks like a dusty wine shop. The food was impeccable, the wines most excellent and I'll elaborate more on what we eat in later posts. Here it suffices to say that I enjoyed my appetiser of three items. A croquette of salmon and potatoes, fresh tasting and expertly fried. A mille-feuille of hand cooked potato chops with special bacon. Polenta cakes with a film of something white, most likely lard as C suggested, and topped with a pesto of spicy green peppers and lemon zest, unexpected combination that excited the palate.

                   

Piperno was another winning recommendation. By the third day we have figured out the style of Italian cooking in Rome is actually quite rustic and heavily influenced by Jewish cuisine, the guide book even called it Roman-Jewish. I am sure Rome has its share of nouvelle fashion restaurants with dainty presentation and elegant plating but what we ate were mostly of the old fashioned basics which are satisfying but may not win any points on presentation. And none came more old-school than Piperno. Located deep inside the Jewish quartier, it was not easy to find without a map and the external experience belies the fact that once we push through the door, inside is a world of gentlemanly waiters in waistcoats and white aprons, glittering chandeliers, lush paintings, thick linens everywhere and where Italian old-moneyed families hang out especially on the Sunday afternoon that we visited. Very atmospheric, definitely.

                   

Their specialty is, as chaxiubao noted, fried (fritto) foods. C and I ordered the vegetable version because she was intent on eating artichokes and me on zucchini blossoms. The artichokes were absolutely delicious, now that artichokes are everywhere I wished I ate more of it that day. The fried balls looked alike, but they are not the same, one had rice and the other had potatoes. Everything was delicious, the batter bound the ingredients loosely and lightly and the frying was so expertly done you'd think they didn't use oil.

Antipastos are meant to be delicious little morsels to excite the palate for the meal proper but which in themselves make great meals. Do you think the Italians have a separate stomach for antipastos? I think they do, their digestive system must surely have evolved to that level.

                   

Rome I

                        

Everyone told me I had to visit the Trevi Fountain, throw a coin inside and make a wish that I will return to this city. C was sceptical, she's never done the coin thing and look at her, she's back on her third trip. Still, ever indulgent, she put up with my curiosity and wonder at being in Italy for the very first time in my life; and wouldn't you know it, on the day of our visit, someone decided to turn the water red. I scrambled up an elevated step to take a picture like all the other tourists.

                      

Now that I have some time to settle down and look at the pictures of the brief trip, my best food memory of Italy is of how far the Italians take simple ingredients like flour, oil and salt. Take this bakery item, before it was shattered into pieces it was a large round disc called Croccantella, looking very much like a giant poppadom. It is very crispy, and seasoned lavishly with extra virgin olive oil and salt. We picked greedily at the most oily and salty pieces; two days later when I was too full to have dinner I picked up the bag to nibble on the less loved bits and to my surprise found that it was still as crisp and crunchy as the day we bought it.

                      

Our bed & breakfast Casa Banzo was a palazzo built way back in the mid 18th century. The public areas retain a faded grandeur especially in the receiving hall and dining room, the blue walls outside and within the courtyard change their tone with the shadows and sun, very picturesque. Our ground floor courtyard room was quiet, spacious and clean, tastefully decorated with a mix of old (lace/antique fabric-lined wardrobe) and new (Ik*a clock). The location smack in the Campo de'Fiori area may be touristy but very convenient for sightseeing, best of all the price was a reasonable 140 euros per night. The only downside, for me that is, was the water system, the hot and cold taps were not always cooperative.

Rome is not a cheap city to visit, sure it is cheaper than Paris but not by very much. About the only thing which seemed to cost little is olive oil, which was drizzled generously over the fried egg I requested for my breakfast. Not as dramatically perfumed as the oils I like to buy back in Paris, but just as fruity and more often than not, so fresh it is closer to a drink than an oil. At breakfast the owners dole out butter by the mini packs, which earned a few raised eyebrows but later I realised that butter is quite a rare commodity. Bakery items are made with olive oil more often than not, their fruity and aromatic flavours pairing beautifully with apples, fruits, almonds, pinenuts and the all the other mainstays of Italian sweets.

                     

Like this cake cut from a pan, it looks very rustic, a far cry from the pretty-pretty confections that is the standard in Paris. The taste, a sweet and subtle blend of chestnuts, honey and olive oil. C called it the Italian mooncake, I quite agreed. Back in Paris, we're using our olive oils with impunity, loads of it with a squeeze of lemon juice and a sprinkle of sea salt make happy reminders of the all too brief holiday.

What else did we enjoy eating? It'll have to wait until the next post, until then, have a good weekend.