Hungry Yet?

This array of pictures speaks for itself. My cousin told me I should blog about pasta. I will keep it short and say that with pasta it is hard to go wrong in Rome. Homemade pasta and sauces of all different kinds...bolognese, pomodoro, cacio e pepe, pesto, amatriciana, carbonara...just to name a few favs. The point is, I'm sure these pictures will get your mouth watering, they require no explanation, they are simply... delicious. 

  

The only prerequisite to eating pasta:  it is not ready to eat until you POUR parmesan on top!

Splendide Royal 

Maceroni, pantheon

Ciampini, near villa borghese

Tierra di Siena, piazza navona

Antico Arco

 

 

Navona Notte, Piazza Navona

 

Alla Rampa, piazza mignanelli 

The Unexpected

As a rule in Rome: the places that are the least fancy...sometimes this can border on shady looking...aka. the places where you won't hear a word of English, are as a rule the best. I have eaten numerous meals where the chef in the kitchen was yelling at customers or customers flocked to the open kitchen to tell chefs what they needed (making the role of waiter obsolete)... piu' formaggio, acqua, pane, il conto...all of the small accoutrements that go along with a meal.

Oh, and one more thing, never underestimate the two euro pizza or panini, from just about any hole-in-the-wall on just about any roman street....especially not from the small kebab joints where they slice a flat pizza wherever you tell them to cut, weigh it, warm it, and fold it in half for an easily portable delicious lunch.

From a small fresh deli on the corner off of lungotevere across from castel d'san angelo

As I sat and ate my meal (of only daily fresh homemade pastas) I watched the commotion in the Trattoria Augustus kitchen unfold as they attempted to feed the last lunchtime stragglers before closing until dinner. Never underestimate what a little family home cooking production can produce. 

The Holy Grail of Roman Food

My apologies for the extreme delay in posting and thoroughly beginning this blog...Italy may be known for its delicious food, but it is certainly not known for its supreme internet (which I have been without for two weeks), a vacation in Israel (of which you will see a variety of different foods displayed) also contributed to the delay...needless to say let me recommence "talking with my mouth full." If the purpose of this blog is to share a common affinity for a mouthwatering delicious meal and document one part of my experience here in Rome then please allow me to share with you some images from our "holy grail of roman food." 

I will say this, if you come to Rome after reading this and do not eat at Tritone, Via dei Maroniti 1, I have absolutely failed communicating my greatest meals to you. This is hands down our favorite go-to splurge on a huge feast or have a simple bowl of the most amazing, perfectly al dente spaghetti pomodoro place. My roommate and I do not discriminate the nights we reserve for Tritone, in fact, we have been known to do a dinner, followed by a lunch next day, or dinner two nights in a row, or any combination of the above...we simply cannot get enough and hopefully some pictures will demonstrate why. 

This trattoria has become our home cooked meal in Rome. Right around the corner from our house, it's the place we run to when we crave not only good food but an enivornment where the warmest people serve you all of whom we now know very well.  Having a place like this where the waiters and manager are all familiar, has in a lot of ways, shaped our time abroad and I think that this restaurant, like the friends and the people we have met in Italy will be one of the factors that draws us back to Rome time and time again. 

GET THE: ANTIPASTI ROMANI, SPAGHETTI POMODORO, PUMPKIN RAVIOLI WITH BLACK TRUFFLES (WHEN IN SEASON), CARCIOFI ROMANI, AND THE TIRAMISU TO TOP IT ALL OFF. 

Pizza, Pizza, Pizza

Let's face it, this is clearly the easiest way for me to get your mouths watering over a bit of old school Italian cuisine. Pastas come in all different shapes, sizes, sauces, but beginning with pizzas (of which I have apparently eaten many more than have photographed) let's us keep things nice and simple. In Rome there is really only one way to have a pizza, it isn't a quick slice of New York City style Ray's  nor is it deep dish as my Chicago roommate might add, it's always thin, always an individual "pie" and NEVER cut...that part is left to the ingenuity of the eater. There are a billion different toppings to add to your own pizza, I tend to keep it simple. Here are some photos of some of the best pizzas I have had so far in Rome (I still have quite a few more places I know I have to try), so stay tuned! 

Serafini, Via della Pace, Piazza Navona (served melting hot on a traditional wooden plate)

Pizzeria San Marco, Via Tacito 29 (with thinly sliced eggplant) 

Pizza and Pasta fagioli

beginning

Let me begin this blog with a quote from one of the foodies of all foodies and chef of all chefs, Julia Child, who once said, “life itself is the proper binge.” An appropriate way to begin a blog that will trace the meals I eat and love throughout my time in Rome, with a few innovative interruptions from other places in my travels. I  won’t pretend to be a food critic…and thus you will probably find that I will hardly discriminate or find a bad meal during my travels…that said, I am sharing only the things that in the moment before I ate them inspired me enough, in one way or the other, to shamefully snap a picture before digging in.