Rome I

Ahh, Roma...

It's good to be back! To Italy that is. So we landed in Rome on the morning of my 30th birthday, three days after our wedding. Nicole had a surprise for me in the form of a chauffered ride to Anzio, a small beachside town where the Allies staged an invasion in World War 2. Now there's a memorial and cemetery there (I read a bunch of books on WWII recently). So no sooner had we dropped our bags off at the hotel than the car pulled up outside. I had no idea yet what was going on, mind you.

We popped a bottle of prosecco in the backseat and we were off. Both exhausted, we downed a couple glasses each in no time as we left the city center and drove past Mussolini's Fascist EUR zone and beyond. It's a part of the city most tourists don't venture the extra mile or so to, not exactly a proud part of italian history, but interesting nonetheless. I wondered what the city would be like to walk around in these parts where they are not used to tens of thousands of people crowding the streets daily. Maybe not next time, but the time after that.

Anyway, Anzio was cool, a place I never would have traveled to on my own. Unfortunately we saw the British memorial and not the American (we didn't realize it until we were already there and the clock was running), but the thought and impression it made were what counted for me.

We both napped on the way back and found another bottle of prosecco, compliments of the front desk, waiting for us in the hotel room. We rallied yet again, then headed out for dinner.

When I come to Rome I am looking for the classics; Spaghetti alla Carbonara (sauced with egg yolk, pecorino, cured pig's jowl and pepper), Bucatini all' Amatriciana (thick hollow spaghetti with a sauce of tomato and cured pig's jowl), Cacio e Pepe (pasta with pecorino and more pepper), some fried artichokes, stuffed zucchini flowers, Gnocchi alla Romana (made from semolina and baked with butter and cheese), maybe a braised oxtail. That's Roman cooking of tradition in a nutshell.

Aside from that there are the modern restaurants you typically find in cities that cater to an international crowd and depart from tradition to synthesize the cuisine from various regions of Italy and beyond. Some are more grounded in Rome than others. We decided on our trip to mix it up a little with tradition vs. modern.

When I was in school in Le Marche and we had a chef from each region come in every week to teach his or her local cuisine, Lazio (the region where Rome is) was conspicuously absent. When asked why, the director told us Roman cuisine "non esiste". Maybe he was a little harsh, but his point was that the quality and "slow" aspect of their culinary traditions have largely evaporated in favor of serving up plate after plate of fodder to tourists.

I don't agree with il direttore completely, but in Rome I don't expect to be blown away by "roman" food. The style doesn't lend itself to that. Sure, you can have a plate of pasta and remark how back in the states they just don't do it like that. You can get the aforementioned dishes and be very satisfied and want to come home to recreate them. But they are humble and often times best exhibited in hole-in-the-wall places unnoticed by most non-locals. So it is particularly important to do your research on where to eat in Rome, and I will impart our experience this most recent time there to boot.

We didn't start snapping pics of our dishes until after Rome, sorry!

Cul de Sac - our first night out and we didn't want to be tied down to a reservation or get all dolled up knowing fatigue was setting in, so we chose this wine bar. A quaint spot right off Navona, they offer up a slew of salumi, cheese, local specialties "alla romana", smoked fish and other small plates pulled from all over the Mediterranean. We went for some local cured meats and cheeses, then added some olives and braised stuffed zucchini. I ordered out of the region from their extensive wine list even though I usually like to stay true and match terroir all around. I was nostalgic just about being back in Italy, so I paid homage to Le Marche by ordering up a nice riserva Rosso Conero.

We enjoyed tasting a mix of products from the Lazio region; it was nice to be dining al fresco and tasting some coppa, some wild boar soppressata, i.e. things taken for granted over there and available in huge variety, but not all that easy to find in the U.S. The zucchini with meat and cheese filling were sort of one note and bland, but Nicole appreciated the contrast to all the other salty offerings.

It was a good call that night to go with the tapas and bevvy of wine choices, and we wished we had come back for lunch on one of those days we got stuck eating mediocre pizza out of desperation. The prices are moderate and you have a lot of freedom to decide how much or little you want to eat and drink, while taking your time.

It's a low key spot for a younger crowd I'd say, a place to pop in for lunch, a drink and a snack after a day of sightseeing, or a casual dinner of small plates and wine. Tends to be ecclectic, but a decent selection of traditional dishes as well.

http://www.web.tiscali.it/culdesac/

Antico Arco - A week or so before we arrived I set about making some reservations for the places we know we wanted to hit in our two weeks. We tried to book one of Rome's hautier places one night, but it turned out there is a holiday on June 29th & 30th (in Rome only) to celebrate St. Peter and St. Paul, and the place was closed. We were debating between that place and Antico Arco before I attempted the reservation, so now the choice was easy since AA was open for business.

Sitting down I could almost imagine us being in a restaurant in the East Village. The small dining rooms, the brick walls painted over in off white with soft lighting, a modern vibe. Despite its location near the top of a hill beyond the pedestrian part of Trastevere, we overheard a good amount of english being spoken, which might have added to that sentiment. People have discovered the place in the same way I discovered it so I shouldn't be surprised.

We opted for a tasting menu that didn't really owe to any particular region of Italy for its inspiration, but we did notice there wasn't any pasta on it. Day 2 and still no pasta! Oh well. A good wine list, not huge, and we were steered toward white for the tasting since no glass pairings were offered. I went for a Gravner, a sort of cult wine aged in clay amphorae. It's a hefty white, very dry and intense but I just said the hell with it and got something memorable.

They brought out the bountiful bread plate made up of buttery bread sticks that Nicole loved, sliced italian bread, some multi-grain coated in sesame, everything seemingly homemade.

Shortly thereafter came an amuse bouche, or a welcome course that isn't ordered. It was a meatball of suckling pig, served over some toasted bread, softened by the juices of the meatball and the simple tomato sauce underneath. Appetites check.

The tasting menu began with warm octopus salad with potatoes that were sauteed with balsamic until it was reduced to a glaze, the whole thing topped with a chip of parmigiano like a fricco. The octupus was tender and mild, the potatoes sweet and with a hint of spice derived from the wood the vinegar is aged in. The cracker offered up a new texture and some nutty saltiness, a very nice dish overall.

Next was mozzarella for the third meal in a row (never get tired of it) served en croute, with tomato confit, bottarga (salted tuna roe) and a touch of pesto. The pastry around the cheese was soft and flaky and when you broke in to it the white mass just slowly oozed out. Simple, salty, a big bite of cheese like when you cut into a hot calzone.

Then they served a super refreshing gazpacho with a dollop of ricotta in the middle, followed by a hot risotto with scorpion fish and asparagus, well cooked but somewhat lacking in flavor and distinction compared to earlier dishes.

The last of the "dinner" courses was an amberjack filet served with a very clean caponata. The seared fish had a nice mild flavor and the caponata wasn't mushy or saucy at all, rather the sum of the individual ingredients, seemingly cooked seperately and then combined right before plating.

We remarked that all of the courses had clean, fresh flavors and the presentations were generally very well done. The plates were simple in terms of the number of ingredients, and they never tried too hard to marry dissimilar things. Evidence that even modern italian cuisine appreciates the less-is-more mentality.

Nicole couldn't rally for the pre-dessert cheese course, but they offered up a reasonably small one with a range of mild to intense ending with a stilton, and served them with some warm aromatic breads and interesting spreads like anise flavored onion relish.

For dessert Nicole went for puff pastry with custard and chocolate "pearls", while I tried "O Baba" with coconut mousse. The texture of the baba, which is a little cake soaked in a liquor-spiked syrup, was actually a little too crumbly and dry, but the coconut flavor of the mousse was nice. Hers was the winner though with its silky smooth custard and light crunchy pastry, decorated with a big cross hatch of caramel.

Like the decor, the meal for the most part was something I could imagine in New York City, perhaps with AA's execution and certainly its ingredients a cut above the $50 a head kind of places you'll typically find in NYC. Antico Arco is on the more expensive side of restaurants in Rome, a nice place for a date and the location is good because it gets you out of the center and into a residential neighborhood you wouldn't otherwise see. Not quite suited to a long walk after dinner though unless you're prepared for a really long way back over the River. Get there before dark and you'll have an exceptional view of the city.

We were happy with the timing and flow of the meal, the latter courses coming out more slowly than the first three "antipasto" styled ones. Even with our big appetites it is wise to observe the "tasting" aspect of the meal so as to pace yourself; neither of us like to waste food, but in order to complete the meal without feeling gluttonous you may have to leave something on the plate.

http://www.anticoarco.it/