Europe 2006

Rome: Non Basta Una Vita

9/12/2006 06:25:00 PM

Rome: a lifetime is not enough. The old saying is true. Before you even get to discover the many culinary delights of Rome, there are endless historical sites, amazing shopping, churches, cathedrals, and so on to keep you occupied. 3 days is nowhere near enough to get a full experience of Roman food, but we were lucky to eat very, very well.

A tourist's day in Rome will always be very busy and involve a lot of walking. I find it's always good to start the day with a cappucino e cornetto at a bar near your accomodation. (By the way, in Italian, bar means cafe). Any bar full of Romans will undoubtedly serve excellent coffee.


Un cappucino e un cornetto perfavore!

After a hard day of shopping on the Via Del Corso, I like to stop at Spizzico for lunch. My bro and I got addicted to it when we came to Rome 2 years ago, and I was very excited to return there.


Spizzico, baby! Spizzico is a chain of fast-food pizza joints across town - and before you roll your eyes at me, they do good pizza. If you're already in a touristy area, I think it's a safer bet to hit a Spizzico, where you'll get good pizza at a reasonable price, rather than wandering into a random bar or ristorante where you'll likely be overcharged and possibly not get brilliant food. My margarita had buffalo mozzarella, fresh basil and delicious ripe tomatoes atop crispily puffed, burnished dough.

The following 3 photos are from a trip to a touristy and expensive (but still good) restaurant on a square just off the Corso Vittorio Emanuele. I don't have the name or exact address anymore, but don't worry, restaurants like this are not hard to find.


Fried Cheese, zucchini flower stuffed with mozarella, grilled radicchio


Salad with carrot, tomato, rocket and fennel


Gorgonzola spaghetti


Enoteca del Corso
Corso Vittorio Emanuele 293

We stumbled across this place whilst looking for O'Pazzariello, a fabulous Naples-style pizza joint which I was recommended by a local guy named Umberto, whom I met at a festival on the River Tiber the last time I came to Rome. I did indeed follow his recommendation on that trip, and enjoyed some of the best pizza I'd ever eaten. On this trip, sadly, O'Pazzariello seemed to be closed. We went past it every day for 3 days and it never seemed to be open. Oh the pain! However, nearby we found the Enoteca del Corso, which was a more-than-memorable dining experience.

As Clarice says...

I can recommend the Enoteca del Corso... It's a beautiful wine shop selling condiments, preserves, etc, but there are tables at the back that serve delicious and reasonably-priced food. The menu made our mouths water!... Sarah and I had a really fab meal there - carpaccio and lasagne, as far as I can remember- along with a glass each of Prosecco and Chianti from their shelves. So nice.




Inside the enoteca


Side wall of enoteca


prosecco e chianti e PRETZELS!


Bread


Clarice's Carpaccio


Lasagne - so damn good. Really rich and creamy, with a great, flavourful meat-and-tomato sauce. I crave that lasagne every day.

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4 comments

  1. I'm loving that pizza! Got excited when I saw the address of the enoteca, cos our hotel is on Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele, but then realised the Corso and the Piazza are on opposite sides of the city!

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  2. Anonymous10:12 AM

    WOW!! Wowowowowowowowow! Between all this and the gelato, I am surprised you came home! I know you love your family & friends.

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  3. Anonymous12:13 AM

    I'm so excited to see that your authentic Roman lasange does what mine does - ie refuses to sit in a nice neat square, but instead slops itself all over the plate, into a messy pile of pasta and sauce - unreognisable as lasange! Next time this happens to me I will say 'it's the authentic Roman way dontcha know?' hehehe

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