A great walking day in Piazza Del Popolo and Spagna

It may have been a bit cloudy and a little drizzly but it was a warm day and a nice one to see the Christmas season blossoming into high gear.   We walked these delightful streets with stores that were getting ready for the holiday rush.  some lovely narrow side streets and rather village like in parts.   Here are a few sights from the area.

This is 34, the restaurant we found as a recommendation form a local cooking supply store. I had a superb fettucini with a truffle sauce, my companion had a gratined gnocchi, fantastic and it arrived bubbling hot, a delicious smoked swordfish that was a salty rendition served with olive oil, avocado and pickled onions, and an Ossobucco with Polenta that was smooth and creamy.

Pizzarium

This Pizzarium was on our list from the start and we kept putting it off.  One day we finally decided to take a cab to it and low and behold it was at the bottom of the hill to our neighborhood.  Probably a very good thing in one week we ate there 3 times.  So this was on a lot of food blogs and finally we saw an article that Anthony Bourdain had come to town and went here.  Let us just say it was good.  This place has been known to do a foie gras and cherry pizza... we tried 4 each time.  maybe even more the first time.  Bresaola like meat with figs and a sharp parmesan type cheese with a bitter salad green, one with bacala (salt cured fish) and some craziness, one with fresh mozzarella, basil and sweet roasted yellow peppers, a sweet hot sriracha pepper type sauce and a jam of sorts, another one with fish and anchovy oil too many to remember.  But the best and simplest of all was the potato and cheese (picture below).  It was so fantastic I just cant tell you.  The potatoes were smashed Yukon golds with a sweetness and buttery depth covered in a toasted mozzarella oh my goodness.  so good

 just a simple store front with a kitchen in back.  The guys had burns on their arms from the ovens.

 served on a wood board shaped like a painters paddle.

 The potato pizza

Pasta with eggplant _Penne alle melanzane

 

Great hollow rolls from the local restaurant

So this is the pasta with eggplant I have been wanting to try.  I have enjoyed almost every dish at this restaurant with the exception of the Gnocchi which is only made on thursday.  It was mushy and not appealing to me and in a nothing tomato sauce.  

When my brother and I were very young and traveled to Rome we ate Gnocchi Gorgonzola for the first time and we really had no idea what either was.  When the plates arrived we both looked at each other and said uh oh because neither of us was a fan of blue cheese at the time.  This was somewhere near the colosseum I may have found the area not quite the restaurant though.  We began to try the dish and to our surprise it was so good that we both ate it all if I recall correctly.  This was the beginning of my love for Gorgonzola and Stilton and the like.  

Back to the eggplant.  This pasta dish is perfect.  It is sweet and roasty and so good.  the bread is fun and tasty and hollow on the inside.  This is also a fav restaurant and is not as pricy for what you get. We have had great veal and other roasts.  Next I plan to try the Rabbit cacciatore. 

Caffe with heart

Near my school there are many and I mean many shops, restaurants, cafes and bars.  I have one in particular where I just love their coffee.  In the last week they have begun to add chocolate to the coffee in this shape of a heart.  I don't know if they just didn't do it before, had run out of cocoa or what but I just love the heart!  You can see the mostly eaten cornetti con marmalatta. Cornetti seems to be a rather generic word for croissant/ breakfast pastry.  In northern parts it is called brioche...The croissants/ cornetti are much sweeter than those in France. Breakfast is a cappuccino or cafe (espresso) taken standing at the counter of the coffee bar.  It seems that most Italians are out to break the land speed record when consuming their breakfast which is minimal and often only a cappuccino.  They seem to slam it and go.  I have not figured out where people go to sit here.  It seems that women do not dine alone nor do many places have comfortable seating.  Perhaps that is why Italians can eat all of this sugar and carbs and stay thin.  They walk a lot, don't sit for coffee or breakfast and often for lunch take a slice of pizza and walk down the street.  When they do have dinner it can last all night...

Did I say dolce ???

Monte Blanc

Today a group of us from school discovered this restaurant near Campo Fiori.  It was the best meal I have had so far in Rome.  It was friday so we feasted on traditional Baccala.  Fish ( salt cod) that has been preserved by salt and dried... it is soaked for a long time to reconstitute it and then this particular dish had it cooked with tomato, onions and raisins.  It was fantastic.   (see more about it http://italianfood.about.com/od/fishdishes/a/aa110897.htm A little sweet, (but of course) with a tartness and a saltiness that was perfect.  The texture of the fish was hartier that a fresh fillet would be.  It was flaky with a texture.  I couldn't tell if it was only baked or if there had been an additional cooking method.  The complexity was simply divine. ( I am going to guess the cooking method was far simpler than I fantasize that it was).  I also ordered roasted potatoes, ok, these were wonderful.  The potatoes were sweet, the olive oil infused with rosemary, warm roasted and the residual oil was perfect for the perfectly crust bread that was fluffy inside.  I finished with a Monte Blanc (pictured above).  yum the crunch of the meringue and the soft cream one of my favorite combinations.  Actually, my Aunt Avril in Scotland made meringues once when we visited and served tow stuck together with double cream that was so thick it worked like a glue to hold the two meringues together.  This was so great I can still see them cooling off on the counter in her kitchen. I love double cream I can just eat it by the spoonful! Unfortunately we had to run back to school for an intensive language class in the afternoon so we couldn't linger, which was probably good because I was dangerously close to staying there until dinner or having a second helping of the baccala.

Christmas Dolce ! Panpepato

Ok so this little beauty is a traditional Christmas dolce.  I found this in yet another local bakery/ pastry shop there actually is quite a difference.  The women at this patisserie were wrapping these and I picked one up to look at it and I couldn't believe the weight of the thing.  They told me it had nuts and fruit and chocolate how could I resist.  Plus it would be informational for my blog so I brought this sweetie home.  The price was 20 euro a kilogram the weight came out to an 8 Euro item.  Pretty darn heavy.  About the size of a softball but flat on the bottom like a dome covered in hard chocolate.  I have since seen these without the chocolate,,, but after you go chocolate I am not sure you could go back...

The ingredients, I really wanted you to see the weight but it didn't show. In the US we are required to list ingredients in order according to how much of an item is included.  I will say I was fearful of the rum thing (second on the list...) but there is next to no taste of rum, after an inquiry it would seem that a few of the dried fruits have rum... just like any good fruit cake it is dependent on the artisan.  

The inside solid nuts and fruit!

Dolce !!

Dolce is the word use for Dessert or sweets or sweet in general.  It seems the Italians have put the sw in sweet.  They have a particular way of making even the sweetest of items even more sweet and it has actually been a bit difficult to find desserts or pastries that aren too sweet for my taste, until this...

This fantastic treat was discovered in a supermarket or Carefour.  It is basically a vanilla ice cream with almost shaved chocolate or flaked chocolate in the middle.  It has a slight crunch when you bite into it so it has a doubly nice quality.  The ice cream part is not too sweet it seems just right.  You can see the flaked chocolate in the middle where it crunches through the flakes.  pretty nice to keep this in the freezer :)

I am still amazed at the way pastries are packaged at my local bakeries.  These are two examples...

How delightful this design is with the twisted ends to hold the cardboard together.

A bounty of sweet treats.  (from the upper left) A chocolate covered cream filled profiterole (cream puff), mini tiramisu ( the word for tiramisu actually means "pick me up"), A hazelnut cookie, a baba- is seems to be part custard and part whipped cream some have rum and raisins others are plain), From left again - a fruit tart (or 2) 2 pistachio mousses- kindof an odd texture a mix between mouse and jello really, a mini monte blanc- meringue cream and chestnut, oh above those in the middle are a cookie and another "pick me up".  A sugar overload in a pretty little box.

Il Chiodo Fisso and my great neighborhood

This lovely little bundle is how they pack the little pastries that I bought today at a local pastry shop.  I got to walk home with this beautiful package and it was a gift to me! So much to be thankful for.

Read the reviews.  Went tonight and had a GREAT meal.  We have been eating ourselves through various guides for 2 weeks and this is one of the best.  I had the Saltimbocca or Jump in the mouth- yummy, the sauce had the traditional butter,wine and sage, lots of sage this time. It was salty but not so too much like other places I have eaten this.  The Fantasy of grilled vegetables- very nice and naturally sweet vibrant flavors of zucchini, eggplant and yellow peppers, and the special dessert Seadas- OMG ( i am not a fan of the saying but ... here it fits) fried dough, like a ravioli but bigger and better, similar to a thicker sopapilla which we have in New Mexico, filled with the right amount of cheese all melty when you cut into it, maybe a saltier cheese than mozzarella, like a provolone but still mild and then drizzled with honey and a very light dust of powdered sugar and perhaps lemon zest ( I ate it so fast I cant say exactly).  So worth it. Even the table bread was perfection, crusty crust and soft moist inside.  A favorite for sure and a nice way to spend Thanksgiving, very understated and really a non event but a really good meal.

Clementines and the produce

Oh my clementine.  How beautiful are these!  From a local Fruiteria.  These, when peeled, perfume the entire apartment.  Sweet like sugar and the flavor so intense!