Rome (Part 1)

Arrival: Rome. After an insanely long flight and being force-fed nuked peas in molten plastic at 37,000 feet, we needed some Italian cooking that everyone dreams about. We headed to the Trastevere neighborhood, because we had heard this was a good place to eat in a quaint Roman atmosphere. Obviously, 900 other tourists got the same memo. After wandering the streets and trying not to succumb to a tourist trap restaurant filled with Americans talking about how great the pizza was at the Colosseum, we found a cute little place that seemed to have many Italians sitting, eating, and drinking wine. 

I ordered one of my favorite things, oxtail ragu with rigatoni! I have made this dish once, and it was actually a greater success than the version at all Arco di S. Calisto. While not completely horrible, I still had to wait to use my Italian adjectives. I was so ready to shout a benisssimo or a perfetto, but sadly I had to settle for a soft whisper of discontent. If you braise oxtail in tomatoes for several hours, it will be good -- but this was just a feeble attempt at ragu and pasta.

Regan was so excited to order the saltimbocca alla Romana (one of her favorite dishes) in Rome! However, what appeared on her plate after being thrown at her from a disgruntled Italian was perhaps one of the worst meals of the entire trip: cold carrot slices in a thin off-white sauce with tough veal that did not leap into her mouth. A stray cat would have probably passed on this sad excuse for Rome's signature dish. Oh well... we finished a bottle of wine and knew the food couldn't get much worse. It may have been a good thing to have been let down in the beginning.

I decided to not go at the food thing alone and looked online for more worthy suggestions, which led us the next day to lunch near the Pantheon. We were seated next to a table filled with zucchini flowers and artichokes, which we took as a good sign of things to come.

Regan ordered a tuna salad with tomatoes, onions, beans, olives, and arugula. She enjoyed it, and it was definitely a step in the right direction, but I thought it was still not worthy of a molto bene. It wasn't rocket science, only a rocket salad.

I decided to go with the fried zucchini flowers, because I never see it in Seattle. It was good, but nothing more than tempura-fried zucchini flowers. Not bad, but not that thrilling. They could have left the zucchini flowers on the table for decoration and battered me some fish.

Later in the day there was a light at the end of the tunnel: Il Gabriello, a restaurant near the Spanish Steps that was packed, yet without a reservation we still managed to grab a table in less than 15 minutes.

Because it was 93 degrees, we ordered a cool bottle of white wine and started with an octopus and potato appetizer that was beautifully presented and prepared. Finally, this was what we had been waiting for! 

Next up, I ordered the radicchio and walnut ravioli in a shrimp cream sauce. Simply amazing! We had stumbled upon the right restaurant. Regan loved it and helped me finish off every last morsel on the plate. She thought it was some of the best pasta she had ever had. There were bits of shrimp in the sauce, and the pasta was exquisite -- our first taste of the good life!

Regan ordered a beef salad with arugula and olive oil, a very simple but deliciously executed dish. We thought about returning to this restaurant on our return to Rome at the end of our trip, but we knew there were other roads -- hopefully, roads that would lead us to the Rome of our dreams.

 Rome (Part 2) coming soon...