Chapalang entry on food in Rome. Chapalang because we ate according to whim, according to guidebooks, according to budget, and according to convenience. In a nutshell, we ate everywhere and nowhere.
We were cramped into a tiny restaurant where table met table only because we wanted to watch the Roma-Man U game on TV after failing to get tickets. But this find yielded something very close to my heart- SATAY!
...Ok not really! This was grilled beef on skewers but don't you think it looks like the real McCoy? Taste-wise it was really tender and had just the right amount of fat on it to be juicy. Would have preferred it served in the form of a whole steak, but I suppose that would have exploded our holey pockets.
A cheaper option is naturally street food, though not necessarily a better choice. My penchant for glazed confectionary (think KK original glazed) led me to purchase one of these hefty babies. Glazed sweetish bread (which I mistook for puff pastry) filled with a nutty paste which tasted more like sugar than nuts.
I look happy, but I ain't.
It proved too cloyingly sweet and too doughy. And way too expensive for its price tag, especially since I could only stomach three-quarters of it with help from Denise.
And of course, we couldn't have forgiven ourselves if we didn't have a proper pasta meal in Italy. I had myself a dish called
Egg Pasta Complete. Which essentially was egg pasta with Italian sausage, porcini mushrooms, microscopic bits of black truffle, some cream and the quintessential parmesan shavings.
It was good, but not superior to the Fettucine Carbonara Weiming had. Unknown to us, carbonara is the sauce that Rome is known for, so I didn't have that on my plate. It was so good we all chewed in silence at the mouthful WM gave us to try, and then burst into an "Oh my Gawd, this is DAMN good!" The egg was so skilfully blended into the cream that it found itself in the perfect place between smooth and lumpy.
But he lapped it up so quickly I didn't take pictures :(
And equally Italian would be pizza so we found ourselves at a pizzeria renowned throughout Rome for its hugeass pizzas and hugeass crowds. In true Ah Gay style, he ordered starters and shared them with us.
Breaded risotto balls with porcini mushrooms. Individually, I like croquettes, adore mushrooms and love risotto, but put them together and it causes quite a disaster for me. It was too sticky and the crisp-then-creamy combination wasn't achieved in this version.
The potato croquettes were better, but not outstanding.
The pizzas were WAY. TOO. BIG. I had their namesake pizza as did Ah Gay and Dee and it demolished my stomach, forcing me to scrape off the topping on a quarter of the crust I could not stomach anymore. Look at the size of these monsters; they don't even fit on the plates they're served on.
On a paper-thin crust that sadly could not take the weight of the generous topping, my pizza was filled with Italian sausage, porcini mushrooms (good combi I say!), mozarella cheese and a fried egg in the centre. WM's pizza had olives on it so I didn't try any. Suppose it was good because he managed to finish everything.
And being so Chinkaporean, we just had to have Chinese food. The first decent Chinese I've had since my trip to London. And my first time having prawns here, in a dish that's not dimsum-related! I really liked it served on a hotplate with a starchy egg-white sauce, mushrooms and spring onions.
And ahhh, the piece de resistance of the entire trip: GELATO! Old Bridge Gelateria near Vat City serves 3 scoops for 1.50Euro; the cheapest in the whole city. I loved the nutella flavour most, but I also really liked stratciatella and baci too.
I think in this picture I was having Old Bridge for the third time in ONE day. Crikey! :/
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