Tubby in Roma

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! :/

I. is. fat. Rome made me fat. Howhowhow?

Can't be bothered with Photoshop no more!

But the F30 is a stellar baby. Some of the shots look SLR-ed even though I didn't do anything with them. Geez Louise, I really have got to thank the good people at John 3:16 once more for dissuading me from getting the Lumix.

Y'annyway, down to the real point of zzis entry.. Roma and Milano. My Easter holiday getaway. And probably the only time I'm setting my feet on Italian soil this time around.

And o-kay, Charleroi wasn't as bad as the reviews made it out to be. I do wish there were bouncers around to make people get in line before boarding so it doesn't turn into a shoving fiasco altogether. But then again, maybe I'm feeling especially sore about it because my priority-boarding privilege was ignored.

Touched down, zipped off to lousy B&B, zipped off again to the Memorium, of something or someone whose name I can't recall.

And of course, we just had to be stupid. The first of many stupid faces to come.

Roman ruins.

Hanna-hanna, muscular la.

Ruins of a bathroom? But alas I don't know where the toiletbowl went. See, don't these look like tiles from the bathroom of your random English aunt?

Or maybe the Romans just dug holes to answer nature's call, as demonstrated by Gabriel (henceforth referred to as Ah Gay, click HERE to find out why). Try to get the constipated face and clenched fists out of your head ok? They haunt you, take it from me.

And the absolute must-see when you're in Rome: The Colosseum (or as Mir would say, the Coliseum haha)

Dee is constipated too. And shut up about the height difference, you detractors. I am normal, she is abnormally tall. Right, Jie?

Jumping nutcases. Although this has an uncanny resemblance to the educational institute the three of us are currently enrolled in, do not let this lead you to assume we possess even an ounce of pride and loyalty to said school.

By night. Looks almost postcard-worthy eh?

That same night, we stole placemats, olive oil and vinegar from a restaurant because they cheated us on the bill. Ugly Singaporeans we are; vengeful too.

Vatican City the next day. First up, some rules:

I just have a thing for mosaics. They're architecture miracles for someone as myopic and clumsy as me. So I had a field day because the Vat City museum had two entire rooms filled with mosaic floors and artpieces.

And look at the miniscule mosaic piece. We had to look through a magnifying glass to see the detailing.

And being the snailmail junkie I am,

The School of Athens by Raphael. Taking in this huge fresco was like playing Where's Wally? Only that the many Wallies were replaced by greats like Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Pythagoras, a very Huerculean Michaelangelo and Raphael himself.

St. Pieter's Square.

I think too much sunshine is bad for your brains. It makes you do inane things in sacred places. Like pay tribute to afore-mentioned stupid school with We-are-different! starjumps.

And of course, we just had to redeem ourselves by doing jumps of another sort. Make like a prayer and praise it!

And okay, the place in its undisturbed state.

Trevi Fountain. Milking tourists dry of their pounds and pennies because they make you believe all your wishes will come true if you don't do what my mom says I always do: spend-money-like-water, but rather throw money into the water.

Asswipe using a magnetic rod to fish money out of the fountain. Dee and I had to exercise restraint to stop ourselves from kicking him into the pool.

Had to make do with showing displeasure the Italian way.

The Spanish Steps. Built by the Italians, financed by the French, named for the Spanish. Or something like that.
Dee does as the Romans do! Here she demonstrates how to collect free water by the Spanish steps.

The Pantheon.

We, together with (insert number close to infinity) people went for the Good Friday procession at the Colosseum. The Pope made an appearance close to the end, after all 14 stations of the cross had been read.

All 5 shots I took of the Pope are blurred because of the massive floodlights and the hairy arm that kept shoving me to the side, but if you can make out the central whitewashed figure, that's the Pope.

Completely worn out, post-procession. Ah Gay couldn't even muster enough arm strength to take a steady picture.

Thankfully we slept off the fatigue because the Lazio-Messina match the next day was a riot we just had to participate in!

And Dee and Ah Gay just had to wear the colour of the Away team. Luckily no bottles rained on us.
1-0 win to Lazio. Risky scoreline for a home game, but the fans (and us) went delirious anyway. Post-game.

Climbed a hill to catch what we hoped would be an aerial view of Rome. Didn't get much of that but we did manage to catch the sun setting into the pink horizon.






And so that was a little bit on Rome. Trust me when I say it's just a little bit because I completely maxed out my memory card. A fricking XD card, so that says a lot. Will post pictures of Easter Sunday mass at St. Pieter's Square and fooooooood in Rome later.

Later, after I dream about the fettucine carbonara at Campo d' Fiori.

Laterrrrrr.