Beard of the Week XIII
The rather tardy BoW this week belongs to your truly. In this shot I am caught eating a sardine in — naturally — a Sardinian restaurant called "La Tana Sarda" (in the San Lorenzo section of Rome, Via Tiburtina, 134). It was thought of as "Jeff's Favorite Restaurant", but that was only because Isaac and I had eaten there on our previous trip to Rome and enjoyed it, and it was a place that could accommodate our entire group of 22 people on this trip, so we palnned an outing there. However, a different restaurant (to be discussed later) altogether was adopted as our restaurant on this trip.
For me it was a seafood evening. I had a plate of mixed seafood antipasti (cold salads featuring different treasures from the sea) and then a seafood mixed grill, all very yummy. This place was inexpensive and located near one of the universities, and had a casual, noisy, and somewhat rowdy approach to dining.
One of the best things anyone at my table had all evening was a deep-fried fillet of bacalà (salt cod). My only familiarity with bacalà came via a fellow graduate student back in the days. His background was Italian and he tended to call people who irritated him "bacalà". Between that and knowing that it was cod preserved with salt, which required a great deal of preparation (mostly rinsing in water) before eating, made it all sound less than appetizing. However, this bacalà fritti was delicious in the extreme. Before we were done, three had been ordered and consumed (because the first two never made it to the person who had ordered it).