Three Plates in Rome
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Eating in Rome is fun and different for me, for very little reason other than what seems a refreshingly different approach to organizing the meal. For years I had learned and mostly implemented a French-style, multi-coursed approach to a dinner, with a progression of courses that followed certain prescriptions. In Italy, it all seems much simpler: there's a first plate (primo piatto) followed by a second plate (secondo piatto).
Primo is pasta, risotto, or maybe soup; secondo is meat or fish. Naturally, there may be something before the pasta — the antipasto — and there may be a sweet — dolci — after it's all over, or almost all over since there may still then be the after-dinner drink — amaro or grappa or limoncello were popular. Having the meal composed, in principle, of a first plate and then a second plate seems unfussy and sensible. Note, however, that the smaller number of "courses" implies nothing about how much food is actually served or consumed!
This trip there seemed to be a couple of dishes that I enjoyed several times, and they created a motif to our dinners for me. I suppose I might describe them as favorite dishes, but it's a sort of situational favorite: these dishes taste different to me from any similar preparations here in the US, and I like the way they taste in Rome.
The antipasto de mare (seafood antipasto) I had on three occasions in two different restaurants; the version shown in the top photo was at our favorite, family-run restaurant near the train station (Ristorante da Cecio). In their version there is a small pile of salad greens decorated with an assortment of preserved and pickled seafoods: sardines, squid (yes, those are tentacles), and salmon, along with some olives, capers, and a light dressing of olive oil. The pickled squid in particular lent a delicate piquancy to the plate.
At another favorite restaurant ("La Tana Sarda", a Sardinian restaurant in the San Lorenzo section of Rome) the preparation of the dish by the same name was somewhat different, but still satisfying. Here was a plate with three seafood salads: different mixtures of salad greens with shrimp or salmon or squid, the whole thing decorated with sardines (it was, after all, a Sardinian restaurant). More olive oil and capers there, too.
Several times I ate a primo of spaghetti con vongole (spaghetti "with clams"). These clams are lovely little things with ridged shells, a different variety than what we get here in the US. Steamed with some white wine and garlic, they make a simple and subtly flavored sauce for the spaghetti. For lunch once that was all I had. I don't have a good picture of an example, but the second photo shows me eating a nice plate of spaghetti con vongole at La Tana Sarda where, incidentally, we went for dinner to celebrate my 51st birthday.
When I need a secondo I often like to try a mixed grill, something that seems much more popular in Europe than in the US for some reason. The third photograph is a very nice mixed grill that I had at the aforementioned Ristorante da Cecio, which establishment will be a character in several stories yet to come. This combination included a pork chop, a scallopine of veal, and a piece of very tender and tasty beef that came from I know not which part of the animal.
This is not all I ate, of course. Several times lunch-time found us near another favorite place and we had wonderful salads at one or another L'Insalata Ricca, whose specialty is large salads with fanciful combinations of ingredients. It made for a nice luncheon that didn't weigh us down. Once we ate at a pleasantly quiet Chinese restaurant just a block off the via del Corso; we walked along that route on a Sunday along with all the rest of Rome and this restaurant was our escape from the madding crowds. There were a couple of times when we ate in Trastevere, the section of Rome across the Tiber from the main part of the city; the food in each case was fine but unexceptional.
Breakfast we invariably had in the small breakfast room at our hotel: hard rolls, toast, cereal, juice, coffee (a nasty, brutal concoction) or tea, danish. Nothing to write home about, but it got us going and kept up the energy until lunchtime, which never begins before 1pm. After all, what is one to do while the shops and churches are closed — typically 1pm to 4pm — except eat?
One evening we had a lovely home-cooked meal at the apartment of our friends in Rome, Jim & Renzo. It should go without saying that a home-cooked meal is always a nice thing, particularly with good company.
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on Thursday, 10 May 2007 at 01.01
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Sounds and looks terrific. I think the two-plate sequence would take some getting used to, however.
Was the coffee demitasse? I've been a coffee addict since age 12 and like it full bodied and black with sugar only. I've indulged in demitasse a few times. The stuff will put hair on your chest if you haven't any and take some off if you have plenty. Throttles the pulse, too. Even so, I rather enjoyed it.
I think, though, that it must be freshly brewed and doesn't keep well or suffer being maintained at high heat for very long. The deep, smoky flavor can go burnt- and even slightly rancid-tasting if mishandled.
on Thursday, 10 May 2007 at 10.28
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More like demi-taste, actually. Keep in mind that although our hotel was pleasant and comfortable, the breakfast room was not a high-class joint. The coffee, which may have been deemed "American style", was just badly brewed sludge, far from a dense but nice Turkish coffee, say. They did also serve espresso and cappuccino, both of which were adequate; however, since I rarely needed that sort of stimulant, I usually stuck with tea.
on Friday, 11 May 2007 at 15.44
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It occurs to me it likely wouldn't have been demitasse in any case, since that, as I understand it and as I indulged in it, is served after a meal — lunch or dinner. It's so rich, no dessert is needed.