WHAT'S REALLY FOOD?

Yelena

Yo man, it’s been hard to muster up an appetite with no bagels in my diet. That makes it increasingly hard to update a food blog. I know I’ve been using this excuse for a full week but it’s the truth and it’s almost over.

A few weeks ago an Italian restaurant, which will remain anonymous (but is named after your favorite aunt, aunt Suzie), rejected our business. What the fuck bro, fine. If you force us into trying something new we will do so, begrudgingly. A totally loud group of us found ourselves at Campo de Fiori which serves traditional Italian (Roman) fare. They’re “famous” for their pizza (and neurotic hostesses) but no one got pizza so…go figure.

I got rigatoni alla carbonara which was cooked al dente (the best) and full of bacon! I don’t even know what alla carbonara means except probably full of bacon. John, who couldn’t be with us today (at the What’s Really Food offices, I guess), got chicken pallaird and polenta. Don’t ask me what pallaird is, I am a plebian…however, John seemed to enjoy it a lot. And the polenta was…bellissima! Get it? I’m in Italy.

tamara

sometimes you eat a plate of meat and cheese for dessert (or second dinner), right?  campo de fiori called it the “grand tour” - three meats and three cheeses on wooden cutting boards.  bresaola is cured beef, delicate and subtle.  the smoked duck breast looked like duck bacon and, yo, i could have eaten three portions.  i’ll eat a bresaola & smoked duck breast sandwich seven days a week.

the selection of cheese was sort of limited - five hard cheeses and one soft.  stagionato is a nutty, hard goat cheese and was covered in black pepper.  the crumbly testun was totally weird, though - at first it was mildly nutty and then overwhelmed your mouth with coffee flavor (yikes!).  too much for me, but this gal liked it.  we also got the soft option, the creamy, sweet taleggio, which killed.  we were scavenging the rinds of the too-small amount.  next time we’ll just get three portions of it.