Food Destinations: When in Rome...You should eat here.

As many of you know, I spent a good portion of the summer away from my beloved red rocks and mountains of Utah.  I was fortunate enough to spend five days in and around one of the world's great cities: ROME!!!

Rome really is an astounding city that everyone should visit at least once.  Alongside these famous sites,

there is one of the largest aglomerations of great food within one city that I have ever seen!  New York is the only other city I've been to that has so much great food within such a small geographic area.

This created a bit of a problem for me...how do you pick where to eat?  Luckily, I had the good fortune of being hosted by a local, and only had to put up with one crappy meal when in Rome.  Here are my three favorite places that I ate at in Rome.

#3- Pizza Ciro
Ciro's is awesome for multiple reasons.  It is within a 5 minute walk of Fontana di Trevi, the Spanish Steps, the Pantheon, and a smattering of other significant sites.  The pizza is awesome. It's cheap.  And my host Fausto let me in on the secret that Ciro is a men's name that you will only hear in Naples (Fausto's hometown and the birthplace of pizza), and that Ciro himself, at something like 85 years old, still makes the pizzas.

Sure enough, after letting the maitre'd know that we want our pizza to go, we walk back to a huge woodfire oven to find a tiny little old man stretching dough, and topping with sauce, cheese, and everything else, at the rate of about 1 pizza per 30 seconds.  It made the meal that much better to know that such an awesome old man was making my pizza.  I had the pizza diavolo (spicy sausage), and Fausto had one with roasted vegetables.  Both were awesome, and the grand total was about 15 Euros for both of us, a dirt cheap meal by Roman standards.  The secret was that the pizza there is cheaper if you get it to go.  It's way cooler to walk around Rome with good pizza than sitting in a restaurant anyways.

Try Pizza Ciro, you'll like it.

Next up:

#2 Palazzo del Freddo Giovanni Fassi

There are two things you need to know about this place: 1. The best gelato I've ever had, at a price that's significantly lower than all of the tourist gelaterias.  2.  It's a 3 minute walk from the #1 restaurant below!

Their claim to fame is that it's the oldest gelateria in the world.  For 2 Euros (the cost of a small), you get to pick three flavors piled side by side onto a cone.  I had Coconut, Pineapple, and Blood Orange.  All three were awesome!  I wasn't as big of a fan of the chocolatey more dairy based gelato's, but i can honestly say that the coconut gelato at this place is the best frozen treat that I've ever had.  Period. 

Here's the review from Tripadvisor

This is a picture of maybe 1/4 of their gelato selection.  It makes Baskin Robbins selection seem apathetic.

Here it is...the best place that I ate in Rome.

# 1 Trattoria Vecchia Roma

Vecchia Roma is a traditional Trattoria, and it had the feeling of a locals spot.  It's down in the foundations of an old building near Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele.  You go down a steep set of stairs into a cellar style restaurant, loud, hot, and lively.

We started off with the mixed fried vegetables, which came with zucchini, cauliflower, eggplant, and artichoke hearts.  I wish my mom had made me eat more vegetables like those as a kid!

The remainder of the meal is a fog to me...because I had the best pasta of my life!  I had the house special.  The Buccatini L'Amatriciana Flambe.  Flambe is French though right?  Well get this, they take bucatini noodles and saute them with pancetta and a creamy tomato sauce, and then it gets crazy. 

They have a giant wheel of pecorino romano cheese that is hollowed out to look like a large basin.  They take the scalding hot pasta, put it in the cheese basin, and LIGHT IT ON FIRE while stirring as fast as possible, coating every strand of pasta and every piece of pancetta with cheesy goodness.  Aside from being incredible food, it was unreal to see your pasta on fire inside of a huge cheese wheel.

I didn't get a picture of it, but here's a random one I found online.

I really hope that you all get to go to Rome.  When you do let me know and I'll give you more info on all of these places, along with some contacts for people that can show you the city!

Ciao!