Viva La Roma

Rome! The Eternal City! The centre of a globe spanning civilisation! Bringers of aqueducts, sanitation, roads, irrigation, medicine, education, health, etc.

Having prepared for a weekend visit in the most highly intellectual way (intensive review of all the Asterix books, especially Mansions of the Gods), it was important once on site to apply that high-brow culture-seeking mode and *not to get too distracted by the food*. Yeah, right.

Where to start? Perhaps with a lunch at Obika, a slightly incongruous name for a mozzarella restaurant (surely Japanese? but no) that has a sister in Selfridges, London. I had not realised that Mozzarella was so varied or so delicious - the key according to our brilliant hostess Judi is that this cheese does not travel well, so the closer to the Buffalo farm you are, the better. Here is evidence of our greed:


Before and after. on the nearest platter: smoked, 'stronger' and 'mild' Mozzarellas di Bufala Campana DOP, Stracciatella di Burrata and Ricotta di Bufala. It turns out that Buffalo Ricotta is heaven in a little dish.

That evening, with barely 4 hours for digestion, on to the amazing enoteca (wine bar) and restaurant (restaurant) [name to be inserted here when I can remember what it was called] in groovy party district Trastevere. A big thank you to Heroic Host Kevin for parking the car a trillion miles away after we realised that every single person who had ever complained about Roman traffic was in fact correct. While waiting for our hero in the enoteca section we got a chance to get stuck in to the array of local wine samples in gargantuan glasses. This brings me onto the subject of how much more sophisticated Romans are than Londoners, winning the following competitions hands down:

• appearance 1: Shoes appropriate to outfit, not to surface on which person is walking ie 5 inch heels on cobbles is fine.
• appearance 2: always imepccable makeup, even to the extent that old makeup is actually cleaned off off the day before, before applying new (thick) layer the next day
  
• appearance 3: WBWJEBTBONB (wear black, with just enough bling to be obviously not british)
• Milk. know it's place. If you drink Capuccino after the morning coffee break, you are proposterous. Expresso only.
  
• Quantity of wine drunk per person while out to dinner. Judi, on a previous visit to this establishment had been chastised by the sommelier for ordering a second bottle of wine between four. They had had a drink beforehand in the enoteca section which had been policed, sorry, noted by the sommelier. We kept it tidy and managed to restrict ourselves to several pre meal tasters, one bottle of reaaaaaly nice Barbaresco and 4 glasses of different, chilled, red dessert wines, which is v civilised.

Anyway, if you should find yourself in [what the &&*** was it called again] then definitely order the wild board papardelle dish which has gone straight into my top ten dishes ever.

A really posh meal should always be counterpointed with a local normal one and the next day Maccheroni delivered us the best two lunchtime primi platti you could hope for. Calorie count now 5 squillion in 2 days.

Just a little chilli in the pomodoro
Just enough Porcini in the tagliatelle



And finally, for a hat trick of Roman Foodie recommendations, you should not miss Franchi's Suppli ('telephone balls', so called because the mozarella inside the warm rice balls is meant to stretch out like telephone wires). Buy them at the counter, eat them standing up, and try not to buy a lifetime's supply of Pecorino or brasaola from the counter around the corner.

And now for that week long starvation detox thing.....