An explosion of travel and dining apps provides more tips than ever, but the best guide may still be your nose. I don't mean just the sense of smell -- grilled meat and garlic in oil can be traitors in leading you to a good meal -- but your own "nose" for what looks like a good restaurant.
Yelp and Trip Advisor are by now so packed with rave reviews from friends and family that they are often unreliable. I found on my road trip to Santa Fe in the spring that I spent too much time trying to filter the Yelp reviews and figure out which places were actually worthwhile. In the end, I made no momentous discoveries using these apps.
On our recent trip to Rome, we used two specialized apps -- Elizabeth Minchilli's EatRome and Katie Parla's Rome. These are the work of two enterprising American women who are living in Rome and doing their best to curate that city's eateries. But what chance do they have, really, to provide a definitive or authoritative guide to Rome's 6,000+ restaurants?
The economics of app-writing clearly don't allow them to wildly sample what's out there. The user has no idea, for instance, whether they are comped the meals or pay for them, how many times they go, whether they disclose they are reviewing the place and all the other caveats of restaurant reviewing. This does not mean that they don't provide some good tips and reviews, or that you won't get your $2.95 worth for buying them, but they are not 100% reliable, and that diminishes their usefulness.
You can rely on tips from friends, colleagues, your shoe store salesman from Italy, but these are bound to be hit and miss. In our case, two tips we got from the woman who showed us around the Castello di Magione -- to Mazolino in Panicale and to Roccafiore in Todi -- were both great. My friend Paula's recommendation to go to Pierluigi in Rome was just the ticket for that first evening there. But the Settimio al Pellgrino recommended by the friend of a friend (and favorably reviewed by Minchilli) was a bum steer -- where a "quirkiness" billed as charming simply masked incompetence and mediocrity.
One of the best places we went to, in the end, was one we discovered on our own after rejecting Minchilli's tip for the Osteria dell'Ingegno. What she billed as "one of the nicest pedestrian piazzas in Rome" was a windswept passage trafficked by the mobs going from the Pantheon to the Spanish Steps where four rickety tables with paper tablecloths flapped in the breeze. This was so unappealing to us we went back to another Osteria in the Via della Guglia we had spotted on the way there, which had a modern front and a single table on a little porch outside, blessedly sheltered from sun, wind and passersby.
The Osteria Bottega Montecitorio was a shop window of sorts for a vineyard, but the food was excellent and inventive. I had an octopus salad that was tender and tasty and Andrea had a streamlined version of eggplant parmesan that was divine. She finally got an excellent rendition of pasta cacio e pepe and I had a very good pasta all'amatriciana. The red and white house wines from Montecitorio were both quite nice. There was a real tablecloth, an unintrusive but very professional service, and a bill no worse than any other. There was a Trip Advisor emblem on the window but how would I have ever selected this place by browsing through Trip Advisor? Can the emblem or consulting the review on the spot tip the scale? Perhaps, but both of us have a nose for restaurants and this one had a lot of positive signs.
Certainly we were also lucky. Another time we might pick a restaurant that looked good and had a mediocre or bad meal. But that happens when we use apps and guides as well. In fairness, we would not have discovered this place had we not been looking for the restaurant in the app.
Two other big hits in Rome -- the Piperno in the ghetto and Pollarola near our hotel -- were tips from the concierge. But the bruschetta we had at another place near the hotel and the porchetta sandwich we got from a stand at the Campo di Fiori were a combination of luck and nose, as well.
Part of the adventure of travel is serendipity -- following a tip from a new friend, following your nose, ducking down a street not on your map -- and too much reliance on apps, guides, and reviews can deprive you of that fun.
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Friday, September 13, 2013
Al fresco
Italy offers definitive proof that ambiance is an essential ingredient in a good meal and fresh air, dining al fresco, invariably enhances the food. In our recent visit to Umbria and Rome we almost always dined al fresco -- in every conceivable way and always with a view.
Pergola
The house we rented outside Todi had a lovely pergola with mature vines that shaded the back patio and was the perfect place for the meals we ate there. The renovated stone house was itself quite picturesque, but the plants, flower pots and stone walls that further shielded the patio all contributed to a comforting and aesthetically pleasing environment. The housekeeper, Triestina, cooked three dinners for us -- all great examples of Italian home cooking. The first night we had a tasty spread of salumi, warmed-up penne in tomato sauce and a delicious roast pork. The second meal was homemade fettucini in truffle sauce prepared on the spot and rabbit cooked in a mustard and herb sauce. The third meal, our final night there, was a roast chicken from her own yard, preceded by another pasta and tomato sauce, this time fixed fresh in our kitchen. Lunches often consisted simply of wild boar salami and goat cheese from the artisanal shops in Todi; they tasted particularly good in the fresh, balmy air of the Umbrian hills. The worst of the summer heat was over and gentle breezes floated through the hills outside Todi, wafting under our pergola and sharpening our appetite. I should add that the Aperol spritzes and local wines also contributed the feel-good atmosphere.
Terrazza
Our first restaurant meal was on the terrace of a small restaurant between our house in Torregentile and Todi, La Mulinella. Through the trees sheltering the terrace you could see the lights of Todi glittering on top of the hill. Grilled meat was the specialty of the house and my guinea fowl -- roasted in a cage-like spit over a wood fire -- was probably the single best dish I had this trip. They also brought the pasta to the table even as they were tossing it, so the truffle-sauce pasta arrived hot and delicious. The hit of the evening was a Sagrantina di Montefalco from the Cantina Tuderno that was offered at the astounding promotional price of only 18 euros a bottle -- we had two!
In Todi itself, we at at the Ristorante Umbria for the spectacular view over the Tiber valley from the semi-enclosed terrace perched on the hillside. The food was uninspired, though you simply cannot go wrong with the truffle pasta. Most of us ordered trout, which as fresh and prepared just right. Virtually next door was the Pizzeria di Cavour, which had a succession of terraces like a staircase down the hill, with the same wonderful view of the valley. The thin-crust cheesy pizzas were a bargain, ranging from 6 to 8 euros, made for a great meal the following evening.
The terrace at Roccafiore, a spa and vineyard on a hilltop outside of Todi, commanded a splendid view of Todi, lit at night. The food corresponded to the elegant ambiance as the chef ventured away from just the standard Umbrian fare. We had the house salumi, made, they said, from their own livestock. The slow-roasted pork belly I had for a main course was delicious, though very rich with the fat.
Balcony
In Panicale, a walled town high on a hill overlooking Lake Trasimeno, we sat on a narrow balcony with a view of the lake. I had a delicious fresh pasta with lake perch in a tomato sauce, and a crisp local white wine. The restaurant interior was charming, but the balcony -- with its flower pots, its view of the medieval walls and the blue lake in the distance -- was unbeatable. In Assisi, the balcony was wider and the Umbrian countryside less dramatic, but the setting was perfect for the prosciutto and melon antipasto and the various pastas we tried there.
Piazza
Our first night in Rome we made the pilgrimage to Pierluigi in the Piazza de Ricci, sitting at a table surrounded by splendid Renaissance palazzi. We had a charming multilingual waiter from Ecuador who counseled me to take the sole poached rather than grilled. The well-known culinary standby was busy and vivacious on a Saturday night and the meal was enchanting. In a little piazza in the Monte de Cenci in the ghetto, we had marvelous meal at Piperno. We had the delicious fried artichoke specialty as antipasti and I followed with a pasta with octopus chunks. The restaurant claims to date back to 1860 and it is truly a classic. Our last night we went to La Pollarola on the narrow piazza of the same name. A special of the day was huge porcini just arrived from the provinces. These were sliced and sauteed in oil to an amazing tenderness, making an elegant antipasto with just a hint of the woods. My grilled sea bass was fresh and tender and a great counterpoint to the mushroom.
It is certainly no coincidence that the least satisfying meals were the ones eaten inside, at the Ristorante Jacopone in Todi and at the Settimio al Pellegrino in Rome. The food was not bad, but uninspired and missing that extra ingredient.
 |
| Our pergola (Photo by Judy Nadler) |
Pergola
The house we rented outside Todi had a lovely pergola with mature vines that shaded the back patio and was the perfect place for the meals we ate there. The renovated stone house was itself quite picturesque, but the plants, flower pots and stone walls that further shielded the patio all contributed to a comforting and aesthetically pleasing environment. The housekeeper, Triestina, cooked three dinners for us -- all great examples of Italian home cooking. The first night we had a tasty spread of salumi, warmed-up penne in tomato sauce and a delicious roast pork. The second meal was homemade fettucini in truffle sauce prepared on the spot and rabbit cooked in a mustard and herb sauce. The third meal, our final night there, was a roast chicken from her own yard, preceded by another pasta and tomato sauce, this time fixed fresh in our kitchen. Lunches often consisted simply of wild boar salami and goat cheese from the artisanal shops in Todi; they tasted particularly good in the fresh, balmy air of the Umbrian hills. The worst of the summer heat was over and gentle breezes floated through the hills outside Todi, wafting under our pergola and sharpening our appetite. I should add that the Aperol spritzes and local wines also contributed the feel-good atmosphere.
 |
| Pizza at Pizzeria di Cavour (Photo by Judy Nadler) |
Terrazza
Our first restaurant meal was on the terrace of a small restaurant between our house in Torregentile and Todi, La Mulinella. Through the trees sheltering the terrace you could see the lights of Todi glittering on top of the hill. Grilled meat was the specialty of the house and my guinea fowl -- roasted in a cage-like spit over a wood fire -- was probably the single best dish I had this trip. They also brought the pasta to the table even as they were tossing it, so the truffle-sauce pasta arrived hot and delicious. The hit of the evening was a Sagrantina di Montefalco from the Cantina Tuderno that was offered at the astounding promotional price of only 18 euros a bottle -- we had two!
In Todi itself, we at at the Ristorante Umbria for the spectacular view over the Tiber valley from the semi-enclosed terrace perched on the hillside. The food was uninspired, though you simply cannot go wrong with the truffle pasta. Most of us ordered trout, which as fresh and prepared just right. Virtually next door was the Pizzeria di Cavour, which had a succession of terraces like a staircase down the hill, with the same wonderful view of the valley. The thin-crust cheesy pizzas were a bargain, ranging from 6 to 8 euros, made for a great meal the following evening.
The terrace at Roccafiore, a spa and vineyard on a hilltop outside of Todi, commanded a splendid view of Todi, lit at night. The food corresponded to the elegant ambiance as the chef ventured away from just the standard Umbrian fare. We had the house salumi, made, they said, from their own livestock. The slow-roasted pork belly I had for a main course was delicious, though very rich with the fat.
Balcony
In Panicale, a walled town high on a hill overlooking Lake Trasimeno, we sat on a narrow balcony with a view of the lake. I had a delicious fresh pasta with lake perch in a tomato sauce, and a crisp local white wine. The restaurant interior was charming, but the balcony -- with its flower pots, its view of the medieval walls and the blue lake in the distance -- was unbeatable. In Assisi, the balcony was wider and the Umbrian countryside less dramatic, but the setting was perfect for the prosciutto and melon antipasto and the various pastas we tried there.
 |
| Fresh fish at Pierluigi (Photo by Judy Nadler) |
Piazza
Our first night in Rome we made the pilgrimage to Pierluigi in the Piazza de Ricci, sitting at a table surrounded by splendid Renaissance palazzi. We had a charming multilingual waiter from Ecuador who counseled me to take the sole poached rather than grilled. The well-known culinary standby was busy and vivacious on a Saturday night and the meal was enchanting. In a little piazza in the Monte de Cenci in the ghetto, we had marvelous meal at Piperno. We had the delicious fried artichoke specialty as antipasti and I followed with a pasta with octopus chunks. The restaurant claims to date back to 1860 and it is truly a classic. Our last night we went to La Pollarola on the narrow piazza of the same name. A special of the day was huge porcini just arrived from the provinces. These were sliced and sauteed in oil to an amazing tenderness, making an elegant antipasto with just a hint of the woods. My grilled sea bass was fresh and tender and a great counterpoint to the mushroom.
It is certainly no coincidence that the least satisfying meals were the ones eaten inside, at the Ristorante Jacopone in Todi and at the Settimio al Pellegrino in Rome. The food was not bad, but uninspired and missing that extra ingredient.
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