My wife and I went to Italy last year. To a large extent the trip was a big meal punctuated by train rides and museum visits. Marvelous. I would go back in a heartbeat.
Funnily though, as we got closer to the end of the trip, picking places to eat got tougher and tougher since we did not want to have a bad experience on our minds so close to going home. However, with two days to go we were back in Rome, and decided on an “authentic roman-style taverna” which was given a thumbs up endorsement by Let’s Go Italy (which we had not used much for restaurant picks but had been spot on, when we had done so). The writeup was poetically effusive, waxing eloquent on the powers of their kitchen, the gifts of the chef and the charm of the surroundings as we would be served rare regional dishes not often found in the city anymore.
Took a while to find the place, off the beaten track. Seated ourselves, waiter says (in Italian) “We have an antipasto bar tonight”. Great, great, marinated mushrooms, eggplant, salamis, squid salad etc etc. Love it.
However it became apparent that this was ALL that there was (we had not quite understood his statement apparently). I got a glimpse through the door, saw a sign on the stove. “Hey Mrs 'Vark, what does <badly pronounced italian phrase> mean?”.
“Um, Stove Not Working, I think…”
Then we overheard him telling someone else that the chef was off sick. By this point however we had already been served drinks and bread, and had eaten some marinated stuff from the near end of the table (not having looked the whole thing over). It wasn’t as though we hadn’t been eating like pigs generally, so let’s just have a light antipasti dinner and maybe some gelato afterward…"
Well. The pickings at the bar were just SAD. Seafood a bit funky. Cold cuts dried at the edges. Meat dishes cold and forlorn. Vegetables wilted. Not a good scene. Plus, the vino bianco was acidy and not very good (first time! and we did not drink the top drawer stuff once!) Screw it, let’s just pay for the antipasti and get the hell out of here. Wine’s not done but it’s usually cheaper than the water…
The bill was roughly equivalent to $25 / person. :eek: Relatively speaking this was 3-4x what we would have paid for the same setup with better quality anyplace else in the country we had been. Waiting for the server to come back so I could complain, I saw him cut bread, knock some on to an unclean floor, and pick it back up to serve. :eek: :eek:
Of course, our attempts to complain or negotiate the price down were met with severe “linguistic difficulties”. The waiter started to raise his voice and get belligerent. We bailed. Grr, I get pissed off just thinking about it. I had intended to write Let’s Go Books and give them a travellers update, but never got around to it.
In any case, be warned that “authentic roman taverna” might just mean a soaking for dopey turistas. Thankfully, our two remaining dinners were divine and we left the country with happy hearts and full bellies.
So, yeah, that restaurant is just not entered into the consideration of possibilities of where to stop to eat, ya know?