Hello Steemians, I am very happy to be back on Steemit and continue my never-ending stories about food. I had written about food in Berlin for the last two entries, you can see them here. And now is time to start a brand new journey, to a very old but adorable city of the Mediterranean time: ROME.
As you know, Rome is famous for its amazing architectures such as Colosseum, Trevi Fountain, Pantheon, etc. There are just too many interesting places that you have to visit in this wonderful city. But, how about the cuisine? To talk about Italian cuisine in general, pizza and pasta are seemed to be the most two popular dishes. Notwithstanding, the food in Rome is more than that. There are several yummy eating places with different types of food there, and I’d love to tell you about some of them on this post. Let’s get it started now!!!
HANG ZHOU CHINESE RESTAURANT
Via Airbnb, we booked a nice apartment in Miucino. The host was very friendly and helpful, he introduced this restaurant to us. It is near our apartment, just 5 minutes walking. After a long, tired day of traveling by foot, we visited the restaurant with hungry stomachs and weary feet. The menu is pretty popular with various Chinese dishes of all kinds. The demonstrating pictures made me hungrier and I decided to order the food by pointing at some photos. It did not take a long for the foods to be done and we were served quickly. I did not know if it was because we were starving or the food was too yummy, but we finished them in 15 minutes. Luckily I remembered to take some pictures:
The stirred black rice with shrimps and shallot – I have tried black rice many times but never with this style. Normally I eat steamed black rice with yogurt (it is a southeast asia typical dessert), however it tastes interestingly when it is stirred, although it is a little bit chewy and hard.
On the left is the famous Chinese Xiu Mai with shrimps and pork mince, not the best Xiu Mai I have eaten but it is not bad at all ;)
Deep-fried duck with orange sauce - we love this dish <3 The duck is quite crunchy, the sweet and sour orange sauce combined with the duck creates a delicious taste that makes us want to eat more.
There are three other dishes that we ate, however forgive my hungriness, it was too late before I realized that I need to take some photos (it is one of my hobbies as well). However, it is not too difficult for me to find some pictures from the internet, since this restaurant is quite well-known in Rome:
The price was not expensive at all, only 60-70 euro for a dinner of 4 people. The food is delicious and the dishes are big enough for all of us. With a very full stomach, I was more than happy to give some tips for the waitress and told him that we will definitely come back next time.
Palazzo del Freddo Giovanni Fassi – Most famous Ice Cream shop in Rome
Near the Hang Zhou restaurant is a large ice cream shop with an attracting aroma catching attention of passengers every time they walk by. How could I resist this sweet seduction? There are a lot of customers there in the shop, some were enjoying their ice cream and some were queuing in a long line to order their treat.
Customers in front of the ice cream booth
Interestingly, there is not only ice cream but also several kinds of dessert here: the famous tiramisu, waffle with ice cream, crepe, ice cream cakes, fresh chocolate etc. All look extremely yummy, I wish I could try them all :P After 5 minutes of waiting in the line, we decided to order tiramisu, chocolate ice cream cake and some ice cream flavors. All of the ice cream here are freshly made. There are so many flavors but I chose chocolate, caramel and vanilla. The shop has a signature sauce to put on top of the ice cream, and it was the best part. I can tell it was made of fresh milk, whipping cream, sugar and there might be other things that create a unique taste that I would never forget. I bought the medium size cone and it turned out to be really hugeee. But no worry, since it was super tasty, I finished it right away. The tiramisu and ice cream cake were also pretty good.
Ice cream cakes in the fridge
Fresh chocolate with different flavors: lemon, dark chocolate, milk chocolate
Our treat
The hugest ice cream cone in my life
And believe it or not, we bought 2 cakes, 2 cone and 1 cup for just aroud 10 euro. It was surprisingly cheap, too cheap for the quality and quantity that they had given. I love this ice cream shop,it is one of the best ice cream in my life so far. If you plan to visit Rome, this place is a must :)
TEMAKINHO ROME BORGO – JAPANESE FUSION RESTAURANT
Temakinho is a small restaurant around 10 minutes walking from Venice square. We found it from Trip advisor with pretty high ranking in the Japanese category. What makes us curious about this restaurant is that they create their own style of sushi by combining Japanese, Brazilian and South American cuisines. The décor is so cool with Brazilian style, which is unlike typical Japanese eating places.
Inside temakinho - Credits to temakinho.com
Looking at the menu, we were a little bit lost since all the dishes sound pretty strange. I had never seen them before. Therefore, a friendly waiter came to explain the menu and helped us with our order. And wowww, please have a look at what we tried:
This beautifully decorated dish is raw fishes salad – salmon, salmon roe and tuna with the restaurant’s special sauce. The fishes are fresh, the sauce is somehow similar to teriyaki sauce. I just love how they decorated it, such a piece of art work.
Grilled seafood (king crab, prawn, octopus, scallop) eating with deep-fried slices of potatoes, honey mustard sauce. Another beautiful dish and the taste is not bad at all. The seafood is properly grilled, the potato slices are crunchy. Nice combination!
And here it is, the main dish: sushi in fusion style. We ordered 4 types of maki rolls. The ones with soft shell crab and grilled salmon with creamcheese are my two favorite. These sushi rolls are surprisingly good, the rice is soft, sticky and other ingredients are fresh. 8/10 scores for this sushi dish from me.
The minor point of this restaurant might be the price, since it is not cheap. We spent over 100 euro for the meal. However for all the “fusion invention” and super lovely food decoration, I think they deserve it. This restaurant is another must in Rome if you like sushi. By the way, it's a little bit hard to find the restaurant since it locates in a very narrow street with a lot of others cusine restaurants. Make sure you find the right one ;).
RISTORANTE LA TEVERNA ROMA – ITALIAN RESTAURANT
The final destination I want to show you guys is La Teverna, an Italian restaurant. It will be a big mistake ignoring Italian food when you are in Rome. With the recommendation of our Airbnb host, we came to this restaurant for lunch. Besides pizza, pasta, we ordered mussels and a combined dish of grilled seafood. It took quite a long time for the dishes to be served, notwithstanding it was worth the wait.
Steamed mussels in garlic butter sauce.
Mussel is one of my most favorite seafood dishes, therefore I have tried it in many different places but this mussel dish had totally got me. The mussels are big and soft (in some other places they are quite chewy), the sauce is nicely balanced. I can finish the whole dish on my own :D
Pasta bolognese – the typical Italian pasta. The taste is okay, there is nothing special about this dish :(
A big pizza with mushroom, salami. My sister ordered it and I just tried one piece (I am not a fan of pizza, to be honest). The pizza was freshly baked, hot and crunchy.
Seafood pasta - I do not remember the Italian name of this dish, however it is quite tasty. The seafood is cooked in tomato sauce and wine, the mussels are extremely good.
The grilled seafood dish: this dish is huge, a small lobster, a thick slice of salmon, prawns, squid and sea-bass. They are all marinated and properly grilled. I love the prawns with a lot of eggs inside, the lobster meat is sweet and fresh too.
To sum up, the restaurant is quite nice. I will go for seafood dishes if I visit it next time. The mussels there are too good. However, the pasta and pizza are just okay. The price is reasonable, approximate 100 euro for a meal of 5 people (with really big stomachs lol).
That is the end of my food report about Rome. It was such a pity I did not have enough time to try other places, but I am quite satisfied with what I have eaten here. I Rome you can find really nice Japanese fusion dishes, fantastic ice cream, yummy Chinese restaurants and of course, one of the best Italian food. I hope to come back to this amazing city again, and if I can, there will definitely be another part of my Rome food journal on Steemit ^^
Ciao !!!!!
PS: Bonus pic - Me and the Colosseum <3<3<3