( A travelogue of the honeymoon: Venice )

Extra pictures of Venice are here.

( ... : Rome )

Extra pictures of Rome are here.

I've contracted a sore throat which, fingers crossed, won't develop into Tonsillitis, the Return.

Entries about the wedding and the honeymoon are forthcoming, but for now, I'll just get Food Friday out the road.

While we were in Italy, we ate at two vegetarian restaurants.

#1-

Arancia Blu
Via dei Latini 55/65
00185, Roma
Tel 06 4454105

This restaurant was quite a hike for us, as we stayed just across the street from the Colosseum. We walked all the way to the San Lorenzo district and arrived starving hungry at 7pm, the usual time for restaurant openings in Rome. However, we were told that the kitchen wouldn't open until 8:30pm. Would we like a reservation for then? Yes...yes we would.

After attempting to not eat our own fists for 90 minutes, we were ushered into a cosy dining room surrounded by bookshelves, filled with wine bottles, not books. The Enoteca portion of the establishment seems to be as big a draw as the food. The waitstaff seemed very disappointed that we weren't interested in wine, whatsoever.

ybunny, as I said, starving to death, opted for all three courses, hors d'oeuvres, primi piatti, and secondi piatti.
Between us we had a pesto salad, frittata with a spicy tomato sauce, tortette with aubergine, hand-cut gnocchi with smoked cheese, vegetable balls with a coriander sauce, and grilled endive with goats cheese.

As I tried to warn, ybunny was not a fan of the endive. The rest was good, but the pesto salad was the star plate. It consisted of small chunks of potato, blanched green beans, strips of basil and parmesan, and a sprinkling of pine nuts. Bravissima.

The menu was good, but a little over eager to diversify. Nice if you happen to be staying nearby, but not really worth the walk across town.
Their motto I quite liked:
Da molti l'alimentazione e la gastronomia
vegetariana sono considerate come qualcosa
di poco piacevole, monotono e punitivo.
Noi cerchiamo di dimostrare il contrario".
For many, the eating and gastronomy of vegetarianism are considered something with little pleasure; monotonous and punishing.
We try to demonstrate the opposite.
hms_dauntless, please let me know if that's a bad translation...

However, we did discover cioccolato fondamente gelato while out, so there was an extremely shiny silver lining to all the walking.

---

#2-

Il Margutta RistorArte
Via Margutta 118
00187, Roma
Tel 06 32650577

We tried again for a 7pm arrival time, but were early once again. This time, we only had 30 minutes to wait as they opened at 7:30pm.

Our waiter, a doppelgänger for Alan Cumming, seated us toward the back. Which was good, because we got to see almost all the art pieces as we wended our way tablewards.

We opted for only two courses this time, I went with hors d'oeuvres and primi piatti, ybunny for hors d'oeuvres and secondi piatti.
I had what I think they called a 'saison' of rice, sprouts, avocado, tomatoes, and balsamic vinegar, served cold as well as ricotta ravioli with truffles in a butter sauce.
ybunny chose a breaded goats cheese with a spicy yogurt sauce and pears and then a basil and potato pie.
For pudding, we chose the chef's selection: 6 desserts from the chef's daily creations. There was a chocolate and orange soufflé, caramel icecream with pistachio biscuits, plum tart with vanilla icecream, icecream cake, chocolate brownie with strawberrry sauce, and an egg custard.

All the dishes were all delicious and beautifully presented. However, I have learned that truffles are wasted on me...to me they just taste like mushrooms. Not sure what the fuss is about.

I definitely would go out of my way to go to this restaurant again.

( Some pictures of the place/food )

No pictures of the first place, we forgot the camera.

Oooh...and goodie, I can take some more sudafed now. :)