I first discovered Baladin beer when visiting the massive Eataly store in Turin. When my friend Dwight Stanford let me know there was a Baladin pub in Rome, we just had to make the pilgrimage. Baladin is an Italian artisanal brewery. At the pub/resto, the company has about 40 of its beers on tap, with another 100 by the bottle. I ordered a Bitter and Twisted and viewed the menu. I had read conflicting reports about the food online, but the three of us at the pub thoroughly enjoyed the homemade potato chips that had a healthy lashing of paprika dashed over top of the hot chips. We each ordered burgers as well, mine a medium-done beef burger with bacon, the others went veggie and were quite happy. I also bought a beer to go, a big bottle of Baladin Isaac, which is spiced with coriander, and it will be an aperitivo for our dinner we are cooking at the apartment tonight.
Rome has traditions, of course, that go back who knows how long. One of them is that many restaurants serve gnocchi on Thursdays. I impressed my fellow travelers by being able to use my Italian to find a restaurant that was serving gnocchi (took two tries) and make a reservation for that evening. We weren't disappointed. Well, a little disappointed in the service, which was fairly brusque (not unfriendly, though) and too fast! Not something you usually complain about in a restaurant. But we had barely finished our antipasti before our server whisked away the plates and brought our gnocchi. Ramona and I both ordered ours with a sauce of porcini and loved the pillowy bits of dough and the chewy and aromatic mushrooms. Other plates in our party with pesto, gorgonzola and ragu were all wiped clean.
Pic of the day: I love how many restaurants are transparent about what they do. Quite often I have seen crates of artichokes outside in the morning, waiting to be brought in by staff, you know they are fresh! This week I saw this man out on the patio of his restaurant, calmly trimming the flowers off of zuchinni, the flowers to be used for stuffing. I bought some flowers in the Campo di Fiori market this morning. I will stuff some of them with some leftover pistachio pecorino, the others with some leftover taleggio cheese. These aren't traditional stuffings, but we need to use up the cheese by the time we leave our apartment tomorrow. After stuffing, the flowers will be rolled in beaten egg, dredged through herbed breadcrumbs, and fried in olive oil. Pics to follow, if I am successful! Also on the menu, carciofi alla romana, piselli con prosciutto and cotellata di suino. Translations and pics in our next post!
