Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Highlight #266: We ate Rome - Restaurant: Dar Poeta

After high brow Paris, Rome seemed even more chaotic and messy than I remembered. How does one organize a city with ruins to trip over in every direction.

It was fascinating to see the originals that inspired the many famous monuments in Paris.

I always have great luck when traveling. Like having spent a whole afternoon eating lunch in Paris and then discovering that we hadn't missed our museum time because it also happened to be the day that the Lourve opened until 10 pm. In Rome, we found ourselves in the festive Trastevere during that inopportune time between lunch and dinner (Italians eat late. No dinner before 8 or 9). Lucky for us, Dar Poeta, the famed pizza joint on a very small side road in the area was open for lunch on that weekend day and the staff kindly waved us in for pizza while the they prepared for dinner. This gave us an opportunity to eat, drink, and linger until the mass showed up. When they did, the place became so jam packed, the waiting patron literally stood over the tables near the door.

To settle any questions about style, the menu announced right up front that Dar Poeta is neither ultra thin Roman style nor chewy Neapolitan style. It is somewhere in between in a camp of its own.

The brick wood burning oven roared in the kitchen throughout the day. For such a rustic place, the ventilation system was impressive.

To ease into our pizza experience, we started with bruschetta topped with fresh tomato, basil and a beyond awesome tuna sauce. What can I tell you about the tuna sauce? It's extraordinarily creamy with a multidimensional umami taste that reminded me of a top quality fish sauce from Asia.

We ordered the signature Dar Poeta pizza topped with housemade spicy sausage and zucchini.

The crust, as you can see here, is resilient but still thin. The underside was nicely charred. Even more importantly, it had no signs of moisture near the center.

As such, each slice can be picked up and folded without problem. No drippage at all! The moisture that plague our Atlantan pies never set in here.

House wine was super cheap at 4 euro for a large carafe. We drank two carafes on our own... And this was all before our official dinner elsewhere... Vacation is good. :)

No comments: