Impossible Roma

Flying high to Rome

My flight from Paris to Rome was on the economy airline Veuling.  You can’t argue with the price at all but the seats were so close together.  My knees were in the back of the seat in front of me for the entire plane flight.  This wasn’t like your normal cramped flight.  This was seats that were insanely close together.  I spent the entire flight with my knees in the back of the seat in front of me.  You can't argue with the price though which was insanely cheap.  My three flights were $300 total.

Room at Hilton Garden Inn Airport Rome

I arrived in Rome and made it through customs at around midnight.  By that time I tried to call the hotel several times in order to find out if they had a shuttle and where it picked up from but the phone number on the website was wrong.  In the end I ended up with my first case of being ripped off overseas.  First, there were the people who operated a shuttle that wanted to charge me €30 in order to get a ride.  I recognized that as a bunch of BS and soldiered on.  I looked for a cab and I got tricked by the oldest trick in the book.  The old I’m not going to turn the meter on I’m just going to charge you €15.  It was like a €5 cab ride as well.  Not to mention the fact that we passed by the shuttle on the way to the hotel.   Ah well I didn’t do too badly for being in a foreign country where I don’t speak the language around midnight with a dying cell phone.

Random sight from the taxi while in traffic

I stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn that night.  I checked in and it was rather annoying because you had to use a key in order to access the elevators, a feature that makes some feel safer but to me is just another bit of annoyance between me and getting to my room.  I made it up to my room alright and it was very comfortable.  I soon discovered that I ended up leaving my laptop power cord along with the crazy new adapter I bought behind in Paris.  It was the biggest goof I made of the trip.  On the plus side, I did have an extra cord at home, and my laptop would be good for limited use until I made it back to the US.

Inside the Vatican

I started off my morning with breakfast in the hotel as I had done every day on the trip I woke up early enough to do so.  One of the things I really missed about the US is the way that bacon was cooked.  The bacon in the UK wasn’t cooked to that nice crispiness that I get back at home.  Breakfast in particular was one of the dishes that made me miss home.

I took a shuttle to the airport to take a train into Rome.  When I got there I only had moments before the train left.  I didn’t get to buy a ticket before the train left and I would have to wait thirty minutes.  I totally thought that there was only one train and I definitely took the wrong one.  It was an episode of me blatantly not paying attention.  I got out of the train and took a taxi the rest of the way for €20.  I had lost patience at that point.

Hilton Garden Inn Rome City Center

I checked into the Hilton Garden Inn Rome.   It was a nice hotel in the center of the city.  The one thing that was apparent was that the elevators were absurdly small.  There was just enough room for me and my bags inside of the elevator and my head was inches from the ceiling.  The great thing about the hotel was that they gave you directions to all of the sights that you might want to see on the trip.

Rome is not that difficult of a city to navigate because every time you wonder where you are you can look up and in you’re like oh that’s the coliseum, I need to go that way.  The historical landmarks really help you to gain your bearing.  I unfortunately made the mistake of getting on the tram in the wrong direction the first time I rode it.  It cost me quite a bit of time, but I took a bunch of pictures of the city along the way.

One of a few hundred pictures I took in Vatican Musem

As I walked towards the Vatican, I reached peak hunger and quickly stopped in a pizzeria along the way.  The pizza in Rome has a very thin crust that I find delightful.  It is pretty crisp and light but somehow has enough strength to support an abundance of cheese and toppings.  My particular piece of pizza had mushrooms and sausage.  They had to be some of the best mushrooms I’ve ever tasted before.  I wish I would have taken note of the place, but I was kind of in a hurry and I just walked in grabbed a slice and walked out.  It was a great value for only €5.  There are plenty of pizzerias along the way to the Vatican though.

I finally made it to the Vatican Museum and made it through the line relatively quickly.  I only waited to get in for about 15 minutes which is really shorter than how long that I heard that it would take to get in.  The amount of artwork that is in the museum is amazing and it is pretty massive.  I spent about 3 hours walking around and taking tons of pictures.   The unfortunate part was that you could not take pictures inside the Sistine Chapel.   That doesn’t take away from the fact that it is very awe inspiring to be inside of it and I took quite some time looking at the detail of the artwork.  Yeah you pass through many similarly painted rooms, but there is something about the Sistine Chapel that just takes your breath away the moment you walk in.

I left and walked around to try and make my way into Vatican city, but as I was wandering aimlessly, I was told by a couple of cops that I was walking somewhere I wasn’t supposed to be walking despite the fact that I didn’t see any signs or anything blocking my path.  I obliged their yelling at me to hurry along and that’s when I found out that everyone was waiting for the Pope to make his appearance.

Awesome sandwich at Fa Bio

Not being Catholic or otherwise having a huge interest in seeing the Pope, I decided to go get a sandwich instead.  It was an awesome decision.  I went to one of the places from my guide book and ended up heading to Fa Bio.  It is a small little sandwich shop.  I chatted it up with the guy making my sandwich that worked there and he had spent some time in California, which explained his really good English.

 My meal was simple and cheap at the same time.  It was also fresh and very tasty.  I got a sandwich with salami and capicola, some cheese and an olive spread.  The lettuce was dressed in a little bit of olive oil as well.  The simple things are the easiest to mess up, but it would be hard to fail with the quality of the ingredients that were in this sandwich.  When It was initially served to me I thought that the ratio of the thick sliced bread to the very thinly sliced Italian meats would be the downfall of this sandwich as it would fall into the classic sandwich mistake of having too much bread, but one bite taught me differently.  The chewy bread went perfectly with the salty olive tapenade and the little offering of meat was just enough to be satisfying.  I had a tasty Pink Grapefruit soda to wash it down with.

Yummy Cheap Gelato

I went for value again when it came to ordering desert.  I wanted to have gelato, and I went for the gelato.  There is a place right outside of the Vatican, Old Bridge, that had a huge line.  It moved very quickly and I stood in it.  It was well worth the wait.  The price was unbelievable, €2 for a cup that was overflowing with yummy gelato.  I ended up getting pistachio and caramel.  I don’t eat sweets much and I anticipated having a bit left over, but it was so rich and had that perfect balance that was not over sweetened and I end up finishing it all.

For dinner I didn’t want to venture far so I went right next door to the hotel at Il Martello.  They didn’t speak good English there which made for a bit of an interesting time, but I understand Italian food well enough to get my point across and know what I wanted to eat.  I would get a glass of wine that was so huge that it was more like a half bottle almost. 

More Vatican

I decided to go with the bruschetta sampler to start with.  I enjoyed the one that had the olive tapenade the most.  There was also one with tomatoes and garlic.  The tomatoes were so sweet and tasted so much like a real pure tomato.  It was phenomenal.  There was even one that was just bread with extra virgin olive oil.   As simple as it was it was great and didn’t need anything else.  I wanted the gnocchi for an entrée, but they ran out so I went with pasta with clams.  The pasta was very good and cooked perfectly, but I didn’t care for the sauce that much.

Perfect Cappuccino and Pastry

The next morning I wanted to get out to an early start, but it was rainy so I had no problem setting the alarm back a bit and staying inside for a while.  I had a tour scheduled for later in the day, and I had breakfast at the hotel.  I got on the tram for a little bit and ended up getting coffee at Grand Caffe Santos.  The second best value of the trip would have to be all of the coffee shops I visited.  Drinks that were amazingly better than my $4-5 drink at Starbucks came in at about €1.  It almost felt like stealing.

I took the tram to by the Coliseum, I actually got off a stop late.  I wasn’t paying attention really because I thought it would be the last stop and I looked up to see it just as we were passing it.  It worked out in my favor because I got to get a good vantage point to take a really good picture of the Coliseum.  I meet up with the tour group a little bit later. The tour I bought online ahead of time through Real Rome Tours.  Our tour guide was extremely knowledgeable.  It only makes sense because he was an archaeologist who spent his dissertation digging around the Coliseum.  This made for a tour where I got a wealth of interesting information, much of which I have since forgotten.

Colleseo

There was a lot of walking along the way of the tour, the main advantage though was that there was absolutely no waiting in line.  I think it is one of the scams of European sightseeing, if you don’t want to wait in line pay a tour guide a lot of money.  This tour was well worth it though.  We got a chance to go into the upper and lower levels of the Coliseum as well as see some of the other ancient Roman sites like the Roman forum.

The most valuable piece of information that he ended up providing was where to eat dinner.  Nearly everyone from the tour headed over to Massenzio.  It was a pretty good value there as a three course meal was €20.  My only legitimate complaint could be that they were a little slow with their service.  That was a recurring theme throughout nearly every place I visited in Europe though.

Would be brilliant white stone without vehicle pollution

My appetizer there was a plate of spaghetti Bolognese.  This rescued my somewhat diminished opinion of food in Rome.  Our guide said that food in Italy gets better the further south you go.  This spaghetti was so good, that if that was the case I would guess it came from the very tip of the boot.  The deliciousness of the dish was matched only by it’s simplicity.  That perfect taste of the sweet tomatoes combined with the meatiness of the sausage and that awesome pasta that was a perfect al dente.

Next up I had the Veal Saltimbocca. One of my favorite herbs is sage.  Combining sage with the salty prosciutto and tender veal and you’ve got a winner.  I often make a saltimbocca at home completely omitting the cheese from the equation but with this it worked.  Especially since the prosciutto was perfect and didn’t render the dish overwhelmingly salty.

Attack of the bikers

I was a little delayed in getting back to the tram because on the way I ran into a bunch of bikers.  No not the burly dudes on Harley's kind but a bunch of people on bicycles.  There were tons of them everywhere.  I wasn't sure if it was some type of protest or anything but I've never seen that many people on bicycles in my life.  I was walking along and then all of a sudden there were a couple of thousand people on bicycles.  Some of them were really cool too but I wasn't fast enough with my camera.  Damn those cyclists.

I took the tram back to the hotel to pick up my bags and I made the decision to catch the bus to the train station in order to get back to the airport.  It would save me €40 and it wasn’t a huge hassle.  I did get on the bus going the wrong way at first.  It was at this time that I finally figured out that the signs have all of the stops on both sides of the street.  You have to look for which one has your stop coming up the fastest.

Catacombs, insert wild animals, slaves and gladiators ~2000
years ago

The train ride was pretty quick and I had the added benefit of having an outlet available to me on the train.   It was pretty empty at 10 pm, and it didn’t take me long to get back to the Hilton Airport Hotel to crash.  If I was going to Rome again, I would probably use that hotel since it was easier to access, being connected to the airport itself.  Good 5 minute walk from the train and I was there.  The rooms were also larger than at the Hilton Garden Inn.

Eurotrip: The Beginning

I have never been to Europe before, excluding the longest flight ever where I flew for 24 hours with tons of layovers getting on and off of the plane on my way out of the Navy stopping in various cities.  That doesn’t really count in my opinion because my experience with Europe was getting a 125 mL bottle of some Greek red wine while at a layover at an airport.  I had been looking forward to this trip for a long time, and you would think that since I had been, that I would have planned things out better.  Planning is not one of my strongest points, and come the night before my trip I had that sudden moment of oh crap I’m going four thousand miles away to some nations where I’m nowhere near fluent in the nation for a couple of weeks of my life.

I only have a few things set in stone.

1. Various hotels, for a couple of reasons.  To find out if that expensive hotel is worth the money, to supplement the cost of the expensive hotels with cheaper ones and to get myself enough stays to work myself up to Hilton Honors Diamond this year.  The downside is going from hotel to hotel will be annoying but it gives me a reason to wake early in the morning and see different parts of the cities I’m going to.
2.  Muse Concert.  I’ve seen Muse live a couple of times before and I’ve been a huge fan since the first time I’ve seen them live.  They are an amazing live band.  Their London show, according to their interview is supposed to be bigger and better than their US Tour according to their interview.  I have no idea how it can be bigger and better than the concert I saw.
3.  Take lots of photos.  I am so bad when it comes to taking pictures and I am really going to have to make mental notes and force myself to take more pictures but it will happen.
4. Enjoy myself, don’t push myself to see everything and make sure I get some relax time in.  Rome wasn’t built in a day, so I don’t expect to see it in two days.  I definitely want this vacation to be a vacation which means I’m going to have some chillax time.

Going to the airport turned to be a little bit of a stressful event.  I had ordered some extra batteries and a mini tripod for my digital camera that was due to arrive the day I left on Amazon.  I totally forgot to place the order.  Then I just decided to go without them.  Then as I get about 15 mins away from home, I realize that I might have forgotten to pack belts, and my spare battery charger for my phone, so I doubled back.  Then I get about thirty minutes away from home and I find out the package just got delivered and doubled back home again.  I finally made it to the airport in well enough time considering that it took me about 45 minutes to work my way through security.  Friday’s before a three day weekend right after work is not the most convenient time in the world to travel.

I hadn’t eaten anything but that was fine because I was just going to have something to eat at Tortas Frontera.  The one in Terminal five is not that great by comparison.  The service was slow and they were out of nearly everything.  Still I enjoyed my food.  I made it over to the gate just a few minutes before boarding started and as I walked by the upper class seats and premium economy seats to my seat in economy, I can see why thy charge you so much more.  Those seats look sick.  Still my seat is comfortable enough and though I don’t exactly feel like I have a ton of space I don’t feel cramped in either.  I was thankful that I had My Bose QuietComfort 3 Acoustic Noise Cancelling Headphones though.  They are pretty much essential if unless you are a huge fan of airplane noise and crying children.  It’s uncanny with those headphones.  You look over and you can see the child visibly crying but all I could hear was the laid back melodies of The Neigbourhood.

One creepy thing about the flight was the older gentlemen that felt the need to pace up and down the aisle.  I understand it is a long flight but I feel like you should be able to sit down for 8 hours.  Or sleep it was a night flight after all.  The dinner I had on the plane wasn’t exactly as good as the dinners I’ve had in first class on Virgin America flights, but it was still pretty good for airplane food.  I enjoyed the beef stew which was very thick and hearty.  There were more potatoes than anything but you could definitely taste all of the ingredients very well.  There was peas, carrots and mushrooms in the stew as well.  Also there was a Caesar salad.  They provided a dressing packet that was probably big enough to dress three or four salads of that size.    The croutons were approaching staleness and there was a small bit of bonus lettuce that was just a little bit wilted.

The plane landed and I made it through customs and was off on the train to my hotel.  I took advantage of the free wifi you have for 45 minutes while at the airport in order to gain my bearings and be able to get off the train.  Funny story about that train thing too.  So I get off at my stop and I see everyone is taking the lift, and I’m like no way I’m waiting on that.  So I start up the stairs.  It must have been like 5 or six flights and there I am with my 20 kg suitcase and my backpack huffing and puffing it up the stairs.  A good Samaritan offered me a hand with my backpack that I initially refused but accepted after another two flights of stairs.  After what felt like a scene from Rocky I finally made it up a little more tired. 

I was a little confused at first about where to go because London doesn’t put the street signs on posts like they are in the US but in seemingly random places on the sides of buildings.  It was alright after I got the hang of it.  One downside of being without a phone is that my phone essentially turned into an old fashioned map. It’s uncanny how much I depend on it on an everyday basis.  I made it to the hotel without too much trouble though.  I went to check in but my room wasn’t ready, which wasn’t surprising considering that it was nine in the morning.  I had all of my maps downloaded, but my mind was still blown by London.  Reading a map ain’t too easy when you have three fore five six curvy streets coming together.  It has to take quite some time to learn how to navigate that city.  Quite some time indeed.

reVOLT

I've been looking forward to my trip to DC for a long time.  Because I'd get to see my friends Sam and Emily and their son Zach (who has to be one of the cutest and most well adjusted youngsters I've ever seen).  I had big plans for this trip.  It started with the flight there. I arrived at the airport unusually early and was able to score an earlier flight to DC.  The flight I was on was relatively empty and I was able to get the whole row to myself.  It was my first time flying United in a while and they quickly became one of my favorite airlines.  I now place United Airlines firmly below Virgin America and Jet Blue.

After my flight I would get my rental car from Alamo.  The kiosk that they suggested I use was slightly annoying.  It took quite a while to get my information (which I think should have been automatically populated somehow) entered and it took several attempts to get my driver's license to scan.  After all of these small issues I was on my way about DC in a VW Passat.  One minor problem, my phone was experiencing major problems with the GPS on my phone almost the entire time.  Weirdly enough these GPS problems only really occurred when I was driving.  I found it very strange but that aside the Passat was kind of fun to drive.  It took me a bit to figure out the cruise control, which was also integrated with the turn signal weirdly enough.  Bluetooth pairing went fine, allowing me to have access to my music throughout my trip.

After my flight I had held out on eating breakfast because I was planning on grabbing something from Tortas Frontera at O'Hare, but I was starving after getting off of the plane and couldn't wait any longer.  I made a quick stop at the Good Stuff Eatery on Crystal Drive.  I had been wanting to try the place, being a top chef fan and see just how good the burgers are.  I wish I didn't have dinner reservations at Volt later because I was trying not to have too much to eat.  I ended up deciding on the Obama burger, and it was a tender and juicy burger, but in hindsight I wish I would have gotten the Spike's Sunnyside.  Then again, a burger with a fired egg would have likely been much to messy to eat while driving.  I loved that the burger was not over powered by the blue cheese, and you could really taste the sweetness of the onions and the salty smoky flavor of the bacon.  Somewhere along the lines the horseradish mayo gets completely lost.

The fries were nothing to really write home about they were good and tasted and I definitely appreciated their freshness.  They also had several dipping sauces to choose from.  The Old Bay one was a little strange, but I get it being in the Maryland area, and I kind of like Old Bay Seasoning.  I don't think the average person would go for it but it was quite tasty to me.  The sriracha sauce sauce was tasty and approachable without being too spicy.  The mango sauce was sweet and interesting and something that I wouldn't combine with just about anything save chicken or fish.  I wish I could have tried some of the shakes they sounded awesome.

And then there was traffic.  Mind blowingly amazingly horrid.  The 50 mile drive took me a total of 4 hours.  I guess it kind of made sense considering that I was leaving the DC area at around 2 pm on a Friday afternoon.  I finally made it to Federick for my 5:45 pm reservation at 6pm.  It was a good thing I got that early flight I suppose.

I think this might be a case where I hyped up what I thought the food should taste like in my mind to a completely unattainable level.  I've been to restaurants of many Top Chef competitors.  Season 4 winner Stephanie Izard's Girl and the Goat and Little Goat.  Aria and Spiagga of season 9 runner ups Beverley Kim and Sarah Grueneberg.  I expected to be wowed by every dish that was the product of the imagination of Season 6 runner up Bryan Voltaggio.

The restaurant did a very good job of playing up the fine dining aspects but not coming across as stuffy and pretentious via very subtle means, like the burgundy pairs of Chuck Taylor All Stars that all of the servers wore.    It relaxed what would have otherwise made you feel as though the place was a jacket required sort of affair.

Dinner stared with me ordering the Manhattan, which was expertly crafted and to my liking  along with ordering the tasting menu after about 15 mins of painful deliberation about courses that sounded so much better than what was on the tasting menu.  In actuality I should have taken lots more time to read over the menu.  Ordering from a tasting menu seemed so much easier though.

Trio of Amuse-bouche

The dinner got off to a very good start with a trio of amuse-bouche.  My favorite of the three was a spring roll with rabbit and a soy foam.  It was delicate and light start to the meal while being bold and slightly earthy with the gaminess of the rabbit and the added depth of flavor from the salty soy foam.  Alongside the spring roll was a beat macaroon with a chicken liver mouse.  I am very particular about liver.  I will only eat the liver of poultry but even then it has to have the right preparation to get me to enjoy it.  even the slightest bit overcooked and it takes on that horrid acrid taste akin to calf's liver.  The macaroon was quite enjoyable though.  Then there was the ramp aranchini.  I love ramps, there short season is a reminder of the upcoming spring season.

The first course was green strawberries.  I could only describe this course as interesting.  It wasn't necessarily bad but not anything that I would ever order again by any means.  I've never had greens strawberries before and I can understand the thought process behind the dish.  The green strawberries were extremely tart and I thought could have benefited from some additional sweetness.  It was almost like a deconstructed PB&J sandwich once you throw in the peanut praline.  Then there was the serrano ham.  While delicious I didn't feel like it belonged at all.  All of the individual elements of the dish were great but this is one of those cases where the individual elements didn't exactly sing together.

The next course was morel mushrooms.  It was over steel cut oats.  This particular dish bode well for me in reawakening my desire for steel cut oats.  I really forgot how great they are despite the pound or two of them I have in my pantry.   The moment the dish arrives at the table you get the big aroma of the beautiful morel mushrooms.  You also have the great textural differences that you get from the sea lettuce.  It was my first time having sea lettuce and the texture can be best described as crisp and a bit plasticy.  My only critisim of the dish is that the star of the show, the morels almost play second fiddle to everything else involved.  They almost get lost behind everything else though it was still tasty.

Corn Dumplings with Crab

The third course was one that I should have known better than to get.  In hindsight when I review the menu, I find out that it had one ingredient that I absolutely hate and can't bring myself to eat.  I don't understand people's obsession with kimchi.  I consider myself to be a pretty much adventurous eater but the Korean staple of fermented cabbage is where I draw the line. The pasta was cooked perfectly in the dish.  I couldn't get past the strong flavor of the kimchi which I originally attributed to the miso, which I am also not a huge fan of.  I had to send it back, but in hindsight I feel  kind of bad because if I knew that kimchi was in the dish I would have requested something different.  I know from now on when it comes to allergies, to mention my aversion to kimchi.

They brought out  corn dumplings to replace the calamari bolognase that I despised.  The dumplings were light and perfectly pillowly soft.  They were so light and delicate that I'm surprised that they weren't  defying gravity and floating in mid air before me.  They were perfectly complemented by fava beans and a light broth that had subtle tomato notes.  I would have enjoyed a bit more crab, it is Maryland afterall...

Best Halibut Ever

One way to really impress me is to perfectly cook a piece of fish.  The halibut that I had was absolutely perfect in every way.  It had that perfect golden brown carmelization without creating that crust of dry overcooked fish that you almost want to cut away.  This was a sublime display of perfected technique in action.  You had the bright green apple juice in the background along with the sherry vinegar you get the acid to complement the fish well and cut ever so slightly through the richness of the chirizo.  The halibut was absoultely the star of the show as far as I was concerned.

Lamb

Next up was the spring lamb, and to be honest I don't really remember the dish at all. I have a picture of it.  I remember eating eat, but I guess it would be like trying the remember the person who went on stage after Michael Jackson preformed.  The only thing you can think about at that point is just how awesome of a performance you've just seen even though you might be experiencing a great show still.

For dessert there was the beet sorbet.  At this point I was far too full to eat anything else and though the beet sorbet was  very good, especially since I'm not big on overly sweet deserts it was a perfect way to end the meal.