Casa Bleve is among the most finest places in Rome to drink wine, their elegant dining room a perfect pair with their spectacular cellar. But it is the down-to-earth atmosphere in spite of it all that makes me love this place.

The Bleve family has been in the wine business for decades. Their first shop was La Bottega del Vino in the Ghetto (more on that later) and they opened Casa Bleve on Via del Teatro Valle near the Pantheon a decade ago.

Since then, Casa Bleve has undergone several changes and renovations, the most recent of which was the abandonment of their legendary lunch buffet in favor of an a la carte menu. Indeed, this is the same menu that they began offering at dinner a couple of years ago.

The a la carte lunch and dinner menus feature some of the same items you remember from their cold lunch buffet, like their famous involtini—thin slices of meat, fish, vegetables, or fruit stuffed with various fillings. But there are hot dishes, as well, including a few pastas and a handful of second courses. I have posted a sample menu below.

Now back to La Bottega del Vino. This place was closed for a while and reopened a few years back. Since then, it has functioned as a typical enoteca, selling bottles of wine to take away and serving wine and food at tables in the shop among the displayed bottles.

Works are currently underway to transform La Bottega del Vino. The plan is to turn it into a more sales oriented destination with a focus on cheeses and salumi. There will no longer be table service, but patrons will be able to eat their purchases at a handful of tables in the shop. La Bottega del Vino is scheduled to reopen in its new incarnation in October.

In the meantime, I’ll get by on Casa Bleve’s a la carte menu. Here is a sample:

Gli Sfizi di Casa Bleve
Involtini (Roasted pepper stuffed with tuna, capers, and anchovies, Salmon stuffed with fresh goat cheese, Squash blossom stuffed with ricotta and pistachios, Turkey breast stuffed with truffeled ricotta, Pineapple stuffed with ricotta and cinnamon); Steak tartare; Buffalo mozzarella with Cantabrian anchovies.
€28

Fin de Claire Oysters
€3 each or €25 a plate

Fish carpaccio
€28

Fish tartare
€28

Cod carpaccio with cherry tomatoes, taggiasche olives, and capers from Pantelleria
€25

Smoked and marinated fish plate: Norwegian salmon, tuna bresaola, swordfish, anchovies
€28

Salumi: Culatello cotto alla brace, Culatello di Zibello, Prosciuto Friulano di Sauris, Salumi misti, Cecina de Leon, Prosciutto Iberico
€18-30 a plate

Mozzarella di Bufala with baked cherry tomatoes and taggiasche olives
€20 small plate, €30 large plate

Formaggi Misti: Caprini Az. Ag. Boscasso, Bagoss, Provolone di bufala, Caciocavallo Podolico, Gorgonzola Classico Extra, Pecorino di Fossa, Ragusano Modicano
€20 plate, €30 big plate, €50 large tasting

Fresh squid ink fettucine with red shrimp and basil
€20

Paccheri di Gragnano with seafood, arugula pesto, and toasted pine nuts
€18

Spaghetti with cherry tomatoes, basil, and Vacche Rosse parmesan
€16

Last week I had lunch with my friends Sarah and Nirav at the Slanted Door in San Francisco. Not surprisingly, while sharing Shaking beef, Lemongrass chicken, and about twenty other dishes, the conversation turned to dinner. I had an impossible list of places I wanted to hit up on my very short trip to the city, but I forgot about it completely after hearing their strong recommendation for Zushi Puzzle, a sushi restaurant in the Marina. Sarah got me a last-minute reservation and scored me a seat at the bar. The best seat in the house, to be exact, right next to Roger, one of San Francisco’s most famous sushi chefs. I ordered the omakase at Nirav’s suggestion and this is what followed.

A hand roll of deep fried soft shell crab.

Next up, live scallop nigiri.

Monkfish liver, aka foie gras of the sea. This was badass.

And so were the scallop feet tempura. Yes, scallops have feet. And they can be deep fried!

Halibut sashimi.

Salmon sashimi with cucumber wasabi dressing.

Uni with organic tofu. It’s like sea urchin roe custard. Amazing.

An edible fish sculpture with a head and a tail all up in it. There were five types of salmon, butterfish, flying fish, tuna, and some other stuff I can’t remember because by this point nothing was making sense.

Soy sauce marinated tuna cheeks, aka the filet mignon of the sea, which did taste like grilled steak. But then again, I was hallucinating by this point.

It just keeps coming. More nigiri. Food coma…

And finally, wasabi flan and plum/watermelon sorbet.

Whether you are or not, pick up the latest editions of the Rough Guide to Turkey and Rome, two excellent travel resources to which I contributed this year. You can purchase the Rough Guide to Rome here and the Rough Guide to Turkey here.

Earlier this month I traveled to the Bay Area for my friend Erin’s wedding. Her husband Chris is a cook at Chez Panisse and he set me up with a stage in the kitchen, one of the most incredible places on the planet. There is a mixture of permanent staff and interns and there is a huge emphasis on learning. Throughout the day, chefs Beth and Jeremy took time out to teach a trick or shortcut, or to instructively correct a mistake.

I got in at 8:45 and the prep kitchen was already buzzing. At 9 Chef Beth held a meeting to go over the lunch and dinner menus, shelling beans as she delegated to the crowd. Next, we took out positions in the kitchen, mine at a large wooden butcher’s block facing the pastry department. It was a beautiful view; staff picking summer berries, baking ossi dei morti and langues de chat, toasting almonds, and preparing chocolate Pavé and apple tarts from scratch.

I spent the day shelling beans, dicing beefsteak tomatoes, running sauce through a sieve, slicing heirloom tomatoes, snapping green beans, and picking herbs, occasionally running items upstairs to the Café where lunch is served during the day. Chez Panisse has two dining rooms and, while the upstairs Café is open for lunch and dinner, the downstaris Restaurant is only open for dinner.

At 5pm, after the prep kitchen winds down and the dinner staff comes in, there is a magically delicious moment known as “tasters”. All of the dishes on the Café menu are prepared by the upstairs kitchen (more like an open line in the middle of the dining room) for the staff and servers to try. Highlights included Rabbit terrine with escarole, marinated beets, and mustard, Braised Becker Lane Farm pork shoulder with shell beans, greens, and salsa verde, Hand-cut noodles with heirloom tomatoes, basil, and ricotta, Grilled California sea bass with little eggplants, purslane, cherry tomatoes, and spicy yogurt, Wolfe Ranch quail with cornbread stuffing, green beans, Pizza with wild nettles and Parmesan.

After tasters, I made a quick stop at The Cheesboard Collective across the street for a few slices of their pizza of the day—goat cheese, mozzarella, mushroom and shallots–and had a rest before heading back to Chez for dinner. Having attended tasters, I knew just what to order: the pasta and the sea bass. Chris sent over the rabbit terrine starter, as well. The meal ended with an off-the-menu dessert,
Fantasia nectarine tart with rose ice cream. This was the best meal of the trip and a fitting conclusion to the best day ever.

On September 5, Italy will join twenty-four nations in celebrating the eleventh annual European Day of Jewish Culture. In Rome, there will be lectures, concerts, and exhibits dedicated to this year’s theme, Art and Judaism. Perhaps the most exciting events of the day will be the guided tours of the Jewish catacombs of Villa Torlonia. Visitors will be given a rare glimpse at in-situ ancient Jewish funerary art, primarily fresco, in a sanctuary that is normally off-limits to the public.

Located on the via Nomentana beneath the Villa Torlonia, a former aristocratic home and one-time residence of Mussolini, these catacombs were used for Jewish burials from the second to fifth centuries. They are among the oldest of such cemeteries in Rome and predate their more accessible and well-known Christian counterparts.

Catacombs were a common form of inhumation burial in Roman antiquity. They were hewn out of the living rock, a soft volcanic tufa, and were typically composed of intersecting hallways trimmed with niches for single body burials called loculi. Those of means could afford larger, more private group burials in rooms called cubicula—literally bedrooms—which were richly decorated with frescos.

The cubicula of the Catacombs of Villa Torlonia preserve colorful frescoes depicting Jewish symbols like lulavim, etrogim, shofarot, and seven-branched menorot. Other images of animals and flowers may symbolize paradise, or simply be drawn from contemporary funeral iconography common to all religions in Rome.

The Jewish Catacombs of Villa Torlonia can be visited on September 5 every hour from 9 AM to 5 PM. Reservations are compulsory and comfortable clothes and sturdy shoes are recommended. Contact La Fondazione per I Beni Culturali Ebraici in Italia Onlus for reservations and details (39-340-736-8280). For information on other events on the European Day of Culture, consult this website.

In Rome’s Largo del Teatro Valle stands a somewhat imposting storefront emblazoned with a sign for CO2 Brasserie, a thankfully defunct restaurant that closed a few years back. The Perfect Bun opened in its place, but the sign for CO2 is still there, a strange reminder of the space’s earlier incarnation. I visited The Perfect Bun for a bite in June. I knew they had burgers but I had never heard anything about them, and I wasn’t really sure what to expect.

We were seated by the kitchen and saw the Sam’s Club sized french fry bags being dumped into the frier and, well, I think that’s all I really need to say on the quality of the food. The Perfect Bun does not offer the perfect anything, not Caesar salad, burgers, fries, or even bun, for that matter. But they do have two things going for them. First, the service was exceedingly polite and kind, a huge change from the old CO2 days. Second, their legal name, Lady Taco, Srl. It is hilarious, confusing, strange and completely vulgar, but I love it. It’s worth a stop at the bar just to get the receipt so that months later you might find it again by chance, as I did, and have a good laugh.

When it’s hot in Rome, survival instincts kick in. City dwellers tend to stay indoors, with their shutters closed tight against the blazing sun. (more…)

I just spent an incredible week eating my way across northern California. The short amount of time wasn’t enough to do justice to one of the world’s best food destinations, but that didn’t stop me from doing some serious damage. Check out some of the things I ate this week above or on Flickr and check back soon for posts on all the great food experiences I had.

Is anything better than sweet corn in August? Well, not much. It’s hard to beat its sugary flavor, creamy texture and perfect harmony with butter. But at Má Pêche they have tried to improve on the magnificent by serving their sweet corn side dish with slivers of lardo, cured pork fat. So I guess the answer to the question is: sweet corn with melted pig fat. What’s your favorite way to prepare corn in August?

I’m a week into my annual August trip home and I’ve already put a pretty serious dent into this month’s food goals. The feast started shortly after I landed in Philly and has continued unrelenting through New Jersey and NYC, with brief pauses to sleep, watch Tosh.0, and travel from one dining destination to another.

Day 1: My parents met me at the airport and we stopped in town for a few beers and some snacks at the Eulogy Belgian Tavern, where our friend Andrew tends bar. From there, we headed over to The Village Whiskey for some good old fashioned American summer grub: oysters on the half shell, pickled beets and carrots, deviled eggs, and lobster rolls. They have a great cocktail list, and I became much enamored of the Brooklyn (rye whiskey, dry vermouth, Maraschino, and Torani Amer), which I have been attempting to replicate ever since.

Oysters on the half shell at The Village Whiskey, Philly.

Day 2: I had lunch in the backyard with Mamma Parla, a tomato sandwich made with the meaty Jersey beefsteaks and basil from her garden. For dinner, I headed up to NYC where I finally tried Bistro De La Gare in the West Village. My friends Maryann Terillo and Elisa Sarno opened this France and Italy inspired restaurant in February and it is just lovely. The lamb sausage, house-made spaghetti, grilled U-10 scallops with corn chowder, and rice pudding were highlights.

Tripe and Oxtail at Grand Sichuan in Chelsea, NYC.

Day 3: A mediocre brunch of fried chicken and waffles washed down with a fairly delicious Bloody Mary at Walter Foods in Williamsburg.

Day 4: Dinner at Daniel in NYC with Mamma and Lauren Parla was good, but it didn’t knock my socks off the way a restaurant with 3 Michelin stars and ranked eighth in The World’s 50 Best Restaurants definitely should have.

Cheeseburger at Shake Shack on 44th & 8th, NYC.

Day 5: I stopped by the new Shake Shack in the Theater District for a cheeseburger that pulled out all the umami stops. I paired it with a delectable frozen vanilla custard. Dinner with my friend Sarah that evening was at Eleven Madison Park. We ordered the “Summer” tasting menu, which was exceptional, save for the beet marshmallow amuse-bouche which made me gag a little and the “Milk and Honey” dessert which I didn’t care for due to its similarity to a bland Astronaut Ice Cream. The meal’s highlights included strawberry gazpacho with guanciale, milk-fed veal three ways (the tender sweetbreads and ribbons of corned tongue were amazing), and Bing cherry and pistachio sundae.

Spicy chicken Chong Qing style and Sichuan bean curd at Grand Sichuan in Chelsea, NYC.

Day 6: Lunch with Can at Grand Sichuan in Chelsea was alright, though I much prefer the incapacitating and hallucination inducing heat of Szechuan Gourmet in Midtown. The dumplings with spicy oil, cold spicy beef tongue and oxtail, and whole crispy fish were all good but I could still feel my face when all was said and done, so it wasn’t quite up to my spice capacity.

Two scoops at The Bent Spoon.

Day 7: Lunch at the Princeton Farmer’s Market and ice cream at The Bent Spoon, both additions to the community since my departure years back. There were lots of gorgeous ears of Jersey corn, heirloom tomatoes, peppers, and peaches at the market and The Bent Spoon was overflowing with flavors sourced from local farmers. I opted for scoop of apricot with watermelon/white peach/berry.

Kangaroo loin and Jersey corn succotash at Clydz.

Dinner that night was at Clydz, my dad’s restaurant in New Brunswick, NJ. Things tend to get pretty messy when we eat here. It always seems like a good idea to get everything on the menu. This time around tried to eat conservatively and only had two dozen oysters, crispy calamari salad, crab cakes with sherry Dijon sauce, pulled buffalo short rib ravioli, elk and rattlesnake chili, grilled ostrich, cioppino, and kangaroo loin with Jersey corn succotash. And those are just the dishes I was able to recall while drifting in and out of a food coma later that night.

Day 8: Detox.