Mangiare! Mangiare! Two Dinner Dates.

For 11 years, one particularly well-regarded restaurant has been closed in July. But this year, lo and behold, I walked by to see the gates open and some activity in their garden space. It's called Il Richiastro. The owner, Luigi, and I emailed back and forth as I switched the night we wanted to go — three times. He was a good sport about it. We finally went on Saturday and were the only tourists. Woohoo! Success! It was great. I’m all about atmosphere, but the food did not disappoint either. 

Here's Fred. During the summer months, dining is outside in this lovely garden. Gravel-floored, tree-surrounded, romantically lit. Again, I'm all about atmosphere. It was perfection. 

Fred got lombrichi a Vitorchianese --- pasta with a spicy red sauce with wild fennel. Lombrichi means earthworms... yep, they do look like earthworms. Lombrichi is the pasta of the region. They have pastas for regions the way the Scottish have tartans specific to clans. And Vitorchianese is simply "in the style of Vitorchiano," a neighboring town. Fred loved it.

And MY dish was the winner as far as I was concerned. It was a square, flat pasta that I can't remember the name of.. I'm waiting for an email back from Luigi reminding me what it was -- with zucchine and pecorino.* After making sure it was the actual zucchini and not the flowers (good, but not what I was looking for), I ordered this. I had no idea what the pasta would be shaped like, but was happily surprised it was my favorite shape. We call it rags in the States, I think. Just square flat pieces of pasta--like un-paired, un-stuffed ravioli halves.

*This just in:  My pasta was "Pizzicati" with zucchini and parmiggiano—not pecorino. PERFETTO! 

This is NOT posed... Fred caught me enjoying my pasta. Very much :)

Another restaurant that is often closed when we feel like going was on vacation until this week, so we hit them up, too. It's called Lo Spito, which we BELIEVE means The Spit, as in the metal rod you roast meat on. This place is big on meat, which we didn't order, but it was delicious anyway. (When I Google translate Lo Spito, it says it means The Nightmare...???)

Two minor downsides:  the music was American country, and my wine seemed to have been opened prior to their three-week vacation. It was dark yellow and had that "old" (not good old, but bad old) taste.

Back to the music. I've often said that music for atmosphere is not a thing in Italy. Much like indoor dining lighting. In restaurants, the lights are bright and there's no music playing.  The only reason you'd light a candle in Italy is to make a dark place light -- like outdoors. Then again, I'm only an expert on my little corner of Lazio. Can't really speak for the entire country. So it was ironic that we finally had music to dine by, but it was American country :(  Wrong atmosphere for me!

Fred started off with lardo, mostly to please our friend Dan Tonelli who has been extolling lardo's virtues for the better part of the last decade. We think it was probably not the world's best lardo, as it wasn't very flavorful and had chewiness that is not typical. It should spread almost like butter, but this was more sliceable.

Lardo.

Earthworms again! This time all'amatriciana, one of Fred's favorites. Apparently, restaurants get a tax break for serving the regional pasta. 

I won again. This is pizzoccheri (buckwheat pasta) with cime di rapa (turnip greens) and fusa di pecorino -- something nobody can seem to figure out what is, but basically it was a spoonful of a sort of cheesy roux. REALLY GOOD. We'll try to make this at some point, if we can find turnip greens. Pizzoccheri is like short tagliatelle. Buckwheat pasta is gluten free and a greenish color. I hadn't realized it was gluten free and might forgo that when making it at home. Non-gluten free pasta is more flavorful, in my opinion.


And here are Fred and me again, in our happy place. An Italian restaurant.