I cant find a post I made midway through this trip mentioning a few other places we had went that I had not had time to write up. It seems to have disappeared - I am going to try to rectify this now, since we had a couple of really great meals I did not report on.
First, we had a very nice stylish lunch at CECILIA SANTA CUCINA in Trastevere. We had gone over there to check out St. Cecilia’s church and some other places, and wound up without lunch plans on a Saturday. Called Cesare’s and the hostest scoffed at me. We had walked by Da Enzo’s earlier and figured, why not? Wasted time getting over there and by opening time they were filling and there were huge lines of young people (the kind who enjoy standing in long lines everywhere!) Anyway, we were sort of glad, and walked a couple of blocks away where restaurants werent even starting lunch service yet and booked at table at Cecilia Santa Cucina which was taking a veg delivery and had what turned out to be well deserved good reviews. , a good wine was ordered, and I settled down in the comfortable, quiet dining room to enjoy watching the very organized chefs in the open kitchen. We agreed to take the three course tasting menu for a very reasonable 38 euros after being reassured that they put their best dishes on it.
A varied and delicious bread basket came out with some very tasty anchovy buttter
Next we were presented with gilded olive glazed profiteroles, stuffed with creamy cod, under s smoke dome. This was maybe the least successful dish since the olive flavor did not come through all that well but it was still very good and very fun.
Next we were served a very convincing and delicious reconstructed carbonara, garnished with shards of fried artichoke and zucchini flowers
The secondo was a lovely hunk of tender roast suckling pig, garnished with puntarelle, and, I think a pepper based sauce (hard to photograph this dish, which was great)
We though we were done, but they comped up with a spectacular nougat cigar , pretty sweet but good, and even presented some little extra treats. All this, including wine for 116E made this one of our better value meals in Rome. This ambitious and competent kitchen is very well worth checking out in Trastevere.
