New Le Creuset Pot

The husband had asked me some months back after the beef bourguignon session whether I would like a cast iron pot to make beef bourguignon (for him, presumably). We spotted an advertisement over the weekend for a warehouse sale, and the lovely man came back with this 31cm oval beauty below. We used it over the weekend to cook Japanese curry which the man has declared as the best . curry . ever.

Siena & Ristorante Osteria Enoteca Sotto Le Fonti

We took a bus from Rome to Siena the next day, and our first stop was the Siena Duomo. Armed with our trusty Rick Steves guidebook and Ipod downloaded tours, we had a fantastic time touring the building. The architecture was insane - we couldn't believe this equivalent-to-6-storey-building was built in the 1200s-1300s.

There were sculptures by Michaelangelo and Donatello, as well as this ornate painted room featuring Pope Pius II, Siena's favourite son.  

The exterior of the Duomo

The shell-shaped Piazzo del Campo, one of the prettiest squares in Italy

Siena's skyline with the Duomo

View of the skyline with the Torre del Mangia taken somewhere near the Church of San Domenico

The Palazzo Publico and Torre del Mangia at night

Every good gourmet needs something to look forward to at the end of every good sightseeing day - a brilliant dinner. We found this place called Sotto Le Fonti through Trip Advisor, which was pretty highly rated.

The interiors looked very homely - we've always been more taken with trattorias, compared to ristorantes, and we felt this was a bit more of a trattoria rather than something finer.  The place was packed to the rafters (this shot was snapped around 10.30pm) but they managed to find us 2 seats on a shared table.

 Complimentary prosecco is always nice.

We had one glass of each for around 5-8 Euros (can't remember how much). The vino nobile was amazing - super big bang red.

Bread to start with - this was great because our tummies were very empty, and the wine+prosecco was getting to us.

We ordered a plate of various Tuscan cold cuts (6.50 Euros) to start with - these were beautiful with the wines. Very flavourful and not too salty.

Again, we shared everything. This was my favourite cut of meat out of the entire plate. No idea what this was, but it was yummy.

This was my favourite dish of the entire night - wild boar (cinghale) pappardelle (6.50Euros). The pasta was fresh, and cooked perfectly al dente. The wild boar was minced, cooked with presumably the standard ragout recipe, but the flavour of the meat was more intense than beef.

This was the pici (hand made pasta) with rocket pesto and zucchini (7.50 Euros). I loved the texture of the pici - absolutely chewy and great to bite.

The rocket was slightly bitter, which was to be expected, but once we added shredded parmesan everything was perfect.

We shared a bistecca alla fiorentina - our first bistecca of the trip. This was a BEAUTY. Making this photo extra large for added emphasis

 

The meat was done perfectly rare. It  was charred on the outside, red on the inside yet not bloody.

Typing this out now makes me darned hungry.

The remains of the 1kg steak. This was probably around 35 Euros.

Like all good greedy Asians, we still had room for dessert. The husband's chocolate salami.

 

My panna cotta - I think it was larger than it looks in the photo. Desserts were 4 Euros each, if I don't recall wrongly.

I can't recall how much dinner cost, but it was less than 100 Euros for 1 starter, 2 pastas, 1 shared main course, 2 desserts and 2 glasses of excellent wine. Super good value for money and super good quality food - this probably takes joint top spot as our best meal in Italy (more on the other No. 1 restaurant later). The person who served us - presumably the lady boss of the place, from her body language and confidence - spoke perfect English, and was warm, hospitable and friendly. It was a really enjoyable meal from all aspects, and we both left extremely fully and happy, with very pleasant memories of our 2 hours in the restaurant.

Highly, highly recommended if you only have 1 meal in Siena, and reservations may be necessary if you're going on a weekend (we walked in on a Monday night). It's just a 5 min walk outside the city walls from Porta Fontebranda.

Website: http://www.sottolefonti.it/

Trattoria Monti, Rome

After booking our air tickets, the next obvious thing to do for us was work out where to eat. So after lots of googling and scouring through various reviews, blogs and chowhound, we decided that our very first meal after touching down at Fiumicino would be at Trattoria Monti, 4 stops by subway from where we were staying. We landed at 8pm, cleared immigration, checked in and made it to Monti in good time for our 10pm dinner reservation - thankfully the Italians eat late. And every review said to book, so just as well we did, since the couple that came after us had to wait about half an hour for their table. 

A lot of stickers on the door was a pretty good sign. According to various reviews, the food is from Le Marche on the Adriatic Coast.

We were seriously exhausted after the 7hr SIN-DXB redeye + 9hrs in Dubai + 6 hrs DXB-FCO, so sitting down at dinner more than 24 hours after leaving Changi, we were more than ready to start our Italian holiday proper.

As good Asians, we shared everything. This was supposed to be stuffed and fried olives with artichokes, fried vanilla cream and ciauscolo sausages, but there were also fried zucchini flowers.  

The fried olives were great with wine

We had the rigatoni with pecorino, sausage and pepper. This was a super simple dish, with the flavours of the pepper, cheese and sausage coming through very nicely. The pasta was done al dente, perhaps a little harder than we would have liked. 

A close-up of the rigatoni

The Tortello was descrived as a large ravioli with fresh egg yolk inside with tomato sauce

Very simple again - it appeared to have ricotta cheese and a few other herbs like basil. This was pleasant as well. 

I was pretty stuffed up at this point, but the husband still had enough in him to go for the roasted veal with tuna sauce. This was not bad either, although it wouldn't have been my first choice.

All in, a decent although not mind-blowing meal. Much to our pleasure a few days later, we saw that Tan Hsueh Yun was also in Italy that week, and Monti was her first Roman post. It was good to feel validated :)

Via di San Vito, 13  00185 Rome, Italy

Tel: 06 4466573

Rome In A Day

We had a whirlwind day in Rome and basically walked the entire city starting at 9am, ending only at 9pm. I thought we did pretty well although I regretted not having enough energy to see Piazza del Popolo, which I had read so much about in university. We also didn't get to see the Sistine Chapel since it was a Sunday, which means we'll need to return to Rome somehow.

We started bright and early at the Colosseum. It was a crazy piece of architecture, and it's incredible how bored, cruel, and creative the ancient Romans were. We spent about 1.5 hours there with our Rick Steves ipod tours downloaded before flying off. Very informative, and best of all, free.

After that, we walked across to Palatine Hill - we bypassed most of it to head to the Roman Forum.

And the Roman Forum, learning about Caesar, Constantine, Titus and other Roman gods and emperors. That was a lot of history for the morning, and we had a great time thanks to the Rick Steves ipod tours. 

After that, we headed across the Tiber River to La Scala in Trastevere for lunch which we booked some days earlier. We had one of the outdoors seats, and the place filled up pretty soon after we got there.

 Starting off with hot crusty bread

 Complimentary glasses of prosecco

  

 Lovely view from our seat

Our starter of burrata with black truffles (10 Euros) - one bite was enough to send us to heaven. This was absolutely amazing, both in terms of texture and flavours.

 What we ordered to go with the meal - the Chianti was fantastic. We wished we could have drunk more.

Ravioli with ricotta with a butter and sage sauce (16 Euros), which I really liked as well.

The husband had gnocchi with smoked provolene cheese. He pronounced this the best gnocchi he had ever eaten.

 For the main course, he had a veal dish, which I thought was a bit salty from the pancetta.

 I had the oxtail. This was all right, but I think their pastas were better than the mains.

 The card in case anyone's interested

 

 After lunch, we took a walk thru the neighbourhood

 And found a lot of charming little corners. I loved the area.

We walked off to Piazza San Pietro in the Vatican City. Didn't go into the basilica since the queue looked insane, saving it for next time when we make it to the Sistine Chapel. 

We wandered off to Campo dei Fiori which had a nice market - we ended up buying some truffle stuff home for gifts for like minded foodie friends

 

Pastas in every shape and colour

 Didn't buy any of these but they looked amazing

 

We couldn't understand why so many people were sitting on the Spanish Steps. 

 Piazza Navona - a seriously pretty open space.

 

 Inside the Pantheon. How did they even manage to construct this without machines or cranes?

 View from the park near the top of the Spanish Steps

 Sunset over Rome

 Amazing sky with clouds in just the right place

 Trevi Fountain - no we didn't throw a coin since we had confidence in our ambitions to return

Next stop: Siena.