Ciao, Roma!

Ms. Packratty does not know how to describe her dinner at Urbana 47. Thanks to the generosity of her parents who added to her savings and told her to have fun, Ms. Packratty has eaten at several amazing and famous restaurants. She has also eaten porchetta sliced onto a plain roll from a street market and boiled eggs for breakfast and nothing she has eaten in Roma from pizza bianco to the monster prawns at La Rosetta has disappointed. But Urbana 47 was in a whole different league. First of all, the restaurant is very modern with a touch of 1950s retro and a glossy, immaculate open kitchen. The restaurant is, I am told, unique in that every ingredient is sourced within the province of Lazio and is very much seasonal, as well.
Entering, Ms. Packratty was seated at a group table with an excellent view of the kitchen and present with a menu. The possibility was to have two dishes and a dolce, or sweet, or three or four main dishes for the ambitious eater. Having been daunted by what a typical Roman appears to eat at lunch, let alone dinner (pranzo and cena for those interested), Ms. Packratty opted for the 2 dishes and dolce. Her pasta choice was a mix of two pastas, one white, one green, with sautéed guanciale and artichokes all bound together with a local cheese similar to parmesan, but produced in Lazio. Before this particular plate of gustatory heaven arrived, her waitress brought a tiny gratin dish containing a puree of carrots with a small dollop of cream containing some of that aged cheese. Pureed carrot, you say? This in no way resembled baby food. It was more like a few spoons containing the essence of the best barely cooked carrots you ever tasted in your life and the contrast of the cheese and cream against the earthy carrot was astonishing.
After this opener, the pasta arrived and Ms. Packratty almost swooned in bliss – it was creamy but al dente, green but also savory. American chefs who think they have to play crazy tricks with food and mix cuisines need to come eat a plate or two in Rome and stop putting hot peppers and cilantro in everything and calling it fusion. Fusion is when tastes blend happily as compared to the head on train wreck of most American food from McDs to the most expensive restaurants.
The purity and freshness of the ingredients is no small part of the equation and Ms. Packratty believes there is simply no excuse for the dismal quality of most American food, starting with things like bread, eggs, milk and butter. We have some of the best farmland in the world and we’re using most of it in factory farming and way too much producing corn syrup and soybeans – we could be eating food as good as the Italian food – not an imitation, but our own cuisine made from fresh and honest ingredients instead of the swill that fills our supermarkets and restaurants.
Ms. Packratty’s second dish was a nod to Lent and a chance to experience the Roman love of cod. Yes, cod. Apparently since the days of the empire, Rome has imported cod, mainly dried, but the hundreds of thousands of tons, something that continues today. There are a couple of restaurants in Rome’s old ghetto that specialize in baccala or cod, although Ms. Packratty did not get a chance to try them this trip. Since her parents come from an area with no small tradition of cod eating, Ms. Packratty selected a fish pie made with potatoes. Now, Ms. Packratty’s mother, in her day and especially when Ms. Packratty’s beloved grandfather was alive, would occasionally make a wonderful fish chowder with potatoes, salt pork, a very little onion, some form of flavorsome white fish and milk. Well, Urbana 47’s dish was that chowder, minus the milk, served in wedges and dressed with bagna cauda, a traditional fish sauce. (So traditional that cultural archeologists have determined that the Romans built huge factories for producing fish sauce in thousand amphorae quantities on the southern coast of the Mediterranean.) Apparently making fermented fish sauce was not the least offensive process possible and the Romans had their own equivalent of NIMBY yuppies who didn’t want a fish sauce factory stinking up their beachfront even though they bought the stuff in hundred gallon jugs. So this potato and fish combination was delightfully familiar and yet completely different at the same time.
The common table had filled up with a group of five and a couple of other solo diners and Ms. Packratty found herself being questioned about her experiences in Rome by a man of about 50 of a very Roman type – he clearly was well-to-do and he got a little snobby at one point, which Ms. Packratty rather enjoyed. Mr. Snobby is apparently part of a family business doing construction and proceeded to tell Ms. Packratty about the difficulties of building anything in the environs of Rome – as soon as they lift the first shovel, they are likely to find something that requires bringing the archaeologists in – he commented that there was probably enough buried to keep all the archaeologists busy for the next 1000 years studying what they could find from the last 3000 years. To which Ms. Packratty replied that the rest of the world’s fascination with Rome’s older bits had certainly served the city and the country rather well. At this, he finally laughed and leaned back and said, “Well, without you Americans we would have lost so much both in the war and afterward from neglect.” At this point, he ordered espressos for both of us and then my dolce came. To say it was a mocha cream over sponge cake is to make the barest possibly description, but it is almost impossible to describe how complex the flavors were in this small, simple cup of perfection. Ms. Packratty has pretty much eschewed sweets in Rome, with the exception of a couple of cups of insanely good gelato (Grom marrons glace), but this coffee and chocolate combination was extravagantly good.
M\s. Packratty thanked Mr. Snobby for the espresso and made her goodbyes while he was chatting up the owner and walked back up to centi venti tre to start this entry as well as drink half a bottle of mineral water to help make sure she does not miss the alarm at 5 a.m. She has packed almost everything except her current garb, her nightshirt and the clothes she will wear tomorrow, this computer and a book. When the alarm goes off, she will need to shower, make a breakfast, clean out the remains in the fridge and pack the last things. Then drag her suitcase down the hill to the Cavour Metro to take the train to Termini, She has her ticket already purchased for the Leonardo Express and her boarding pass ready and is just terribly miserable at the thought of leaving. However, leaving means the possibility of returning and Ms. Packratty hopes to do just that. She has already told her adorable niece that she will take her to Rome when she completes college which means at the most that she will be back in 6 years – all she can think about is what fun it would be to trot Miss Adorable around this city and show her all the things that Ms. Packratty has already seen and perhaps even more.
Perhaps Ms. Packratty could have pushed a little harder and gone to a couple more museums, but she thinks that by spending some of her time walking around and experiencing the city that she did not really waste any of her time. The only thing she regrets is not being able to reach the historian at the exhibition hall. Perhaps she can try a letter and see if she gets anywhere with that. Taking the buses and Metro and even once one of the streetcars and experiencing the crazy crush of the market at Porto Portese, being crammed into the Metro like an anchovy, the old stone and weathered stucco and the incredible little terraces jammed with greenery, the cold air in the morning and the smell of chestnuts roasting on almost every street corner and the clear pure water running from hundreds of fountains and nasone all filled out the experiences of looking at the art and architecture. Can’t wait to come back. Ciao, Roma!