Food Coma

I just had the best panna cotta ever.

The little restaurant on our street, conveniently named "The Kitchen", is wonderful. The menu is simple: you get five price-fix options from which to choose. You can take a simple trip to the contorni bar (a buffet of side dishes, mostly cooked vegetables with a little rice, potato and cous cous thrown in, just in case you need a little starch to accompany your pasta) to a three-course meal, including dessert, water (they don't really do tap water here) and caffe.

Will and I both confessed to still being a little skittish in restaurants here. We're both ok in a more traditional place where you're greeted by a host, you ask for un tavolo per due then the waiter comes and takes your order.

But The Kitchen was a little different, in that we both thought that the contorni table meant that the whole restaurant was buffet style and then weren't sure whether to just go serve ourselves from there or to wait for a waiter to greet us. Today, though, Will was one step ahead of me. The deal is that you basically choose how much you want to eat: the melange of sides, a primi piatti (usually pasta) or primi e secondo (generally fish or meat).

The options were written on a chalkboard on the first floor. Will was alert enough to give it a glance on the way downstairs to our table, while I was a little startled at having run into Claudio, the brother of the woman from whom we're subletting the apartment. I missed the choices entirely and decided that it was just easier to "have what he's having". It was also easier to just nod and say due (two) than to try to stumble through asking the waitress what today's offerings were.

Long story short, we had lunch (penne arribiata, no secondo), it was fantastic and now I'm beat. Oh, that panna cotta. Bellissima!

Before I snooze off, though, check out Will's new sunglasses*!


Here he is after our Italian test yesterday, in the lounge area at school, waiting to see if we passed.


*the glasses may look a little on the grande side, but rest assured, these are tame for his Italian brethren.