Lunch Meetups in Rome

Lunch Meetups in Rome

It always fun to have lunch meetups with friends on Twitter especially if it’s the first time you are meeting in person. This week, as most of my students have taken their exams, I had the opportunity to have two lunch meetups with bloggers who happened to be in Rome.

Lunches in Rome - Featured

That’s one of the best things about Twitter, the opportunity to meet and make new friends.

Lunches in Rome

The first lunch meetup I had was with @foodieintl and it was actually a last minute arrangement.  She had originally invited me to an aperitivo but as we had tickets to the Internazionale (Rome Masters) for that evening, we decided to meetup for lunch instead.

Lunches in Rome:Osteria dell' Ingegno

Elyse was craving for a tuna salad at Osteria dell’ Ingegno and proposed to meet up there.  That sounded perfect for me!

As it was clear she has often been here in the past, I followed her lead and ordered what she was raving about, the tuna salad – and I was glad I did.

The portions were generous and we both cleaned it up – clearly an indication of  how much we both  enjoyed this dish.  Between bites,  we had a good chat over several topics and she has a lot of fascinating experiences to share.

Lunches in Rome: Tuna Salad

As we said our goodbyes, I would have been happy to get gelato with her but as I am trying to stay sugar-free for the next few weeks, it took a lot of effort for me to turn down this offer.

Osteria dell’ Ingegno
Piazza di Pietra 45, 00186 Rome
Tel: 06 6780662

Another Lunch in Rome – Trastevere

Later this week, I meet with @foodloverkathy who has the best round up of all things delicious in Italy in her weekly Italy on a Plate.

After sharing my post on the carbonara at Da Danilo, I discovered that Kathy has a preference for amatriciana.  As we had already planned to have lunch, the question was more where should we go for amatriciana.  That answer came via Revealed Rome who had just written a post on Osteria Fernanda which was meant just for us.

Lunches in Rome: Osteria Fernanda

We were there early to beat the lunch crowd and we sure did.  We were the first there but soon enough, the place was completely packed.  We each ordered the amatriciana and then while studying the menu, we decided to also get the calamaro.

Lunches in Rome: Menu Osteria Fernanda

The amatriciana was beautifully presented and the crispy guanciale on top was a nice touch.  However, I would have also liked some chunks of guanciale inside too.  It wasn’t the easiest dish to eat but since it was a touch dry, I didn’t get any tomato sauce on me.

Lunches in Rome: Osteria Fernanda - Amatriciana

As we shared the calamaro, the kitchen was kind to have it already divided. We were glad we decided to share this second dish as we were “stuffed” after the amatriciana!

Again lovely presentation and the beans with seafood seems to be a familiar theme.  Personally, I love this combination and have attempted to make similar dishes at home before.

Lunches in Rome: Osteria Fernanda - Calamaro

If I weren’t trying to stay sugar-free, I would have been happy to order the dessert.  However, I restrained – how I don’t know.  Instead I recommended Kathy try Il Gelato di Claudio Torce.

Kathy was hesitant but I told her how I too love classic flavors but am now a convert!  You have no idea how tempted I was to go with her – how could anyone turn down Il Gelato!

Besides meeting twitter friends for the first time, it is also loads of fun to have lunches in Rome with those who are in town.

7 comments

  1. Wow! You turned down gelato twice. Good job! With the sugar free week. Can you explain please what’s a calamaro? Thanks.

    • Yeah it has been a challenging week but I survived a sugar-free week. Hope to continue this healthy streak for another week. A calamaro is a squid and the plural is calamari 🙂 The dish we got was a squid with some bread stuffing. Since I like seafood and beans combination, I may try to make this at home.

      • Congrats on accomplishing your sugar free week goal! Thx for the calamaro explanation 🙂

  2. I had to Google some of those dishes! But all look yummy! 🙂

  3. Diana – It was a lot of fun meeting you in person and having the lunch meet up. (One of the great things about blogging is getting to meet fellow bloggers when traveling!) OK, I have to say I had one of the saucy L’amatriciana pasta dishes a few days later, and although a little more sauce would have been nice, I still liked this version better.

  4. Good for you for staying sugar free when meeting up. It’s been the hardest feat for me. My husband has an endless sweet tooth, so I tag along and eat half of whatever dessert he gets. I am more of a salt nut, but oh my, sugar is so very hard to resist.