Rick Steves scores big (11/22)

Shannyn and I give a big shout-out to our friends Chris and Sherri for the Rick Steves Italy book. We decided to head to the Spanish Steps for an evening stroll around town. We were hungry and wanted to sample our first Italian meal of the trip and we looked to our trusty friend Rick for a tip. One of his suggestions nearby is Ristorante il Gabriello. It's in a basement in a small alley near all of the designer shops. The food was amazing! Shannyn and I started out with an appetizer of antipasti misti and prosciutto e melon. Everything is very fresh -- the melon tasted like it was just picked that day. There were grilled eggplant, bell peppers, some meats and mushrooms on the antipasti plate. For primi piatti, Shannyn got spaghetti con vongole and I got risotto con gambieri e zuchini. I tried hard to steal some of Shannyn's pasta -- that had to be one of the best tasting dishes ever -- they somehow infused this amazing garlic flavor into the olive oil-based sauce. It has inspired me to try to re-create this at home. My risotto was great too -- I am trying it at a lot of different restaurants because I love risotto so much. So, on my unofficial risotto scale, Gabriello scores an 8. Pretty damn good. On to secondi: Shannyn ordered the beef cooked with a brunello vino sauce. She didn't want to share it with me, but I got a piece anyway. It was very, very good and she claimed it was one of the best steaks she's ever had. I countered with an angus steak marinated in balsalmic vinegar. I didn't want to share it with Shannyn either! Oh and we had a few glasses of vino della casa rosso as well -- so we ended drunk, full and happy. But can you ever finish a fine meal without dolci? No! So Shannyn got the torte di cioccoloto and I decided to be good and I got a fruit plate. On the fruit plate, I discovered a new favorite -- the clementine. I've been addicted to these things since I've been here -- I eat about 4-8 per day.