Bucatini Amatriciana
This recipe of bucatini Amatriciana is dedicated to a friend in ROME. Nicola, a person with great sense of pride of being a Romano and fantastic host in his now famous trattoria
We arrived in Rome very late one night and as we were exiting the train station we were approached by a tourist guide of Rome, he was a Brazilian national living in Rome for a number of years.
He showed us all his credentials and licence but as a Napoletano I was not sure about this dude. But after a few minutes of conversing and me showing him my police badge which was really my cousins. He still wanted to help us find a decent albergo or pension for the night.
I agreed on one condition that he would have to escort us to the pension. He agreed and off we went to Maria’s pension, a beautiful renovated old building with all the amenities of a new hotel. The room charge was 50,000 lire, roughly $38 Aussie dollars per night.
I paid for two nights in advance and she gave me a discount of 15,000 lire. In the end two nights in Rome in a beautiful pension cost me roughly $60 Aussie dollars.
We slept well and woke up about 7.00am to kids getting ready to go to school. We could hear the buzz from our room as the surrounding buildings all faced in teh same courtyard. It was absolutely delightful to hear Italian kids speaking Italian with a little Roman accent.
I opened our window that faced in the courtyard and saw 5 kids in their school smock running around before the bus picked them up.
We showered, got ready and walked toward our first stop of the day.
The Colosseum
As we were walking toward the Colosseum, only a few blocks away from we were staying, we stopped for a coffee and a bomba ripiena, a soft doughnut filled with lemon cream that smelt and tasted divine.
After 10 hours of walking and travelling on buses to absorb as much as possible from the eternal city, we returned at the pension exhausted, we were so tired that we fell a sleep for about an hour.
We got up, got ready and as we walking down the stairs we saw Maria cleaning a room that had just been vacated.
She asked where we were heading and I replied to dinner, without hesitation she recommended Da Nicola a trattoria nearby that was an icon to many locals and tourists alike.
We found it with ease and were amazed to see this old recipe book picture perfect trattoria with all the trimmings and charm of yesteryear.
We were greeted at the door by a friendly old man. He must have been related to Nicola. He introduced himself as Federico and explained some of the house specials. We decided to start with an antipasto and then Lilly chose rigatoni al pomodoro e ricotta salata and a salad. My choices were bucatini amatriciana and agnello alla cacciatore.
The bucatini were out this world, the chunky pork pieces melted in my mouth as the bucatini slowly twirled on my fork. Nicola the owner of this wonderful establishment heard Lilly and I speak English at first, then Italian and then heard me speak Neapolitan.... He walked over to our table and asked with a little hesitation where we were from.
I told him my entire story of migrating with my family from Napoli to Adelaide, Australia in 1981 and that we were married 1991.
We chatted for a while and learnt about him and his family whilst he was intrigued to listen as well as speaking
He offered us some limoncello or an amaro and charged me what 2 people would pay at McDONALDS absolutely peanuts.
Grazie Nicola!
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