Restaurant Review: La Gatta Mangiona

La Gatta Mangiona, meaning the overstuffed female cat, is a fantastic neighborhood restaurant outside the hustle and bustle of central Rome.

It is, possibly, a purveyor of the BEST PIZZA IN ROME. See photo below for proof.

Photo courtesy of Claybrook Digital Enterprises, LLP

This restaurant's walls are loaded with pictures of those darned, cute furballs. Luckily for us consumers, no cats are seen in the dining rooms. They are also not likely to show their whiskered, gremlin-like faces in the kitchens.  

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I am writing about this restaurant because it's worth writing about. This came highly recommended from other fellow Rome bloggers after I'd done my careful research for the best pizza in Rome. Though it's hard to pinpoint which place in the Eternal City deserves the top honor, it's rather easy to tell if a place should be considered one of the best.  And this place earns its spot. 

Between the suppli (imagine risotto shaped into a ball, then deep fried), the pizza, all made with fresh, high quality ingredients, and one of the best lemon desserts I've ever tasted (the flavor reminded me of lemon cake batter), the food is worth the slightly longer trek away from the center of the city!  I shouldn't forget to mention their Italian craft beer selection is quite good. 


La Gatta Mangiona is farther out of the city than most care to go to.  It's located right near the square called Piazza di San Giovanni di Dio.  It's on the west side of the Tiber River, south of the neighborhood called Trastevere, south of the Janiculum Hill, located in a beautiful and increasingly popular-to-the-foodies area called Monte Verde Vecchio. To get there, your best bet is to take the 8 Tram from the slightly centrally located Largo Argentina, an interesting area where Julius Caesar was supposedly stabbed by Brutus. It's not a terrible walking distance from the Pantheon in one direction, the huge monument that looks like a Greek temple built to honor Vittorio Emmanuele II in Piazza Venezia, and Campo Dei Fiori, another. Best to just copy and paste these names into google maps if you are unfamiliar with what I'm talking about.


Anyway, you take the 8 tram twelve (12) stops if my count is correct, to the stop called S. Giovanni di Dio and the restaurant is down a side street very much nearby.

What a fantastic restaurant!  Tracking their daily specials used to be the beat of a hungry detective: the only option being to hoof it to the restaurant and see what they had that day. With the advent of the wonderful tool called the Internet, savvy aficionados of technology can download the La Gatta Mangiona app, updated every day they change their daily specials. It's in Italian though, so be prepared to translate lots of food items. Or you can always go to their website, http://www.lagattamangiona.com/.

Daily specials are always recommended.  If what they offer doesn't sound good, I can attest to their suppli beinng excellent.  The plain suppli (with marinara sauce and a nugget of mozzarella) is good.  Even better is their asparagus and saffron variety.  My favorite was a special seafood one that had squid ink sauce around the rice and of course chunks of seafood in the middle.  Outstanding! Their other antipasti might be good, same as their primi piatti, but I could never stomach more than that and the huge personal pizza that follows.

Photo courtesy of Claybrook Digital Enterprises, LLP

Pizza recommendations? The ones with potato on it - in Italian, it's called patate. Those are my favorites.  They have only a few that include the buttery starch, and they are all delicious.  Of course, you can't go wrong with the Margharita Semplice, a standard to compare all the other pizzerias you try. And really, I haven't found a variety I haven't enjoyed.

Photo courtesy of Claybrook Digital Enterprises, LLP

A special of the night: Asparagus, Speck and Red Peppercorn

Salami piccante with olives.

And the dessert.  Oh, the dessert.  Spuma di Limoncello di Capri.  Mousse made from Limoncello made in Capri. Exquisite!

Photo by yours truly.

For one of the best Roman pizza experiences, go to La Gatta Mangiona.

An Italian Pharmacy Experience, a lesson for all

At some point or another, if you live in a place longer than six months, most likely, you'll catch some sort of a cold. Some people are certainly luckier than others when it comes to sickness and their strength of immune systems. Me, personally, I've always been quite fond of my strength.  Thanks, Mom and Dad, the genes you've passed on are like the muscle-rippling body builders, ready to lift any amount of weight.  Many years of my life, to date, I've had the luxury of only being sick once a year.

Until I moved abroad.

Is there something in the water? Is there something in the air?  I know for darned sure there's something on the handles of the public bus transportation.  Wow, can I share some stories of what's been left on them from people's faces and hands.  But I'd rather not have you beautiful readers throw up on your keyboards.  

Let me take a moment to plug my newest product, justVASGO brand Barf Bags.  Only 10 Euro per 1 pack.  

When I first went to Spain back in November, all was great.  A week later, I arrived back in Rome or a little after and I was bed-ridden for three days straight.  Having survived the Flu with scary low sub-temperatures, my body never feeling so cold for so long, I resolved to go to the doctor next time something strange like that happened.

My expert was kind enough to capture my zombie-like pain and suffering.

Knowing my destiny, January arrived in this beautiful city and along with it, sickness.  Feeling awful, I got out the old handbook from my art historian's connections with a Rome branch of a U.S. university.  Need English speaking doctor, I told myself in some odd, caveman-like fragmented sentence.

Flip, flip, flip.  Oh thank goodness, I told myself as I found the page with their recommendations for English speaking doctors.  Then my tone changed. Lucky me. It's only going to cost 100 Euros just to see the doctor because I'm not a student. 

After a few hours of painful inner deliberation, I decided to suck it up and spend the money.  After all, living was better and only a doctor knew what I was to do.  The worst possible scenario was WebMD said I could die.  Excellent!

After being squeezed in as an extra last appointment for the day, the only doctor willing to stay late, a pediatrician, said I need to be checked out by their other specialist.  All I thought was, Is it going to be a free consultation? 

Something REALLY must have been wrong with me to think that.  Free?  Ha!

The next day came and I got the specially arranged extra-early first appointment of the day, taken care of, tested, etc., and she gave me a full size sheet of paper, her office's letterhead.  It was actually the prescription!

I took the full size sheet of paper and inspected the few items I needed, trying to remember what each one's purpose was.  I brought it to my local farmacia, the pharmacy in Italy found on every main street. They usually have a big plus (+) sign lit up in green over the door to help you identify it. In I walked and they had two of three drugs.  Why?  Because this pharmacy was more like the beauty and cosmetics counter at the department store.  I was lucky, though, that they at least had the usual over the counter meds, but nothing more specific.  In my case, the other one I needed is listed in the U.S. as one of the Controlled Substances the DEA enforces, but I don't know which Schedule it's listed under, I through V, roman numerically-speaking. Anyway, they sent me down the street to the next location with a more diverse inventory, the true pharmacy where I could have purchased all three in one strike.

In I walked to the next one, showed them which prescription I needed, paid and lef. In, out, wham, bam, thank you ma'am! It couldn't have been easier.  With the prescription in-hand, my life was simpler. The doctor did the work for me, telling me what I needed based on my symptoms.  

But for a friend who lived here for about four months, she didn't want to go to the doctor.  She knew what she needed, at least what it would have been in the U.S. and went to the pharmacy.  Her Italian speaking capability wasn't at the fluent level so there was a struggle, but she explained what she was looking for and the pharmacist helped her find what she needed.

She brought it home, emailed one of her parents who is a doctor to see if she got the right thing, and was told immediately to NOT use those!!!  The pharmacist had sold her medicine that assists with CHEMOTHERAPY, a treatment to control the spread of cancer, definitely NOT what she needed.

A valuable lesson lies in both of these experiences. DON'T GET SICK.

January, February, July and August = Sales

Not all VASGO posts can be filled with witty discussion or memorable experiences.  Sometimes, the straight facts need to be known.

The fact is, Italy doesn't have sales all the time, the way just about every retail store in the U.S. dedicates prime real estate for their past-season merchandise.  In Rome, at least, things are a little different.

Although the costs of getting to Rome in the middle of Summer are exceedingly high, and the cost of staying anywhere in the country for that matter are in the prime of their high-rates season, I find it intelligent that the retail stores use the busy time of year to have their bi-annual sale, called SALDI.

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Every storefront I pass seems to have the five-letter word prominently displayed in their window to encourage the deal-seeking shopper to enter their locale. Shoes, clothes, bags, watches, you name it.  If it's being sold, it's likely on sale. 

But watch out for the fall product.  Saldi occurs to get rid of the previous season's items and in too many stores, the things on sale aren't well labeled.  Maybe it's business strategy, forcing you to look at every last piece of clothing.  Following that logic, before you find the item in your price range, you might fall in love with the new season's offerings and would, therefore, be willing to pay full price.

Some stores do a better job of separating the sales from the full price. Either way, pay attention to what you are buying and the people around you.  During Saldi, and at peak shopping times of the day, the stores are PACKED and ripe for the wallet-picking. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Saldi occurs twice a year for about a month or until the old inventory is depleted. About a week after the New Year and the first week of July are their start times.

Getting A Little Extra Bacon

It’s an interesting phrase, I realize.  To “Get a little extra bacon” could mean several things, all ranging from the good, like making more money, to the perverse, which doesn't need to be explained.  But for me, when I talk about getting a little extra bacon, it has nothing to do with last night's date, marital favors or investment planning.  It’s all about, literally, getting extra bacon.

This could happen to anyone.  Not just in Italy, but all over the world, employees and shop owners give their customers some of their product for free.  For me, the lucky day came months ago, when I went to my normal outdoor market.  After careful analysis of clientele, meaning I watched which booth was the busiest every time, I noticed that one vendor in particular always had a large line.  They either had excellent prices, or excellent product.  And I wasn't about to miss out on any of those chances. 

Upon getting closer, I found out the vendor was a deli, and a rather well stocked one at that.  They had all the meats.  Prosciutto di San Daniele, also from Parma.  They had salami piccante, salami with fennel, salami from Milan, from Hungary, Salami from Spain and of two different types, one coated in herbs, the other in pepper.  And then there was Lonza, like a cured pork loin, and Lonzino, the best part of the loin with the least amount of fat. Pancetta was offered, both round like a tube of salami or flat like bacon, and then there was the smoked kind. Bresaola was there right next to it, its bright red interior of cured beef makes an amazing salad when it’s sliced thin and combined with olive oil, shavings of parmesan cheese and leaves of arugula.

The vendor offered tons of different cheese, where I often purchased my favorite mozzarella bufala. Then of course there were the olives, pesto sauces, random groceries they offered and fresh breads.  Really I purchased lots from there because their prices were in fact fair, but additionally, the people were really nice and even corrected my terrible Italian if I said something wrong.

After bringing my business to them for about three weeks, I had one trip where I needed a couple different meats for sandwiches as well as some pancetta affumicata, bacon as we know it. After slicing the amount I requested (remember that this isn’t America, prepackaged bacon slices don’t really exist here which is a good thing), the owner had a nub left of what she cut the bacon from. 

First she weighed the amount I asked for and printed the receipt for it, then she looked at the nub of delicious cured and smoked pork, looked at me, smiled, and wrapped up the chunk and through it in the bag.

The “nub” of bacon was the same weight as the amount of bacon I had just purchased.  Did I just get a BOGO? Buy One, Get One Free?

I did indeed.  And I learned that it pays to be a good, consistent customer.

Better to Look Down When Walking

Like the most recent post about joining sports teams in Italy, there is actually a part two.  My friend ended up not wanting to play with my team because she was too busy.  That is true.  And the cost of joining the team might have been too much.  But I suspect my friend who came to the volleyball practice that one February evening also didn’t want to play with us because of the bad omen she received RIGHT before we arrived.

The gyms that are rented out for training are almost always school gyms.  Elementary or Middle school gyms seem to be the typical choices. The way Rome is situated, apartment buildings shoot sky-high into the air.  Schools, on the other hand, are usually a fraction of the height of apartment buildings and are basically tucked in between or behind, fit wherever possible.  So the first time I had practice, all I found was a black gate with the number of the address and a long driveway.  Nothing on the front told me it was a school.  That also could have been my ignorance of the language, but honestly it didn’t seem well signed.

Practices started at 9:15pm and lasted for an hour and a half.  In February, at 9:00pm, that means it is dark, dark, dark.  And where there are residential areas with schools next to them, there are plenty of people.  And their pets.

As we walked up the middle of the street between all those parked, compact cars, I stop in my tracks because my friend’s inner-sailor spouted off a series of curses too extreme for VASGO VIEWERS. The culprit: dog doo.

"Please clean up after me..."

Indeed, no one would enjoy having to clean that off their shoes before playing in them for the next hour and a half.  Stepping in that would ruin anyone’s night.

Yet, in Rome, it’s awfully common.  I also hear it’s quite typical in Venice also.  One of my biggest pet peeves is people not cleaning up after their animals.  Living in Rome, I’ve had to walk down many a street dancing what I call the “Dog Doo Shuffle”. Side step here, two steps forward. Side step there, hop, hop, hop. And repeat, more times than I like.

Some residential neighborhoods have proven themselves to be incompetent at best at cleaning up their animal’s waste and the Roman police recognize that.  One such street, in a fantastic district for foodies called Testaccio, was the detail for police officers walking around in street clothes and handing out tickets to those who didn’t pick up the stuff.  When I heard that was happening, I was the happiest Testaccio resident. 

For a few weeks, it was really successful. Then the police had other things to do.  Alas, the stuff was back, but so were my crazy, good dance moves.

Side step here.

Two steps forward.

Side step there.

Hop, hop, hop.

Playing Sports in Italy

One time, many months ago, I brought a friend with me to a volleyball practice.  She had been an excellent outside hitter from my previous stint in Philadelphia, where I had the pleasure to be teammates with her for a couple seasons. 

Once she arrived in Rome for her semester-long research trip, I thought to myself, This is perfect!  Now there can be TWO Americans on the team!

I brought her to my team’s typical practice session, one of the two nights per week for about 38 weeks of the year, October through June.  Games were usually played on the weekend, so in total, we often played three times a week, sometimes more. For being in the Open Mixed league, about six levels below professional volleyball players in Italy and I should mention this is a coed league if it’s not obvious yet, this level of commitment seemed surprisingly intense.  Back in the States, I had all too much trouble finding anything other than a recreation league. Comparatively, those American adult leagues never involved practices. They simply met once a week to play a match and seasons lasted anywhere from seven to 12 weeks. I'm sure they are out there, but it's not easy to find in Philadelphia, that much I know.

Photo Source: David Schwartz Photography, LLC

But here in Rome, they take their sport seriously.  After talking with my friend Leonardo about Italians and sports, we were both curious how the lineup went as far as the three most popular sports according to our countries.  I told him, “That’s easy.  In the U.S. it's probably a tie for football and baseball.  After that is basketball.”

 “Really?” he said. “Here in Italy, most popular is calcio," which is the name for soccer (big surprise soccer is #1, right?).

Then comes pallavolo, ball flight as the literal translation, or as we know it, volleyball. 

And last of the three most popular sports in Italy is basket, the short name for basketball out here. I should note that there is a true name for basketball and it’s as literal as it gets, meaning ball basket.  In Italian, it is pallacanestro.

I wish I'd known volleyball was so important back when I was in high school.  I would have moved here then, just to be popular.

In the end, my friend from Philadelphia decided it was too much commitment during her four months in Rome. She needed that time to continue her research, which was absolutely understandable.  What I thought important to pass along to the rest of the world is how to go about getting involved in sports teams if that is what you enjoy or if that’s what you want your child to get involved in.  It truly has been one of the best ways to practice the Italian language.

Prior to moving out here, I did as much research as I could and finding a league that suited my skill level was impossible.  Anything that came up was the top seeded Serie A teams. I’m good at volleyball, but I’m not that good. I also thought I was quite good at researching online, using search engines, etc., to find what I needed.  But when you introduce a completely different language, it’s much more challenging.

In Rome or even in the rest of Italy, sport leagues can be found for all ages.  Best to attempt an email to the Centro Sportivo Italiano, found at www.csi-net.it to find out your local offerings and to see who you can email to try out for a team.  Having played in the league for one season now (and winning first place – Go Virtus Prati!) and hearing absolutely nothing about other leagues, this one seems to be the premier sports organization in Italy connecting leagues across the entire country.

On the webpage, there is a link that opens up a submenu.  Hover over the words Contatti Sedi territoriali  then choose your territorial seat where you live – for me, it is Lazio since Rome is in the Lazio region. Then that opens up another submenu of cities in Lazio.  That’s when I click on Roma.

If you are serious about emailing, always apologize at the beginning for not being able to speak in Italian.  Explain in as basic language as possible your situation, your skill level and what sport you are looking for so when they google translate it, it won’t be awful to understand. For them, it will only be mostly bad. J

When Italy is in the Championship Soccer Match

The other day, Italy competed against Spain in the Euro Cup 2012 soccer tournament.  They made it all the way to the final championship match after fierce bracket-play and success in the quarter and semifinals.

Not having television here, I stayed at home enough times during these earlier games.  The evenings are beautiful in Rome and once the blazing sun gets out of the way, the 75 degree (F) weather makes for a perfect chance to sit on the patio and write an article or two. During the normal soccer season, AS Roma fans (or maybe Lazio fans - if they dared) were heard a few floors above from my apartment.  Whether the team scored or missed a goal, the cheers and jeers were noticed.  Even through a couple floors of concrete, a yell can be clearly identified.

But when the national Italian team games were played, the most fantastic aural spectacle occurred.  When Italy scored in the exciting Semifinal match against Germany, first I heard my neighbor above scream in excitement. But then my head twitched a millisecond later to my left.  Apparently the building next door had a few fans watching as well.  As we all know, sound is slower than light. Well just a tiny bit later, the surround sound eruption from the rest of Rome's watching community made its way to my patio where little old me sat taking in the VASGO-worthy ambiance of Italians and their love of calcio.

Hearing the repeated cheers throughout the game, first of all, really made me wish I had gone to a pub or had television at home since I always enjoy watching a good game.  But after finding out that Italy beat Germany 2-1, it meant there was a Championship game to be held a few nights later.  Sounds good, I thought to myself.  I should definitely go to a pub for the game.


And then I found out what happens when Italy is in the championship soccer match.

Everyone goes to the ancient arena.  The place where horses pulled chariots round and round, people piled in on the steep steps for a spectacle of their own.  Circus Maximus, Circo Massimo in Italian, was transformed into a multi-speaker, multi-big screen soccer watching festival. The site is honestly HUGE if you've never been to Rome to see it in person. And when there is not the hundred thousand people (reportedly) walking down the hillsides piling into the lower tiers to get a good look at one of the 4 or 5 screens, the vast and empty, ancient site inspires thoughts of the culture-shaping events that changed history here. 


But immersed with the people, blending with the masses helped me gain a deeper understanding, a truer historical perspective. Everyone walked by with a beverage in hand, usually a lager beer. Cameras flashed, people chanted. The entire mass stood to sing their national anthem, so different from what I'm used to.  The person behind couldn't hold a pitch for the life of him. Smells drifted through the air in invisible torrents, those of a unique mixture only a massive group could conjure and yet mask all at the same time. Sweat, musky body odor, burnt tobacco, sometimes cannabis. I couldn't help but wonder -  was this experience at Circus Maximus all that different from the chariot races of the ancient days?  

Without a doubt, even though Italy lost 4-0 against Spain, going to this match was a highlight I'm proud I attended.  To walk through Circo Massimo when it's empty is one thing.  To go when it's full is entirely another.  To feel truly Italian is being with the masses. Don't miss the opportunity if it's ever presented.

How to Buy the Cheapest Train Tickets in Italy

We will just pretend that I never stopped posting for the two months.  Times get busy, other writing projects require more attention, 1000-page books turned American TV series (hint: the author is George R.R. Martin and I'm proud to be on the bandwagon) make the hours go by like it was seconds and minutes. And who knows, maybe a last minute trip to Venice made up the reasons why I've been away from the VASGO.

But when the national Italian train travel provider, called Trenitalia, offer one way tickets all over the country for as low as 9 euro per person, it's hard to back off.  Seriously, while drifting from item to item on the menu, I realize to myself, "Well, I could order this secondo piatto, the second plate in the multicourse Italian dinner usually consisting of a meat entree like Veal Scaloppine."

Or I could spend that amount to go up to Venice and see this:

Or Milan, Naples, Bologna, Florence, one of the Cinque Terre cities.

It's called Super Economy.  They are only available for purchase online.  And on Trenitalia's website, it's not the easiest to find.  But they are there, you just need to go looking.

First of all, you need to know what the cities are called in Italian, which by default means the name is different in its English form.

For example, if you travel to Rome, you likely want the largest hub station, called ROMA TERMINI.

Venice is tricky too.  If you want to arrive ON the island, you need the last Venice stop, called VENEZIA S. LUCIA. Any earlier, and you'll wonder why people are actually speaking Italian to you!  (The joke is that when you are in Venice, it seems everyone speaks English because it's so heavily toured.)

Really, knowing your precise train station takes just a bit of research on your end if you are unfamiliar with the station names in the Italian language.  I suggest google maps to help out in that case.  Some of my best travels through Belgium were easily navigated because of my prior research.

Next, choose a date, any date.

MOST IMPORTANT - click on the box that says "Find The Best Price", right under the date sections.

This will unveil the multitude of excellent prices, or the higher ones because you were too late on the days you chose.  That's right, you have competition, so get the good prices while you can. Typically, it starts at 9 euro per way for the best price, then 19, 29, 39 and so on.

With a little planning, you can save a lot of money during your tour of Italy.