Enoteca Palombi

For the better part of a year now my roommate Domenico has been telling me that we need to go to an enoteca (winebar) in Testaccio that he went to a few years ago. He described it as a small place that is a store during the day and puts grates up over the shelves in the evening and sets tables in the middle of the store. He was about right, but forgot to mention the basement, which is a cellar with four oddly shaped rooms, floors at all different levels, walls built around ancient stone arches and rough ceilings. All the walls are lined with endless bottles wine and beer, and in the last room of the basement, behind a prison like grille, you can look into best corner of the cellar. Bottles of Amarone, Barolo Gaja, Brunello di Montalcino, covered with a thin film of dust trying to hide the dates on the labels, but not doing a very good job, and so lett you salivate over the thought of a '95 Brunello.

When we sat down we were handed three menus, each was a small book. The first contained wine, the second beer, and the third food. Domenico and I were like kids in a candy store. We passed through the whole thing and he said it was up to me to decide what we were drinking, a made a decent selection, a Montefalco rosso that was reasonably priced at 17 euros. It wasn't the 2000 as advertised, but the 2006, which was still very good.

For food we started out with two plates for everyone to share, we were a group of 7, one of meats and one of cheeses. Each came with 8 varieties on it. I've found most places when this happens you get a couple types of prosciutto, a few salami and maybe something more interesting, and it is often difficult to tell anything apart because they are of average quality and flavors don't stand out. That was not the case here. I'm not as much as expert on cheeses, but the meats were amazing. There was a smoked goose breast (which became my favorite Italian meat over the summer), wild boar mortadella (that melted in your mouth), prosciutto di san daniele (practically a sacred item), a spicy umbrian sausage, just to hit the highlights. In the middle of the cheese plate, on top of some creamy brie, were softened chestnuts soaked in a very mild honey that went well with just about every cheese on the plate. And this was just the appetizers...

A few of my good friends here are vegetarians, which I generally don't hold against them, but last night I might have just a little bit. After we got through the appetizers and ordered dinner there was a clear divide in the table, the vegetarians and the carnivores. Domenico and I ordered a plate of cervo con patate (venison with potatoes). It was not something I have ever seen on an Italian menu and so immediately after seeing it we agreed to give it a go. The other end of the table ordered bruschette or salads. A few mildly inappropriate bambi burger comments later and the line in the sand was drawn. While one half of the table was eating their salads, Jillian, Domenico and I had a feast of our own. Jillian ordered a pappardelle w/ fava beans, pancetta and pecorino to go along with the venison.

When the main courses arrived you could smell the rich earthy aroma of the venison before it even hit the table. The venison was prepared almost like a beef bourguignon. Slow cooked with wine but with much less of the fanfare, no carrots, mushrooms etc. Just delicious chunks of meat that fell apart under the slightest pressure from a fork in a stew of sorts that made for one of the most delicious scarpetta (literally "little shoe", when you scrape the bottom of the plate with bread) ever. Venison is an interesting meat because it is very lean and has a gamey flavor that is too much for some people. Slow cooking it in a stew was something I had never had before, but would certainly try again. It removes any toughness while maintaining the intense flavor. I couldn't help thinking about something Giovanni had once told me about cuts of meats, that ones such as filet mignon may be very tender and easy to cook but they lack flavor because they are not muscles used strenuously. A cut like chuck or round has much more intensity because the muscle is strained frequently. This has two effects, the muscle is stronger, which translates to tougher meat, and more blood flows through it, which translates to more flavor. So you are rewarded with more intense flavor by cooking a cut like that for an extended period of time to soften it.

Needless to say at this point, the venison was unbelievable and I would go back to Palombi for this dish alone, although trying out some more of their wines will be fun as well. After we polished off every drop of juice on the plate with the extra bread they brought, we returned to the conversation on the other end of the table.

Enoteca Palombi
Piazza Testaccio, 38
06.5746122