My God, it is difficult, if not impossible, to have a bad meal in Rome. When we didn't eat out, we'd walk over to the supermarket and pick up lovely arugula and tomatoes and translucent slices of prosciutto and fresh ricotta and round loaves of crusty bread, and then go home to eat meals on the rooftop terrace. (I should also add that both J and the Great Leader, our gracious hosts, are excellent chefs.)

When we did go out, the food was aggressively delicious (and, predictably, fattening) and the wine cheap and plentiful.

I am no restaurant reviewer. Nuance? Hah. So rather than put out something tepid and misguided, I'll just talk about what I ate that I liked.

Our first night in town, the four of us ate at Sicilia al Tappo, in Trastevere. A colorful and, in the Great Leader's opinion, slightly touristy restaurant on the lovely Via Garibaldi, it offered a beautiful selection of seafood. We started off with some (pricey) swordfish carpaccio, citrusy and irridescent and fanned out on a large flat plate. I had the first of many tentacled meals--char-grilled with squiggly legs being pretty much my favorite flavor.

Another night, we headed out to a so-hip-it's-difficult-to-get-to and gentrification-hasn't-driven-all-the- brown-people-out-just-yet neighborhood called Pigneto, where we ate at a wine bar called Infernetto. There I ate baby octopi in a light tomato and black olive sauce. More squiggly legs, and as a bonus, tiny rubbery heads! Had it not been 95 degrees that night I might be able to recall more about the meal, but toward the end I was mewling and kicking my feet like a kid who lost his balloon.

My friend Eric offered a number of recommendations for things to do while we were in Rome, some of which we heeded (the Capuchin cemetery) and others (find a hot hipster chick on the Ponte Sisto and have a threesome) we did not.

However, the best lunch we had in Rome was in the paradoxically hidden-yet-famous Sora Margherita in the Jewish Ghetto. After following the preposterously involved directions (turn left here, walk 20 feet, when you see the such-and-such building, take a left, there's no sign, just red curtains) we found ourselves seated in a cramped, brightly lit lunch joint, surrounded by whatever businessmen had the misfortune of working during the long holiday (the festival of St. Peter and St. Paul or something) weekend.

The first thing you do when you sit down at Sora Margherita is fill out an application form, after which you get your membership card. This either has to do with zoning laws or a tax dodge; I'm unsure. And up until a few years ago, all the pasta was handmade by a little old lady who, according to Eric,

...made it fresh at like, 5 in the morning and would roll the dough on all the tables pushed together with a broomstick, then cut it with a comb by hand. Seriously, we saw her do it.

Here we ate one of the few red-meat meals of our entire vacation. Delicious meat-stuffed zucchini, meat-stuffed agnelotti, meat-laden Bolognese sauce. The one nonmeat item we ordered was the carciofi alla giudia (pictured above). Should you visit Rome, you must eat lunch here, not only for the food but also to witness impeccably dressed business men eat red sauce pasta with the utmost grace and precision. Seriously, as someone whose entire wardrobe is spotted with wine and pizza grease stains, it was like watching...hm...ballet. Get there early.

My favorite dinner in Rome was the Great Leader's selection: Trattoria Boccon Divino (Via del Pavone 28-30, Campo di Fiori). Even more difficult to find than Sora Margherita! Had pancetta and asparagus pasta--most excellent--and these adorable spiedini, grilled and topped with olive oil, parsley, and garlic. You know what I like better than eating squiggly legs? Eating a creature in its entirety; bones, head, tail. Yes. It brings out the Nuge in me.

My sole gustatory regret is that I didn't enjoy a single bottle of Amarone or Barolo or one of those deep reds that cost a king's ransom here in the US but can be purchased for the cost of a postage stamp in Italy. This is not to say we didn't consume gallons and gallons of wine every day. But it was troppo caldo, as they say. Or something like that.

The Tremiti Islands and Florence TK.