Looking forward to Fall

It's the end of summer, or so says the calendar.

After the hot and quiet slumber of the Italian August, normality gradually returns (most schools reopen the second week of the month). Sandy towels are washed and stowed; brown shoulders tucked under cotton blouses; and back-to-school checklists become the norm.

But September doesn't just mean catching up on unpaid bills and getting back to the office humdrum, at least not to me. Finding novel places and writing up new and exciting Rome restaurants has become my profession, and it’s safe to say I’m looking forward to going back to work.

Here are a few interesting newly opened Rome eateries we should keep under close observation in the coming season.

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Favorite spring vegetables

Getting a taste of beloved deep-fried carciofi alla giudìa notoriously means taking advantage of the pesky February-to-May window in which the quintessential Roman artichokes are in season.

But with all the focus on supermodel artichokes, other versatile vegetables, also in season, tend to get short shrift.

Take agretti for example...

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Cook pasta a dente!

In Italy, overcooking pasta is a sin, period. Al dente, which literally means "to the tooth," as in, "how does it feel to the tooth," stands for the correct point of cooking hardness. The opposite of al dente isn't some version of normal; it's soft or overdone.

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Value dining in Rome

C'è crisi — it's crisis time: there's no way around it. Our former prime minister insisted the opposite as recently as last fall, when he told the world that Italian restaurants were packed to the hilt with happy folk spending money right, left and center. But that was 2011. Welcome to 2012, which finds Italy's economy poised on a slippery slope and trickling south faster than melting butter.

Dining out will remain an option for few fortunate foreign wayfarers and revolutionary nonconformists. But for others, pick carefully. Here's my shortlist of where to score a value meal, and still feel like living La Dolce Vita...

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Burger obsession

The dream starts with me ordering an "Original" at Louis' Lunch in New Haven.

It's 1 a.m. and the place is still bopping. The smell of sizzling meat wafts from the grills. As I sink my teeth in the warmth of the bun and meet the juicy Black Angus ground sirloin, short rib, and brisket combo with its flavor-lending 20 percent fat, slow motion droplets of rare beef drippings fall with a silent splash on the plate before me.

I wake with a gasp. Dream over. Sad to say, I am in Rome, where no burger tastes as ambrosial.

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