Eataly Rome: in decline?

As you might remember, we were in Rome this summer a week after the opening of Eataly Rome, the foodie's paradise. We were so enthusiast about it: great food, top quality products, good prices. So we decided to make it our Trevi Fountain (you know the deal: everytime you visit Rome you must go throw a coin in the Trevi Fountain so you ensure your return to the eternal city) and visit it everytime we are in Rome.

So last weekend we headed to Eataly to find out if it was as good as we remembered. And to be honest, we were a bit disappointed. First of all, the Roman Osteria where we had the delicious tripe has been turned (only for a month) in a Neapolitan Osteria  -nothing against Naples but we are in Rome, and when in Rome...-, then we found out that the water, which had always been free of charge, is not anymore so you have to pay for it, fair enough. The biggest disappointment was the tuna. You know we are fans of Eataly's tuna, so have a look at the tuna from Eataly Turin:

and the tuna from Rome this weekend:

After waiting for ages to be served, as you can see, the fresh salad, the tasty potatoes, coarse salt and mustard (not pictured) were substituted with... fennel... yes, just sone fennel that was not even cooked or garnished to be paired correctly with the tuna. The quantity of the tuna was reduced. The only thing that saved the dish was the quality of the tuna because it was tender and tasty.
I was still hungry so we went to the beer restaurant for a beer and a cheese platter. Since we hadn't been here before I couldn't compare it to any previous experiences but the beer was good. The cheese platter was also good, but that evening we went to another place I'll write about in another post and there I had the best cheese platter (stay tuned).

A positive thing that keeps us coming back are the prices of the wines, we still found the same good prices as last summer.
After we came back home, I happened to read this post on one of my favorite websites (sorry, it's in Italian). It shows a picture of a Despar truck in front of Eataly Rome, so, if they say that their ingredients are top quality from only small producers, what do they get from a low-cost supermarket like Despar (I'm praying they only get toilet paper and hand soap) ?
I don't know if it's true or not that the products are no longer top quality - the tuna and cheeses I had were very good - , but what we could notice were those aforementioned details. I'll be coming back next time we're in Rome, just to see where is it going.

Foodstagram vs. Chefs

In the era of social networks and food blogging, where we are now used to sharing details of our everyday life with online communities like facebook, instagram, foursquare, etc., how would a foodie feel if s/he were told that s/he can't photograph his/her plate in a restaurant?

It is news of these days, both in New York City and Milan, that some chefs are forbidding their clients to take pictures of their food in their restaurants.
What are they afraid of? They say it's because they don't want to disturb the atmosphere of the restaurant with the flashes and that people standing up to take the pictures distract the other clients... c'mon... I've never stood up to take a picture in a restaurant and a flash would be the thing that would bother me less (what bothers me is other clients' loud voices but they don't do anything about it).
Why don't they realize that if a client is taking a picture of their dish it means that they appreciate its appearance, and they could even learn from that, to make their dishes nicer, and (since we're there) their portions a bit bigger...

Kitchen, Milan

Everytime I'm looking for a restaurant to have dinner in Milan the trouble starts. Why? Because although it's Italy - and it's extremely difficult to have a bad meal in Italy - Milan is strange when it comes to dining. People here like fancy decorated restaurants, small but good-looking portions and (especially) high prices. Which are all things I hate, well, not the fancy decorated restaurant part. Anyhow, I prefer the simple trattoria with good, hearthy portions and fair prices, which is hard to find in Milan, the city of fashion and appearance. So when some friends asked us to join them at Kitchen, we didn't know what to expect.

Mikkeler beer

As you might remember from this post, some months ago we tasted a delicious beer with a hint of elderflower in Torvehallerne market in Copenhagen. So this time, it was only a matter of finding the brewery's Vesterbro bar.

Trends 2013

OK, so it's still freezing and the winter sales just started but it's never too early to start thinking about the trends for next season. What are we expecting for Spring 2013? Bright colors, neons and pastels (no shock, we still have something left from last summer, right?), the biggest surprise are the stripes, so we'll be having fun trying to mix them with all those colors - and we'll have even more fun watching how others mismatch them :)

Color Pantone:

Brights & Stripes: