How to Eat in Rome - Part Four - Anitca Caciara Trasteverina

Day three of our holiday in Rome was not the best. It was hot and I had been deprived of a decent lie in. After a quick breakfast of coffee and cornetti (think croisants stuffed with a sweet custard) at the place that was previously known as Frontoni (another Downie recommendation, which has since changed hands, and names, and no I didn't catch the new name) for the excellent price of €2.20, we kind of wandered around aimlessly.

Well, not entirely aimlessly as we were heading to Testaccio, although I'm not sure what we were hoping to find there. In the end we gave in to the heat and stopped for a drink at the first cafe/bar we stumbled on. It was a friendly little place; full of locals of all ages, including a wealthy granny sipping from a can of red bull!

But the sticky plastic chairs, lack of a seat on the loo (a lot of the loos are unisex in Rome and you're extremely lucky to find one with a seat - especially in the bars) and the beggar trying to sell me a pair of socks (seriously it was 35°C, I did not want to even look at a pair of socks)  all began to grate on me.

We decided to take a trip to a deli, buy some goodies for lunch and go back to the hotel to eat.

We'd been to Antica Caciara Trasteverina before (again, a Downie recommendation) and we were glad to find that little had changed. The shop was packed full of gorgeous smelling produce including cheese and meats and the owner, who, thanks to Downie, I know is called Anna, was as sweet and helpful as ever.

We bought some ripe and smelly cheese (I don't know what), some mozzarella, some bresola, some artichokes and some little bottles of campari and soda. We forgot to get some bread so we stopped off at a supermarket where we also picked up some tomatoes to go with the mozzarella.

The bresola was gorgeous; wafer thin and tasty. The mozzarella was probably the tastiest I've ever had, certainly better than any I've had in Britain anyway! Cheese was good and smelly and we also had some amazing mascarpone with Gorgonzola which we'd picked up earlier in the week. I wasn't too bothered about the Campari and soda as it was too bitter for me, but overall it was a good lunch.

Suitably satisfied we put the telly on and dozed off to Family Guy....