These final food photos from our stay in Rome offer a few more glimpses into the confusing multitude of choices available when seeking sustenance in a city of 2.87-million people. TripAdvisor lists close to 6,000 establishments classified as “Italian Restaurants” in Rome.
These are merely listed alphabetically:
Enoteca Buccone – Tables are tucked among well-stocked shelves of wine from which you can select or ask for recommendations without restaurant mark-ups in price.
Knick Knack Yoda – Casual, funky spot with great burger layered with grilled eggplant, spinach and fig jam, but avoid ordering the absurdly expensive bottle of wine with it. Stick with beer.
L’Asino d’Oro – Best part, selecting trio of desserts to share.
Ombre Rosse in Trastevere – Always bustling spot for pizza and salad (spinach and walnut soup featured at top).
Pasta e Vino Come na Vorta – I am bratty about ordering at the counter and being served on paper plates with plastic utensils, but the Mister would have returned often for the rich flavors of coda alla vaccinara, oxtail stew.
Pizza Rustica – One of Rome’s most heralded pizza-by-the-slice spots.
Poldo e Gianna Osteria – Best part of the meal was the pear poached in red wine for dessert.
Popolo Caffe – Crowded, unpretentious neighborhood restaurant with basic good Italian food.
Ristorante Al Borghetto -The risotto with oxtail was among the best risotto dishes ever, but countered by the ridiculously parsimonious presentation of not-inexpensive ceviche.
Ristorante Virginiae – Enjoyed all courses of our fixed-price lunch here.
So many restaurants. So little time.
A shortcut to encountering a massive number of bones, if one is so inclined, is to seek out the Capuchin Museum and Crypt tucked under Santa Maria della Concezione. The church was commissioned in 1626 by Pope Urban VIII (to whom you were introduced during my 
There were six divisions in the apartment, and each division was ornamented with a style of decoration peculiar to itself – and these decorations were in every instance formed of human bones! There were shapely arches, built wholly of thigh bones; there were startling pyramids, built wholly of grinning skulls; there were quaint architectural structures of various kinds, built of shin bones and the bones of the arm; on the wall were elaborate frescoes, whose curving vines were made of knotted human vertebrae; whose delicate tendrils were made of sinews and tendons; whose flowers were formed of knee-caps and toe-nails. Every lasting portion of the human frame was represented in these intricate designs (they were by Michael Angelo, I think,) and there was a careful finish about the work, and an attention to details that betrayed the artist’s love of his labors as well as his schooled ability. I asked the good-natured monk who accompanied us, who did this? And he said, “We did it” – meaning himself and his brethren upstairs. I could see that the old friar took a high pride in his curious show. We made him talkative by exhibiting an interest we never betrayed to guides.
Postcards from Barton Springs 