I Butteri: Pizza Griglia & Co.

Don't be misled by food fairy tales of overwhelming and life-changing dining experiences in Rome. Like all big cities, Rome, too, has its share of crap.

As I discovered the hard way, it may not be in your best interests to equate restaurant popularity with food quality. Italian schools must teach students that when you copy off others, you are only cheating yourself of a good meal. If only American schools had such applicable lessons and maybe I wouldn't have ended up at the Longhorn Steakhouse of Italy.

Let me be the first to admit that it's no one's fault but my own that I did not immediately question the legitimacy of a grill/pizzeria in Italy with only one pasta dish on the menu: the vegetarian option. I attribute this lapse in judgement to the language barrier.

The vegetarian I dined with clearly had an easy decision to make. Meanwhile, I worked my way through I Butteri's selection of meats, whose praises were being sung all over the front of the menu. From what I could deduce by eyeing other tables, the grilled meats seemed to be served on mini skillets. I was sold.

Asking servers for their menu favorites is completely against my beliefs. I don't approve of friends ever asking for such erroneous and irrelevant information. With that said, the menu had minimal explanation, so I resorted to asking our waiter of his thoughts. This served as his cue to point out the priciest dish on the menu, the lamb chops, which were evidently different than the lamb shank offered at half the price. Thank you for your thoughts Antonio, but I think I'll go with the shank.

As it had been nearly an entire two hours since we last ate (which I believe is considered fasting in Italian culture), we were starving, so we decided to try the "grilled cheese" starter.

Essentially, a mild cheese resembling mozzarella was melted in a miniature baking pan over the grill. When Antonio brought the glob to our table, we had no better idea than to just fork it, which proved to be a complex procedure as the pan was light enough to slide around the table with each stab of the fork but too hot to hold in place. The cheese tasted just as it sounds -- inherently delicious.

As we waited for the main courses to arrive, sizzling skillets with a variety of meats sent smoke signals throughout the restaurant, amping me up for the grill selection I was about to experience. I spotted our server stepping out of the kitchen, and my heart began to beat wildly until I realized that he bore gifts for another table: a dull white plate instead of my sizzling skillet.

He then passed by our table, placing the dull white plate at my seat.
   

Was Antonio mad at me? I had been shanked by the shank. I should have splurged for the lamb chop via skillet. Now, I was stuck with skewered fat trimmings, five potato wedges, and a bowl of lima beans floating in a questionable liquid. The lamb had adhered to the skewers as if by super glue. During the occasional instances when I succeeded in tearing off a Euro-sized piece, I discovered that I was eating fat marbled with meat. The most alarming feature of this dish, aside from the lima bean display, was that, given the dominance of fat on each skewer, the meat was surprisingly dry and flavorless.

If you have only four days in Rome, I suggest you spend your time elsewhere. And if you live in Rome, I suggest you do the same.


PIZZA GRIGLIA & Co. 

Piazza Regina Margherita 28/29 - 06.8548130