Rome's Best-Kept Secret: Da Osvaldo

ROME, Nov. 13, 2008 -- It is a familiar refrain heard from most American tourists when visiting Rome, or for that matter visiting any European capital: "Everything is so expensive in Europe these days: hotels, flights, souvenirs and food!"

Of course it doesn't help that this year it has taken anywhere between $1.26 and $1.60 to buy one euro, depending on when you may have visited. And, yes, if you have your cappuccino, sip your Tuscan red wine or savor one of the hundreds of excellent dishes that Rome can offer while sitting outside in any of the beautiful piazzas of Rome to watch the world go by, you are going to pay even more.

When I first came to live in Rome, the Italians were still using lire. I remember my friends telling me then that any place that charges more than 10,000 lire (roughly $4.45 in 1999) for a plate of pasta was a rip-off. That was the most you should consider to pay for a plate of spaghetti with clams or fresh fettuccine with porcini mushrooms.

Then the euro came and, yes, everything went up in cost -- I don't care what the economists say. Almost overnight a 10,000 lire plate of pasta became 10 euros.

The old adage became "don't pay more than 12 euros for a plate of pasta" and it is common these days for moderately priced restaurants to charge 15 euros for your rigatoni all' amatriciana since the price of pasta has shot up 25 percent here in the last year.

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Then to make things worse the dollar plummeted in 2008 making our old standby favorite pasta dish -- with the price converted from euros to dollars -- about $20 or so a plate.

For those who have planned and saved for a trip to Italy you know that when you get here you should not scrimp when it comes to enjoying the food. After all, you are on vacation!

But for Italians and expatriates like myself that call Italy home, eating out takes a big bite out of your wallet. This is especially true in the center of historic Rome where the dining is geared toward tourists and business people. So imagine our surprise when my wife and I stumbled across a little family-owned restaurant with good food near our home that almost makes it cheaper to eat out then to cook in.