I haven't had such killer bucatini amatriciana ($11) since the last time I was in Rome. The pasta—like thick spaghetti, but bored up the middle to facilitate boiling—came gobbed with a tomato sauce whose richness derived from guanciale, the cured jowl of pigs. Like snow on an Apennine peak, grated pecorino blanketed the top. Though the recipe originated in the small Lazio town of Amatrice, the Roman populace has clasped it to its bosom, and now there are dozens of variations—and the plate that sat before me was a particularly delicious and aggressive one.
I was dining with a friend in Quinto Quarto, a relatively new restaurant at the tail end of Bedford Street that styles itself an "osteria Romana," which roughly means "Roman inn." The place was launched by a pair of sibling restos in Milano, but our branch has received little attention, even though it's been open for six months. "I feel like I'm in Rome," my date observed, noting the flickering tapers, dark paneling, and utter unpretentiousness of the atmosphere, where guests feel free to linger over their glasses of wine. Besides, everyone around us was chattering happily in Italian.
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