Lo ScopettaroRome

Heard good things about carbonara and amatriciana? Yeah, me too. So we ended up at Lo Scopettaro, Testaccio, riverside side, one late May evening with four of us. We'd booked ahead, lucky us, because the place is basically three little rooms inside plus a few tables outside — we were outside, "plunked down there" is the right way to put it.

The appetizers did their job. Trippa nel coccio was good, melanzana alla parmigiana too, except twelve euros for a small portion makes you raise an eyebrow. Bruschetta and something else, in short, nothing to complain about.

On to the first courses. The carbonara — the one they're known for — flat-out failed. Scrambled egg, bland pasta, pecorino almost nowhere to be found. The guanciale saved itself, semi-crispy and quality stuff, but it can't carry a dish on its own. The mezze maniche al sugo di coda: you're looking for meat, you find sauce. Passable, nothing special. The gricia col tonnarello, though, actually worked: guanciale done right, pecorino present, proper understanding of the dish. Best of all was the amatriciana with crushed peeled tomatoes — you could see the chunks — and the guanciale held up. The problem running through almost everything: too much pasta relative to the sauce, which gets buried underneath. You only find it at the bottom of the plate at the end.

The tiramisù — a classic slab with savoiardi, coffee definitely there — arrived late and already warm. Given how hot it was that evening, that didn't help.

Twenty-three euros per person would be fine, but expectations were high and the food didn't live up to them. We probably won't be going back.