If you’re a foodie, and you’ve been to – or you’re thinking about visiting Rome – you’ve most likely come across her blog. She’s the top dog, numero uno, head honcho when it comes down to where to eat in Rome. Not to mention, quite the hottie ;).

Anyways, I was fortunate enough to get an invite from her to come to a beer tasting at Open Baladin. At first I was hesitant because… cmon now I don’t like alcohol. But I’m so glad I did. I got to meet so many major foodies in Rome and pick their brains on where to eat. Lets just say they’ve been spot on. RIDICULOUS! RIDONKULOUS… RIDONKCULOUS!

Everyone was friendly and spoke english. It was nice to converse. Thanks to Gina’s BF I was able to hit on Katie as well… Thanks Francesco!

I’ll be posting a lil later regarding the places they sent me… but for now, focusing on the beer tasting… It was really nice to sample beers I’ve never tried before.

The first beer that came out was Zest which is an unfiltered pale ale and has aromas of lemon and passion fruit. Its from the Lombardi region

Zest was paired with fried potato balls… seems like anything fried works well with Zest

The second bear I wrote down Hops… hopefully someone will correct me if I’m wrong but its a Belgium blonde ale

This was paired with licorice flavored potato chips. The licorice actually alters the flavor of the beer. As you can see, my beer is starting to pile up… trouble.

Katie speaking to the table about the beer she just brought out. Beside her is John who is the sous chef at Metamorforsi (post on that later).

Here is Hande (right) who is the owner and operator of Vino Roma. I need to hit this tour up next time I’m in Italy. She guides you through an appreciation trail for wines… From introductions to advance courses.

00100 Pizza

I ended the night at 00100 Pizza per recommendation by Gina. I had their broccoli supplì which was quite delicious. I had them warm it up which made it that much better. Then I had a meatball trappizzini which was fantastic. It is a triangle of pizza dough that they fill with whatever topic you want. They had 4 choices: meatball, chicken, and 2 others I forget.