Thursday, June 5, 2008
Food & Life How to burn your lunch money in Rome
Posted by Cliff Bostock @cliffbostock on Thu, Jun 5, 2008 at 4:58 PM
My friends Brad Lapin and Eric Varner are back at their place in Rome for 10 weeks. Eric, who is on the classics faculty at Emory, is teaching and Brad is writing. The dollar's decline and inflation in Europe have turned traveling Americans into paupers. Brad filed this report about a recent lunch in Rome:
Here's a little story concerning our third-world currency and the legendary furbizia (cunning) of Roman restaurateurs.
This afternoon, Eric and I were out-and-about and we decided we'd have lunch in one of several new restaurants we'd recently come across. We chose one not far from where we were shopping and walked over, only to discover that it was quite expensive, with entrees running around euro 15 ($24). We quickly changed our mind and set out to find another, less costly lunch spot. Lo and behold, a block down we saw a little osteria that looked quite charming. To our amazement, nothing on their traditional Roman menu was more than euro 9 with most dishes in the 5-7 range. We thought this was a huge bargain and in we went.Long story short, it was a delightful meal. I had a great salad with fresh mozzarella and wonderful tomatoes, followed by an excellent dish of meatballs. Cost? A mere euro 11. Eric's bruschetta with rugetta pesto and homemade lasagna was even less, around euro 10. We also ordered a half liter of the house wine, a bottle of water and two cups of (excellent) coffee.
After lingering over our coffee and remarking on what a tremendous deal we'd found, we finally asked for the bill. When the lovely senora delivered it a few minutes later, Eric's mouth dropped open. "It's 41 euros," he gasped. "No way," I said, "it can't possibly be that much."
Well, it was. As advertised, the charming senora did indeed charge us only 20 euros for our food, but she also charged E3 for the cover/bread, E3 for the water, E7 for the wine, E4 for the coffee and E4 for service, a series of charges that added an additional 21 euros to the tab, grand total 41 euros (aka $63).
Oh yeah, did I mention there's definitely no such thing as a FREE LUNCH in Roma?
Of course, this same situation is true throughout Europe. I'm making plans for a trip to Spain in the fall and it's no exaggeration to say that many prices have nearly doubled from five or six years ago.
(Image from getminted.com)
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