Our last dinner was in the weirdest part of Rome, Testaccio. This is the eighth of Rome's famous hills, but unlike the other seven, this one is entirely manmade. Ancient Rome used to import massive amounts of wine from their Spanish provinces, and the cheap jugs used to transport the wine were thrown out here. Over time, the fragments of all these jugs created a very large hill, and Testaccio was born. The pots have been covered over with urban life, so it looks no different from the rest of the city, except a number of bars and nightclubs have burrowed into the pots to take advantage of the neighborhood's odd underpinning.



Pictured here is Ketumbar, a pan-Asian restaurant housed among the pots, and using them as part of their design. The ancient pots outside the restaurant walls are complemented by pretty cool zen interior touches. Staff is coolly aloof, and the food was a nice break from the usual Italian. Food-12, Decor-16, Service-13.