Celebrating Cart’s birthday in Garbatella

It was Cart’s birthday last friday.

It was also the first time that we spent his birthday together in 4 years. Hence it was a special day indeed for the both of us. While I was in Singapore, I used to work in a school and it was rather cumbersome for me to be taking leave during a school day. I remember how Cart would pout and sulk when I told him that I would not be able to make it for his birthday previously

We decided to head to Potpourri in Garbatella which is a some minutes away from home.

On a totally unrelated note, I find it interesting that the road looked wet, but when we went closer, its gone!

We first went here with a group of friends some months ago, and though I thought the food wasn’t that extraordinary, I was looking forward to satisfying my meat cravings.

And no, I am not pregnant, its just that there were not that many places where I could eat halal meat. And there are days when I feel the need to eat burgers, lamb chops, and all sorts of MEAT!

Garbatella is an interesting place for me. For one thing, the style of the buildings are a lot different from the ones you’d see in central Rome.

A house in Garbatella

The buildings are quite charming. The doors and windows were smaller and the floors were not as tall. It was as if, it was a large sized doll house. I would have liked to take more pictures of the houses, but it was dinner time and almost everyone was at home. I could see them peering at me through the windows wondering what the heck I was doing

And after a short walk, we soon we entered Potpourri, the restaurant. As it was friday evening, it was a lot livelier than when we first went here. Being summer, there were a number of people having dinner at the terrace.

For appetizers, Cart had the falafel while I had the Baccalà. A baccalà is salted codfish which is deep fried in batter.

I didn’t realise how freshly fried the food were that I burned the roof of my tongue when I bit in my appetizers. Ouch! But they were really really good.

And for our mains, Cart had the Vegetable Couscous

This was so flavourful to me. Though it looks like curry, it not. The taste is milder than curry but it was just as wonderful, the mix of potatoes, eggplants, carrots, chickpeas, the seasonings, the saffron. It was so tasty that Cart had a second helping.

I had the Kebab. The first time that I had this I was a little puzzled as usually we’d eat kebabs rolled up in a pita bread. Here, the bread was separate in a basket. While I was not too impressed with the kebab the first time that I was there, I absolutely loved the kebab that evening. It was not as oily, the meat was tender and juicy and had a generous amount of tomato and spices. Even by the time I was full, I stuffed myself to finish it. Didn’t want to waste it!

It was just wonderful! And I enjoyed my dinner tremendously. I cant wait to come here again!

Feeling completely stuffed, Cart and I decided to walk around Garbatella to ease the overeating feeling. Moreover, its an interesting place to see, you’d see murals such as these

I like the message at the end of this wall, it said, “you are not alone”

To what I know of, Garbatella is an area where many supported the left party. Hence, the political murals scattered all around. In fact, we stumbled upon an abandoned left party headquarters. It all seemed very Che Guevara to me.

Also, there is a tv drama in Italy called, I Cesaroni. I used to like the series as it showcased a plentiful of Rome’s sceneries. I had fun trying to spot out the different locations in the scenes. Nowadays they don’t use so much of the sceneries, hence I’m not such a big fan of it anymore – moreoever I didnt fancy the storyline nor the characters

Regardless, the show was based in Garbatella. And here are Lynn, Xiangwen and I, posing at the school as shown in I Cesaroni back in March.

Cart and I walked up to the cafe as featured in the show and that’s where we noticed this interesting poster.

At first glance, it looks like a political poster. But upon closer examination, the man in the poster is actually an actor in the show. This is some sort of a viral poster! However, for some reason, the website in the poster doesnt seem to work. I wonder if I should register the domain and refer it to this blog?

What a really interesting place Garbatella is. I should come here again, maybe in daylight the next time

Check out the streetview below!

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Ps : Happy birthday Cartcart!