Chinese Food in Rome

Italian sea bass steamed Cantonese style in a Chinese restaurant in Rome!

Our hotel in Rome was located near the train station, and so there was a constant stream of travelers walking by our hotel, dragging their luggage to and from the station. To cater to their stomachs, there were various kinds of restaurants.

Many of them were Italian of course, serving pizzas and pastas, and Indian ones serving curries -- 3 euros for a bowl of rice!

Pretty decent potstickers called "ravioli"

But around the corner and down the street from our hotel was Huaweiju, Ristorante Cinese serving Chinese food. We were curious and wondered how good the food was and decided to give it a shot.

Most of the other Italian restaurants in the area seem small at first, but they actually have massive basements and can host large groups. However, Huaweiju was really tiny, so it was better to go earlier otherwise the wait would be long.

The owner of the restaurant had no shame in squeezing in one or two more customers around a tiny temporary table not even as big as a mahjong table if they didn't mind...

It's a bare restaurant, with not much decor except for a bar/service area that had rows of bottles behind, along with kitsch Chinese-style pictures, and a typical Chinese calendar.

However the menu is choc full of dishes, some slight variations on say stir-fried noodles and rice, but what draws a lot of people to this place are the prices. They are about half of what the nearby Italian restaurants charge, so for many, Huaweiju is a no brainer.

The restaurant owner is originally from Wenzhou

Oh and a bowl of rice costs 1 euro.

We tried several dishes on the menu and many of them were not bad, like #52 spaghetti di riso or stir-fried vermicelli, while #009 ravioli are pretty decent potstickers. We also had #40, fried rice called riso cantonese, and #114, a sizzling beef platter, with the name manzo all griglia.

The most impressive dish was #167 pesce, or steamed Italian sea bass. It was cooked just right, with spring onions, finely sliced carrots and light soy sauce. We cleaned up the bones very nicely.

The restaurant is run by a capable and unflappable Chinese woman. Although her service system was very disorganized, she didn't let customer demands bother her too much -- she knew her clientele were not regulars. So we had to wait for plates, chopsticks and tea. They came... eventually.

In the kitchen in the back is a Chinese chef, and some migrant workers. She spoke to the Chinese chef in Mandarin, the others easily in Italian and to customers a bit of English.

Very good stir-fried vermicelli though portions are small

Finally when were getting the bill I asked her where she was from. She said Wenzhou and I asked how long she had been here, and she replied 18 years.

Some of the customers are Chinese -- curious like us -- while the rest are visitors looking for an inexpensive meal. Oh and the restaurant even makes French fries -- 2.50 euros if you were wondering.

Huaweiju Ristorante Cinese
Viap Filippo Turati 9-11
Rome
(06) 8923 9537

Picture of the Day: The Colosseum

The weather was unpredictable the day we went to the Colosseum

The day we visited the Colosseum, the weather was very windy and rainy; it turns out there was a Category 1 hurricane going through Italy. At times we were pushed by the wind and other times there were massive downpours, and then light rain or it stopped.

It is the largest amphitheatre ever built

It's very convenient to get there -- there's a metro stop for Colosseo. We didn't go into the Colosseum, but took pictures from the outside. Our pictures look kind of eerie because the sky looks pinky-gray.

The building is an impressive piece of architecture, an amphitheatre that could hold between 50,000 to 80,000 spectators for gladiatorial contests, executions, animal hunts, dramas, and even mock sea battles.

The Colosseum stopped being a venue for entertainment in the early medieval era and was turned into a place for housing, workshops, quarters for religious orders, a fortress, a quarry and a Christian shrine.

Two days later we got up early to beat the morning rush hour traffic to get to the airport on time.

Blue skies over the Colosseum the morning we leave!

On the way we passed by the Colosseum one more time -- with blue skies and puffy white clouds in the background.

Rome's "Wedding Cake"

The impressive-looking Altare della Patria in honour of Victor Emmanuel II

Rome has a massive monument called Altare della Patria or the National Monument to Victor Emmanuel II, the first king of a united Italy.

He was King of Sardinia from 1849 until 1861 and at that point he became the King of Italy, the first king of a united Italy since the 6th century. He held that title until his death in 1878.

There are fountains and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

As a result he was named Father of the Fatherland, and so Altare della Patria was built in his honour.

It's a massive monument, featuring stairways, Corinthian columns, fountains, a statue of Victor Emmanuel on a horse, and two statues of the goddess Victoria riding on quadrigas, or a four-horse chariot.

However while the monument is meant to honour the king, it has been mired in controversy every since it was built. During construction, part of the Capitoline Hill was destroyed for it, while critics find the monument too massive and pompous.

It also sticks out as the monument is made out of very white marble that some describe as "corpse-white marble".

But yes it does look like a wedding cake and other nicknames!

As a result, Altare della Patria gets many uncomplimentary nicknames, such as la torta nuziale, or "the wedding cake", la dentiera or "the dentures", macchina da scrivere "the typewriter", and la zuppa inglese, or "English soup" dessert, referring to trifle.

Very funny, but I can see the resemblance...

David Byrne in Hong Kong!

David Byrne opens the show with a brain...

We interrupt our report on Rome and Spain with a report from the second day of Clockenflap, a three-day music and arts festival in Hong Kong.

I was very keen to see Renaissance man David Byrne perform tonight and I was not disappointed!

His entire band is mobile on stage so they can walk around

While I don't know all his songs, I was very impressed by his show -- it was all well thought out, choreographed and sounded amazing.

The stage was completely bare -- and he and almost all of his musicians and back-up singers were in bare feet. They also all wore the same shirt and gray suit, complete with vents and pleats behind each shoulder to allow more movement.

With the bare stage lined with long strings of chain as "curtains", it seemed like Byrne wanted to show that he had nothing to hide -- this is me -- and there are no special effects behind the scenes. And he did point out there were no amplifiers, that it was the musicians themselves who were playing the music.

He and his performers are barefoot on stage

Everyone from the guitarist to the drummers and keyboardist were mobile -- they wore contraptions on their shoulders to carry the instruments around and be able to walk around the stage and even dance.

Meanwhile Byrne himself was completely natural on stage, completely unfazed by what was going on and did his thing. He was non-stop for an hour and a half, singing, playing the guitar, dancing, marching around on stage. At one point he was lying on his side on a chair for a few minutes. Now that's core! And he's 66 years old!

At times he asked in Cantonese, "Ho teng ma?" "How's the concert" or "How does it sound?" We roared in approval.

Midway through he finally performed a Talking Heads song -- Once in a Lifetime -- and then eventually Burning Down the House where the crowd got really excited.



For his last song, Byrne struck a serious social and political note. He sang Janelle Monae's song, Hell You Talmbout, which calls everyone to say people's names. Whose names? Victims of police violence.

There are names like Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray, Michael Brown and Sharonda Singleton.

In a recent interview Byrne explains why he wants to perform it:

"Here was a protest song that doesn't hector or preach at us," he said. "It simply asks us to remember and acknowledge these lives that have been lost, lives that were taken from us through injustice, though the song leaves that for the listener to put together. I love a drum line, so that aspect of the song sucked me in immediately as well. The song musically is a celebration and lyrically a eulogy. Beautiful."



It's an energetic song, but also a sombre reminder of the times we live in.

David Byrne, thank you for an amazing concert! We hope you had as much fun performing for us in Hong Kong as we enjoyed every moment with you.