Mr. T and I put Sora Margherita off until late in the week, as research led us to rumors of fresh handmade gnocchi each and every Thursday. Sora Margherita, like Trattoria der Pallaro, can be found smack dab in the center of the Jewish Ghetto.
In both instances I found it incredibly hard to imagine the cyclical persecution of its people amidst Rome’s high style, beautiful stonework, and dense tourists. Somehow doing this in Berlin is trivial, thanks in part to the giant cranes being a permanent reminder / fixture of the fractured skyline.
We passed right by the bright red curtain-as-door several times trying to find the address, but once we walked through we descended into this long, small restaurant just below street level.
Our waitress gave us our menus and rattled off half a dozen languages she could deal with us in. She only let us look at them for a second before offering up “or let me take care of you”. Gnocchi was our only demand - we relaxed back in our seats, wondering what the meal would bring.
Sharing a table with us was a Californian woman and her daughter, both bug-eyed and awe-struck by the food they were eating. This was their first time out of the US, and it showed. Their amplified shrieks of OH MY GOD DID YOU TASTE THIS?! were cute at first but quickly turned into a soundtrack of disingenuous appreciation, a complete lack of range from which to measure what they were experiencing. It was almost as if this trip served as catharsis of a lifetime spent in numbness.
Not to say the food wasn’t good – it was damn fine food that came in far more aggressive portions than Mama subjected us to. Our waitress eyed each of our near-empty plates with suspicion, barking FINISH! dare we leave remnants. This was ramped up during the pasta course where she took my fork, scooped the final bits, and fed it to me! Hilariously unforgettable.
What destroyed us here were the starches, plain and simple. The gnocchi was added as an additional course to a huge lunch, and what appeared from a distance to be palate-cleansing pineapple turned out to be gut-bomb potatoes. We both rolled out of there drunk on calories.
(deep-fried artichoke, out of season but a really great texture)
(amazing eggplant mozzarella goodness)
(hand-fluffed gnocchi worth waiting for)
(pasta after gnocchi is not a good idea)
(fried chicken chunks)
(destroyer of our worlds)
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