Restaurant Review Rome: Taberna Piscinula

I don’t know if this is really going to be a restaurant review. The truth is that the food at Taberna

Piscinula was okay. It was good, but was definitely not one of my favorite meals in Rome.

It was good middle ground Italian food. I’m writing this blog because sometimes people are surprising. Sometimes people are amazingly good.

We sat down at this restaurant after having giggled about the mistakes on the menu. Toasted Dread (Bread) sounds hilarious and we’re English teachers, need I say more?

Our waiter was friendly and took our order when we were ready. I ordered the vegetarian pizza, Sian the margarita and Endira a steak with potatoes (all fairly telling of our personalities and general preferences). In the meantime, the empty table next to ours became occupied by an American family. Mom, Dad and two adorable boys who were quite well behaved and not remotely loud.

If the boy next to me hadn’t accidently spilled his sprite all over me, I probably wouldn’t have noticed them at all. They were so apologetic, mom, dad and son alike apologized profusely and sincerely. And I laughed. I mean really, it was sprite and honestly even if it had the potential to stain I probably still would have reacted calmly and by laughing. It was an accident, I mean, no harm, no foul, right?  I was a little damp but no lasting damage at all. Endira and Sian had the same reaction. It was an accident and none of us had gotten wet enough to care. And since they apologized, I really had no reason to harp on it.

I really didn’t think much of it until later as the family was leaving. The father came over to us and said that he had taken care of our entire lunch. He thanked us profusely because of our kind reaction.

We were speechless and beyond grateful. He explained that he was just so grateful for our reaction and it suddenly occurred to me that others may have gotten aggravated. Someone else may have been huffy or rude or complained and loudly.  But as a teacher, and as myself in general I would never react that was. He was just a kid and it’s not like I’ve never spilled anything before (anyone who knows me, knows that I spill things constantly lol). So it was amazing how much our simple gesture of kindness was rewarded so strongly. For a ten second smile and a pleasant attitude all three of us got a free lunch and lovely kind words.

It was a shock but I wish it weren’t. I wish more people had such amazing attitudes. I wish that my niceness, that Endira and Sian’s niceness was more the norm and not such a large surprise that warrants free lunch. If everyone reacted kindly, think of that. Wouldn’t the world be so much more pleasant?

I can’t change other people but I can make sure that I keep my attitude and I can remember to smile when someone is having a bad day. It’s amazing how that can affect someone’s day, and sometimes someone’s entire life. The whole idea of pay it forward is truly a great one. Help someone, smile at someone, be pleasant and expect nothing in return. Expect them to do the same for someone else and then that someone else can perform another act of kindness. Kindness, simple and easy.

Several weeks later and I’m still in a good mood. I’m still smiling and who knows, maybe my smiling is helping someone else.

Ok, and now I’ll stop expounding kindness for a moment and talk about our food and wine. 

The house white was refreshing and cool on a hot day and I loved that it wasn’t too dry.  My pizza was good too.  The crust wasn’t my favorite, but it was okay. It was thin and crisp. I really liked the variety of vegetables on my pizza but I didn’t love how all of them were prepared.  Some of the vegetables were made sott’olio, under oil (possibly vinegar) before being placed on the pizza, like the eggplant. They were good, but a little too acidic and garlic flavored for me. I would have preferred fresh or grilled vegetables across the board. That being said, I loved how colorful and bright my pizza was. That being sid, not all of the vegetables on the pizza had been listed on the menu.

Sian quite liked her margarita, which is a simple cheese pizza and Endira really enjoyed her steak and fries. I tried a bite of the steak and it was a pretty good medium grill which is nice if you’re not a fan of rare. It’s not easy to find steaked cooked medium to well in some parts of Italy. They do Rare a lot better.

So that was our meal. It was decent taste wise and service. But our experience was amazing. 

A million Thanks to the Ohio Family that made our meal so memorable. You were wonderful and really made our week. Keep up your amazingness!!