VizEat - Taste The City With Locals

A lot of people love their holiday or trip to Rome, but are surprised by the quality of the food - especially if they've had good quality, authentic Italian food before. Rome is unfortunately infamous for selling substandard pizzas and pastas at high prices to unsuspecting tourists. Which sucks, so how can you make sure you get the best Roman food when you're in Rome?

Enter VizEat, VizEat offer a special service: they help you taste the city with locals, by pairing you up with a local host for dinners, food tours and cooking classes. They operate in more than 100 countries, including Italy!

We tried VizEat in Rome and this is what we thought:

Trying the VizEat website

First things first, we signed up to the VizEat website, which was quick and easy, and then set about searching for locals in Rome. 

We found over 10 pages of locals offering cooking classes, wine tastings, dinners, food tours and many other cool experiences. 

There are some great filters to narrow down your search including price range (free to over 50 Euros), host language, cuisine type, event type and, most importantly for us: Special diet. 

Special diet options include vegan, vegetarian, organic, no alcohol, halal, kosher, no pork, no gluten, lactose intolerant, diabetes and allergies like nuts and shellfish.

We picked vegan, and found three awesome hosts offering vegan dinners. Unfortunately none of these hosts were available, which was our fault as we left it quite late (only a week before).

Luckily, VizEat have great customer service, I explained our dilemma (not much time left, vegan) and they got back to me within a day - they rang up one of their top Roman cooks and asked if they could edit their menu for us, and they said yes!!

Thus we were booked with Andrea, who immediately messaged us to give us clear instructions to his house. 

All in all, the digital side of VizEat was very easy to use, the filters are clear and I love that they have filters for price, cuisine type and special diet. 

The only downside was that you couldn't contact the hosts before you've booked with them (e.g. to ask if they were available for your dates or if they could alter their menu slightly for you). This meant that I booked a tour, and then found out the hosts couldn't do it, so had to book another tour. This small problem can be avoided though if you contact customer support, and ask them to ask the hosts your questions before you book.

The other slight issue was that all my emails from VizEat ended up in my junk email folder - though this is probably more likely to be Hotmail's fault as a lot of my non-junk emails from tours end up there. Just make sure to check your junk folder. 

Tasting real Roman food with real Romans

Andrea met us at the entrance to his house and showed us up to his charming home. Here we met his lovely wife (Milvia) and their pretty cat:

Andrea showed us his balcony, where they host dinners in the summer, and the awesome view of Testaccio. The moon was incredible that evening! 

Andrea and Milvia had decorated the table and everything looked beautiful! Andrea and Milvia are extremely well travelled, so the six course meal included dishes from around the globe, as well as some Roman classics! 

Dips

Andrea and Milvia must be psychic because we started the evening with two of my favourites: Prosecco and hummus.

The Prosecco was from the North East of Italy and was very crisp. 

The hummus was the best hummus I've ever tasted (and I've tried a lot of hummus, including in Greece and Turkey). It was super lemony and absolutely perfect! 

It was served with lots of different types of breads and an extra dip: 

This was a traditional Guatemalan dip made from refried beans, it too was delicious. 

Soup

Next up was a beautiful, refreshing green soup. It was served with something we'd never tried before: chickpea bread!

Pasta

This next dish was very Roman: Pasta Aglio, Olio e Peperoncino - Pasta with garlic, oil and chilli pepper. They explained that this is a beloved meal of Roman students - typically eaten after midnight and after a lot of wine. It's simple to make and incorporates store-cupboard ingredients. 

It might have been simple to make, but it tasted absolutely delicious!

Potato and tomato dish

Next came my favourite dish of the night - potatoes, onions, cherry tomatoes and herbs slow cooked in the oven, typical of the countryside of Rome - usually eaten in summer. It was absolutely divine and I couldn't believe we'd never had it before - it's the best!

Beans and greens

Then came beans with onion and cherry toms and greens. These were fresh and full of flavour.

Dessert

After apologising profusely that they hadn't made us a vegan dessert, they gave us some satsumas from their garden. We love fruit, and when it has been homegrown it's even tastier. 

After Dinner Drinks 

We ended the evening with one of our favourite drinks: limoncello. We love limoncello and this tasted so good. 

Having dinner with real Romans

Aside from the food (which was incredible) another highlight of the evening was talking to real-life Romans. Although Andrea and Milvia have lived all over the world (Central America, South America, Africa), they were both born, and now live, in Rome. 

They had so many great stories to tell us and we learnt so much from them! Including (did you know):

• The Colosseum was actually built by four contractors, the fourth contractor cut corners and was sloppy hence when there was an earthquake in Rome, that one side fell down and thus today you don't see the full Colosseum
• There is an Italian walnut liquor called Nocino, the walnuts are picked every year on the 24th of June only (Tanbay's birthday!) and the liquor is only made in multiples of seven walnuts (what)?
• Naples is much, much older than Rome, thanks to the fact that it has a seaside port (unlike Rome). They said I would fit in there well, but Tanbay probably wouldn't. We are going there next week so we will let you know! 

Further Information
To find out more about our VizEat meal, check out our vlog about it:

(skip to 3:50 if you don't want to see our hotel room tour!)

Conclusion

All in all, we really enjoyed our evening with Andrea, Milvia and VizEat. The food was absolutely delicious and the company were really sweet and kind. 

We think the whole concept of VizEat is a great idea and definitely think you should try it out - even if you're not headed to Rome soon, try it in another country!! 

Find out more on their website: VizEat.com or on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. 

And to find out more about eating around the world follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram too! 

PS: discount for a limited time only - click here, choose your VizEat experience and add in the code HAPPY2017 for a 10 Euro discount!

Disclaimer: Travelling Weasels were invited as guests of VizEat but as always all opinions and tastes are our own, we insist that you have at least one home-cooked, authentic meal in Rome!!

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