Originally Posted by
bigguyinpasadena
We had a VERY late dinner last Sunday night at Dal Tuscano. The meat dishes were all very good as were a few of the other dishes but quite a few of the non meat dishes were very sloppy. I don't know if that was because we showed up so late at night on a Sunday (they are closed on Monday) or if it is just a mixrd bag as far as restaurants go.
It wasn't because it was a Sunday. Sunday is probably one of the busiest, if not the busiest night for restaurants in Rome. For that reason most restaurants in Rome are open on Sunday, and close on either Monday or Wednesday.
"Very late" is a relative term in Italy. Most of the restaurants don't open until around seven thirty or eight at night, and most don't close until around 11 PM, or even midnight. It's very different from the USA. In Italy, most people don't start thinking about dinner until around 9PM. That is one of the reasons why they don't eat breakfast in Italy: because they just finished eating.
The message, which many hinted at upthread, is to eat local. Eating local is the whole key to eating in Italy. Don't go to Rome to eat food from Tuscany. Don't eat pizza in Venice. Don't order spaghetti with clams in Modena. Don't ask for carbonara in Palermo. Don't ask for polenta in Naples. Don't ask for marsala in Torino. Don't order osso bucco in Lecce. These things would just scare the waiter. Eat the local food.
You wouldn't go to New Orleans and order Boston Baked Beans, just like you wouldn't go to Boston and order New Orleans alligator sausage.
I think you encountered what many gave subtle warnings about upthread, and that
KLouis wisely summarized as, "This thread, to me, is a good proof for Perche's idea of there being no "Italian" cuisine as such but, rather, a collection of excellent regional ones...
Romans don't eat much steak. Save that for when you get to Omaha, Houston, LA, NY or places like that, or as
firecracker725 said, it's not a long train ride from Rome to Florence, where they specialize in steak.
As was said in Latin centuries ago, "Latin si fueris Romae, Romano vivito more; si fueris alibi, vivito sicut ibi." I don't remember most of the latin I learned as a child but I do remember that one, and it translates into something like, "if you are in Rome, live as the Romans do. If you happen to be somewhere else, do what they do there." It has been abbreviated into, "When in Rome, do as the Romans do," and even further reduced to, "follow the locals."
Your friend who loves steak might have discovered that he or she likes coda alla vaccinara, abbachio alla cacciatora, saltimbocca alla romana, and other Roman meat dishes that you cannot get in the USA even more than he/she likes steak.