Rosemary up your bum and a fracture in mine

Last week I got hit by a scooter while driving a newly rented one with my brother. We had barely left the shop when this idiot ran a red light and ran right into me. And fractured my tail bone. My bum is broken! Insert joke here.

For three days I didn’t even know it was broken because it felt sore but not impossible to move. I figured I was just a bit banged up and I went about my daily life, going to work, even bike-riding. I also felt better the morning after it happened, so I was convinced there was nothing seriously wrong with me.

Then I realized the pain in my butt (pun intended) hurt a lot when I moved in certain ways, so I decided to get it checked out just in case. Good thing I did ‘cause I saw the x-ray and that baby is broken.

The night after it happened, when I still didn’t know how serious it was, I took my brother to Solo Ciccia, one of the restaurants run by the famous butcher in Panzano, Dario CecchiniCiccia is an endearing colloquial word for meat, which means you better like it, cause that’s (almost) all that’s on the menu. 

The rustic Tuscan dishes contrast pleasingly with the hip decor and the set-menu price of 30 euro is amazing for everything you get.

It’s really unlike any restaurant I’ve ever been to, though I’m sure there’s some new word for this dinner-party-style experience in which you sit at one long table with 10 or 12 people at the most. The menu features various parts of the cow. Cecchini also runs two other restaurants: the Officina della Bisteca, which serves choicer parts of the cow [read: steak!] and costs 50 euro, and Dario Doc, which is only open for lunch and offers 10- and 20-euro options, not including wine and coffee. 

Of the nine courses there was nothing I didn’t like. Although because of its gelatinous appearance I almost didn’t eat what turned out to be one of my favourites: the soppressata salami, which melted in my mouth. But my brother and I agreed the best dish was Ramerino in culo (“Rosemary up your bum”), and not just because of its name, I swear. These grilled-on-the-outside-raw-on-the-inside beef tartar balls pierced with a rosemary twig were a revelation.

Unfortunately I did not have the wherewithal to get a good photo of them. You can just make one out on a plate in the upper left-hand corner of this photo. Blame it on the pain in my ass.