Dining in Venice

European restaurants, along with local businesses, are very schizophrenic when it comes to their hours. Take, for example, Trattoria Dai Tosi, the wonderful, locals-only restaurant a few feet from our B&B.  They served up a full menu and pizza but only in the following manner.  Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday they served only the full menu at lunch but no pizza.  At night, they served pizza but no full menu.  Friday-Sunday, they served pizza during the day and full menu at night.  Friday and Saturday, they also served pizza at night, but not on Sunday.  Wednesday they were closed.  Who can keep up!?

For our first night in Italy, we ate at Trattoria Dai Tosi upon the recommendation of our host at the B&B.    Despite showing up at 7 o'clock to an entirely empty restaurant, they were nearly going to refuse to seat us due to lack of reservations.  Graciously, our B&B host talked them into letting us sit and eat, as he forgot to call in a reservation for us.  Despite our noblest attempts at Italian, the waiter spoke perfect English and helped us through the local customs and selections.  He was the one who explain the spritz spectrum to us and suggested the one with Aperol.  He also advised me to order a different prosciutto plate than the one I asked for, as it was typically given to little children.  I should note that the menu was only in Italian.  

 

As I've said many times before, I don't usually eat meat, but will make an exception when warranted.  Most, if not all of the meat like this is from animals who roam the countryside free range or totally wild.  The animals are treated humanely and the quality of the meat is unsurpassed.  That being said, I acknowledge that it's a big plate of slimy pork. But it was really good!  The flavor was very mild yet deeply complex.  It was also super light and I didn't feel disgusting after eating it all.  We also got a mixed salad that you can see in the distance and below. 

We went simple for our main courses: Penne Pomodoro and Spaghetti al Ragu.  The Pomodoro was a simple tomato sauce, yet its flavor was nothing simple.  It was rich and delicious and perfectly executed.  I sat for a few minutes studying it to figure out how they make something so simple taste so good.  I could only conclude that it was the quality of the tomato sauce being used. 

The al Ragu sauce was a simple meat sauce that might otherwise be called Bolognese sauce or something similar.  It was also perfectly executed and had a ton of savory flavor packed into its appropriately proportioned amount.  What I mean by that is the sauce is cooked up with the pasta and becomes one with it.  It's never a huge ladle-full dumped on top at the end.  This is how pasta and sauce are supposed to be served.  

Another night in Venice brought us to a slightly more upscale restaurant called Il Nuovo Galeon, which was situated on Via Garibaldi, just a few minutes from our B&B.  It looked inviting, the menu looked tasty, and the waiter was a very charming old Italian man who spoke very good, though heavily-accented, yet highly amusing English.  We started simply enough with two pasta dishes and a half bottle of wine (PORTION OPTIONS!).  I ordered the penne al'arrabiata and my wife ordered the penne quatro formaggio (grown up mac n cheese).  Hers was pretty good, but mine was outstanding.  This dish of pasta was easily one of the best I've had, with the penne perfectly al dente and the sauce oh-so perfect.  Again, notice how it's just cooked in with the pasta; it's not drowning it.  Arrabiata sauce is supposed to be a bit spicier than regular pomodoro sauce, but this one was just plain delicious.  I didn't detect too much spice, but there was a ton of flavor.  The paremsan cheese certainly helped (and was oddly pre-applied to the pasta when it was served).  As you can tell from the photo, this portion of pasta isn't very large.  That's because it's only a primi piatti, or first dish.  You're supposed to order more food for your secondi.  Since I was still hungry and feeling adventurous, I asked the waiter to recommend something local and traditional.  Enter the Fritto Misto.

Fritto Misto is a plate of various, mixed seafood from the Venetian lagoon lightly fried and served with a slice of lemon.  I'm well aware that I've lambasted similar plates of deep fried everything on this blog, most recently in the review of Blue Water Bay.  However, look at this plate.  Notice how reasonably sized it is.  I will add that the food was very lightly fried.  Mostly, the flavor of the fresh fish dominated, as opposed to the batter and grease that typically do here in the States.  What you have on this wonderful plate is sardines, shrimp, calamari, seaweed, and one thing I'm not quite sure of (it's the wider strips towards the bottom).  It was fantastic.  The shrimp had a rich flavor and light fluffy texture that I didn't know were possible from a shrimp.  The calamari was to die for.  I think squid and octopus are marvels of nature and am generally opposed to eating them.  This was the one exception I could justify.  It was local, it was sea raised, and it was delicious.  The sardines were very fishy and not terribly pleasant.  I forced myself to eat them, however, as I believe I have to eat the once living creature that I ordered no matter what.  

 

Another option for those with smaller appetites is the cicchetti (bar finger food) that you could order with some drinks.  Each place serves something different, and to be honest, most of them weren't worth getting.  At our favorite bar, El Refolo on Via Garibaldi, however, they served up delicious little sandwiches that they made in house for only 2 euro each.   Pictured above is zucchini with brie and salami.  The little breads were lightly toasted and served very quickly.  One night, we just made our dinner out of these, along with a few spritzes each for only 20 euro (4 sandwiches, 4 drinks). 

Even though I've already spent most of my time indiscriminately buying every piece of food that looks interesting or delicious, I do try to make some choices that will help the budget rather than dig us deeper.  For example, pizza night can be a wonderful dining option when you're looking to eat on the cheap.  We returned to Trattoria Dai Tosi for take out pizza (we didn't want to deal with the lack of reservations again).  What we ended up with was a wonderful dinner al fresco with a box of delicious funghi pizza and a bottle of Verona wine.  It was excellent pizza, excellent wine, and we were eating right by the water, staring out at the lagoon as the sun set.  Why pay a ton of money to do this at a restaurant when you can do it for 17 euro?

 

I'll close the Italian section with something sweet: gelato.   We sampled many wonderful flavors across the city and region (pistachio, dark cherry, tiramisu), but the one below was by far my favorite.  Grom is known as one of the best gelatiers, using organic ingredients and creating unusual flavor combinations.  Typically, I order the stupidest thing on the menu when at an ice cream establishment (Triple fudge brownie with butterfinger cone topped with jelly beans, sprinkles, strawberries, caramel, and wasabi peas).  In fact, I'm known for my poor decision making when faced with a dessert decisions.  Over the years, however, I've reigned in my enthusiasm and learned to make smarter choices.  So, on a warm June afternoon in Padova, milk and mint was the selection to be made.  It was outstanding.  It wasn't quite vanilla based, but was simply light and creamy and minty fresh! We also got the double dark chocolate and would mix bites into a delicious combination. 

 
So, there you have my Italian entry into the travel food blog.  If you thought this was good, wait till you see/read about France!

Italian Lunch

Lunch and Dinner in Italy are religious rituals.  Many businesses still close down during the lunch hours (yes, hourS), and it's not uncommon to see locals eating 4 course meals in the middle of the day.  I have no idea how they get any work done afterwards!  While I admire this mid-day hedonism, I rarely eat a huge lunch.  In fact, one can quite often use a single course, priced appropriately for those seeking to order more than two, as a filling meal at a reasonable price.  We regularly had lunch for the both of us, including water and the ubiquitous bread & cover charge for under 10 euro.  If we were presented with a unique opportunity, however, we'd certainly splurge and get a huge lunch, as we did one day during a day trip to Verona.  

Wanting to get out of tourist-infested Venice during the day, we hopped on an hour long train ride to Verona.  Multiple people suggested this beautiful city as a great destination not overrun with tourists.  While it’s not entirely un-touristy, it seems more like a destination that Italians visit.  English was rarely heard.

 The city was quaint, historic, beautiful, and full of great food and beautiful sights.   The inherent problem in seeking out a specific restaurant surely reared its head on this day.  We looked up two highly recommended spots on Trip Advisor and set off from the train station to find one of them.  Of course, the first one was closed, so we tried to find the second.  Naturally, we were unable to find the second, and the severe hunger set in.  At this point, we’re in scramble mode to get some food in our stomachs, but still have the best meal possible.

We settled on a place that had a good-looking menu with very reasonable prices.  As the odds would have it, they were rated something like 263^rd on Trip Advisor for Verona.  One of the best features of the menu was the extensive crostini tapas section.  Each crostini was 1-2 euro and featured what seemed like an infinite amount of options.   

 

The first plate we had featured the caprese, stilton cheese and local honey, and bacalao mantecato.  The caprese was delicious, but simple and easy.  The stilton with honey was phenomenal (honey and cheese combos are a lesser known specialty of Italy) with the pungency of the cheese blending perfectly with the flavorful local honey (Italian honey is usually more pungent than types we’re used to).  The bacalao mantecato is a regional specialty and is simply whipped up salt cod.  It tasted a bit like a tuna fish spread and while very traditional, it wasn’t my favorite thing in the world.  

 

Since it's vacation and I'm only going to be in Verona for a few hours, I had to sample a few of the region's renowned wines.  Compared to a typical Chianti or other similar Italian wines, these had a sweeter, less acidic, and more full bodied flavor.  Needless to say, I loved them.  You could also buy 3 different sized portions served in these gargantuan glasses or an entire bottle.  I absolutely LOVE the options you have when it comes to portion control in Europe.  I was able to have two reasonably sized tastes of high quality for a very reasonable couple of euro each.   

 

For my main course, I got pasta fagioli, a bean and pasta soup that I’ve eaten a million times before (and love), but have never had anywhere near this style.   The region of Venetto invented this dish, and this restaurant surely did it justice.  It was so damn savory.  This was one of the meals that justify the 10 hour flight across the Atlantic.  It somehow makes you weak at the knees even when you’re sitting down. 

 

More crostini were in order so we decided on truffle spread with brie and red pepper, Gorgonzola cheese with pear jam, and salami.  The hands-down winner of this trio was the Gorgonzola and pear jam.  The two flavors blended like poetry, offering up sharp and sweet at the same time.  All in all, this meal knocked it out of the park, and if we were to believe Trip Advisor, we should have eaten at 262 other restaurants before this one. Also, for a large bottle of water, two glasses of wine, 6 crostini, two meals, bread and cover charge, it was under 30 euro.  In my opinion, that's a bargain.

 

Verona had more of the traditional Italian café’s and specialty shops that we’ve seen in Rome and Florence.  We happened upon a gorgeous little store where we bought a bottle of wine from Verona (which turned out to be excellent), 2 jars of local honey, and this assortment of little pastries for roughly 1 euro each.  I love how you’re able to buy many tastes for relatively little money and in reasonably sized portions. 

{Stay tuned for dining in Venice!}

Eating in Venice: Part 1

Venice is a series of closely grouped islands that when viewed from above, looks like a fish.  San Marco (the city center) is the stomach, and the train station is the eye.  The belly, or southern side, of the island is like the main street of the whole place and there is a long, wide, walking street that follows the majority of this coast.  Despite the existence of a significant amount of cafes, shops, and sights in this part, 98% of the tourists don't venture East of San Marco.  Literally half of the island is waiting for them to discover, yet most can't bring themselves to walk 5 minutes.  Naturally, we spent most of our time on this half of the island.  We just so happened to find a charming little bed and breakfast in what would be the bottom half of the tail. 

 
 Via Garibaldi

Our neighborhood was purely a local one with only a handful of tourists.  It bordered on a main, broad street called Via Garibaldi.  This street had several bars, restaurants, groceries, stores, and markets.  Despite having an authentic local feel, Venetians didn’t fill the restaurants and bars.  The reason for this, we learned, is that the locals don't go out to eat because they can't afford the tourist driven prices.  Food is expensive enough for them to buy for home use that they can’t justify the extra markup at restaurants.  And so we have another great dilemma of the city.  Regardless, we found some great meals, snacks, coffees, and drinks on this street, as it became somewhat of our home base of operations.

 

Every time we’ve traveled to Europe, our flight lands very early in the morning.  I’m talking in the 7-8 AM range.  That’s way too early to be anywhere as a tourist, and once you add the fatigue of the cross Atlantic flight and 6 hour time change, you start to feel a bit loopy.  Only two things can cure this problem: caffeine and sugar.  We found a great little café 5 minutes from our B&B on Via Garibaldi called Majer.  Previous European vacations have revealed countless cafes and pastry shops which each needed exploring, however Venice seemed to have significantly fewer.   As a result, I felt less guilty about returning so often to this particular one.  

The delirium combines with my excitement to be somewhere new, creating a binge personality I rarely ever display.  For this first stop, we sampled some excellent pastries, the Italian names of which I forget.  Obviously, a cannolo )cannoli is plural) was atop my list of delights and this one didn’t disappoint at all.  Another great sweet was this apple pastry (the round cookie thing wasn't so good).  We purchased several more of these two over the next few days.  

Eating can be a bit stressful in a foreign city.  I always want each meal to be perfect, and despite doing some research of my own, we often find ourselves in situations where an immediate meal is absolutely necessary.  These moments often come when we’re in a very busy and touristy part of town.  As a general rule, I prefer to flee the busy square where all the tourists are congregated and walk a few blocks away until it quiets down significantly.  You almost always find better prices, better food, and a more peaceful experience.

Lunch in Italy is more like dinner; there is a whole lot of food.  I don’t always want that, so I have to find smaller cafes for a quick sandwich, pastry, coffee, and water (always gassante - carbonated).  This particular day brought us to a little café several blocks away from San Marco with decent sandwiches, but these excellent strawberry tarts really made the stop worthwhile.  One of my favorite things is the portion control.  You could certainly buy a bigger tart for more money, but if you just wanted a taste, it was readily available for quite a reasonable price.  Of course, caffeine must be involved.

Another quick snack option is the ever-present “snack bar.”  I don’t know why Italians use those words, but they’re everywhere.  Usually, these places aren’t very good and might only be worth a quick coffee or a packaged candy, but sometimes you can find interesting items.  At one of the snack bars by our B&B, we found this unusual half hard boiled egg with anchovy, pearl onion, olive oil, and salt and pepper.
  

Was it the best thing I’ve ever eaten?  Certainly not, but it was surely an unusual and new taste combination.  Another common snack (the Venetians call bar food cichetti) is the crostini.  

 

As I’m a huge lover of Salami, I had to sample the salami one.  As you can imagine, it was quite delicious.  (I don’t usually eat meat, but I decided to make an exception for this trip, as the meat products in Europe are typically of very high quality and unique flavor). 

The most amazing find of the trip wasn’t food at all, but the local apertif called Spritz.  I had to admit that on first glance, it seemed girly and probably not my style, but I couldn’t have been more wrong.  The spritz is made several different ways on a bitterness scale.  Three parts of a various liqueur is combined with 2 parts proseco (a dry, sparkling Italian white wine) and one part seltzer water.  It is always served with two ice cubes, a fruit wedge, and a big green olive on a long toothpick.   The sweetest and most enjoyable style is with Aperol, a Venetian liqueur that is relatively low in alcohol content and has a spicy orange flavor.
 

Next in the spectrum is Select, another Venetian liqueur similarly low in alcohol, but slightly more bitter yet intriguingly spicy.  Also, it's bright red.  The third and most bitter is with Campari, which more people are familiar with.  This drink was our jam.  We’d have one or two every evening around 5:30, as the locals did.  The beauty of the drink is its digestive properties.  It settles your stomach and prepares it for the huge meal that’s sure to follow.  

Up Next, some real meals!

Eating abroad: 10 days in Italy and France.

I guess it’s an easy statement to make, but I enjoy few things in life more than eating, drinking, and exploring in Europe.  It’s cliché; I know it.   Everyone hates that one friend who goes backpacking across the continent only to come home and rant on and on about how America has it all wrong and how the Europeans do it right.  What can I say? Maybe I’m that friend.   

Seriously, though.  The meals, the wine, the pastries, the coffee!  It's all just mind blowing.  They take pride in their meats, their cheeses, their produce, the raw ingredients.  Ethical and organic farming and production methods are commonly used.  They can tell when a tomato is artificially reddened or when meat isn’t pasture raised.  Am I saying they’re better than us?  In many ways, they are.  In many ways, they're not.  But let’s just focus on the food.     

One of my favorite countries is Italy.  Eating here is an art form and the fact that the regions boast their own unique versions of everything is beyond impressive.  It's unheard of to serve Tuscan olive oil in Rome and vice versa.  Imagine if we refused to serve Orange Juice from Indian River County because it was too far away and betrayed our own local senses of pride.   

Italy is roughly the same size as New Mexico or Arizona when it comes to square miles.  I'm not talking about getting Florida blueberries over Georgia ones.  I'm talking about insisting on Alachua County produce over Duval County.  It's that intense.  As a result, what you get when in various regions of Italy is a very distinct snapshot of flavor and tradition. 

Venice from the top of the San Georgio Campanile

Add caption

Two years ago, my wife and I spent 2 weeks in Rome, Florence, Pisa, and the Cinque Terre.  We were amazed at the variety of food we experienced in those regions.  After returning home and catching a re-run of Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations on Venice, we thought, "What was wrong with us?  Why didn't we go there!?"  Two years later, we decided to return and experience the region of Venetto, which includes Venice, Verona, Padova, and all of the delicious glory they had to offer. 

So, what is Venice like?  Simply put, it’s a moral dilemma.  What you have is a very small, tourism-based city with an inordinate amount of traffic coming through it.  Imagine if St. Augustine had 150,000 tourists pouring in and out per day and you start to get the picture.  For a city that once boasted 400,000 residents, its current population of 40,000 is a joke.  The city is essentially a miracle of human ingenuity sitting amidst a calm lagoon off the Adriatic Sea.  Unfortunately, however, it became a drive through Euro Disney World for idiots.  Boat after boat dumps hundreds of day trippers off at San Marco's Square - the city center - to take a bunch of shitty pictures of the main sights, get the free tour of the cathedral, eat some bullshit meal at one of the tourist trap cafe's, buy a stupid Eyes Wide Shut Venetian mask and some tacky Murano glass, hop back on the boat and drive off.  

Even worse than the day-trippers are the cruise ship passengers.  They stand perched atop these enormous monstrosities as they pass right through the Canale Di San Marco, causing a very disturbing image for anyone sitting at a café a few blocks inland.  As the ships pass the island, those on board get only a fleeting glimpse of the majestic city (the very city they flew across the world to, only to immediately board a damn boat). Activists complain that the vibrations of the motors and water displacement of the constant parade of cruse ships contribute to the sinking of the city, and when you see it for yourself, it's hard to doubt. 

The bottom line is this.  These 150,000 assholes are keeping Venice alive.  The situation reminds me of the rain forest dilemma.   People who live in rain forest countries need to cut the trees down in order to have land to raise beef and crops in order to survive.  But the land can only produce for so long without the tree roots to hold the soil together.  Also, removing the canopy allows invasive plants to procreate, thus making it very difficult to farm.  As a result, more trees need to be cut down in order to have new farmland.  And so on. 

What do you do?  Without the constant influx of tourists, there aren't many professions that can earn enough to survive in what is really a lifestyle that is impractical (everything has to be brought in - there is no land to farm and all they can produce themselves is fish).  

That being said, Venice is a place like none other.  The mysterious winding streets and canals, the silent squares of the residential outskirts, the much quieter city center at night.  It's a city of constant contradiction.  You could be pushing your way through a wall of flesh in San Marco, only to walk 2 blocks into a nearly desolate neighborhood with a quiet cafe waiting for you.  It's almost as if the tourists are like moths attracted to a light.  There is no reason they can't fly away from it, but they simply just don't. 

If you go to Venice, my advice to you is FLY FAR FROM THE LIGHT! 

Over the next few days, I intend to share some of my favorite meals with you right here.  I don't want to lay it all on you at once, so I'll split it up a bit.  While the quality of the food we enjoyed was unparalleled, I didn't return to the US dejected and depressed.  I returned determined to make the best of what we have to offer.  Certainly we won't have the same delicacies or food tradition, but we have to have something.  I returned inspired to try my best to cook the best food this region has to offer.  I admit that it will hinder my ability to eat out at local restaurants and think much of them, but I didn't think much of them to start!  I hope you enjoy these accounts and photos, and I hope they will help inspire you as well.