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!