Ahhhh Italy. While it might sound like a cliche, for a food lover, there really is no other country like Italy. Even the worst food there, is still probably x10 better than any other kind of Italian food you'll get anywhere in the States. I had been playing this trip to Northern Italy for the past 6 months and could believe it was finally here. I was spending 7 days touring Venice, Bologna, Cinque Terre and Milan - a lot in a week, yes I know!
I had been to Venice years ago as a kid but didn't really have a solid memory of it. While it is very touristy, it really is a very unique and beautiful city that everyone should check out at least once in their lives. Unfortunately, of all the great Italian cities, it's not particularly known of its food. After taking the red eye into Milan and then taking a 3 hour train ride down to Venice, my mom and I finally landed at our hotel. I didn't book too many restaurants in advance as I wanted to play it by ear just a bit. We didn't really know much on our first night here and ended up near the Rialto Bridge at Trattoria Alla Madonna. It's a cute homey restaurant that specializes in Venetian seafood. All the waiters are in white jackets and it seemed like a good place to start. While I knew this area of Venice was a bit touristy, I was still annoyed by the fact that they had menus in multiple languages to accommodate all sorts of tourists. Not a sign of true authenticity to me but I get that they are also trying to drum up business too.
We started with the mixed seafood plate and an appetizer of proscuitto. I got the seafood risotto and my mom got the squid ink pasta. As for drinks, I "accidentally" ordered an entire bottle of red wine for myself (it was only 10 euros, so I assumed it was a glass. Mental note, wine is so cheap in Italy that it's often cheaper than water). The mixed seafood plate was a cold appetizer of small shrimp called canoce, sea snails (garusoli), octopus, and scallop. It was an ok chilled plate of seafood but nothing really mind blowing although it was nice to see the variety of different local seafood items. The proscuitto was from Parma (the next town over that I was dying to go to but didn't have enough time) and it was sliced thin and delicious - totally a sign of more yummy meats to come on the trip. You should start any meal with prosocuitto if it's on the menu. My seafood risotto, while not super impressive in appearance, had a nice taste to it - very heavy on the seafood flavor (duh) even though you couldn't really see any large chunks of seafood in it. I had a few bites of my mom's squid ink pasta - I'll just say that we definitely had better squid ink pasta else where on our trip. The pasta looked like it came out of a box (not homemade at all) and they didn't even bother mixing the pasta with the squid ink, it looked like they just plopped it on top of there was a 2nd thought. Taste-wise it was good, it just wasn't necessarily the most creative dish I've seen or tasted before.
Overall, it wasn't a terrible dining experience but compared to some of the other meals we had on the trip (and compared to other meals I've had in Italy in general), it doesn't really rank high on my list. It was my fault for picking a place in the middle of the 2nd most tourity place in Venice (2nd to Piazza San Marco) but sometimes you've got to play touristy before you can dig deep into where the locals go. But again, compared to some of the really terrible meals I've had in other countries, this was still much better. Total bill with 12% service charge: $82 for 2 people
PS. Before I forget, a TOTAL shoutout to the most amazing gelato I had on the whole trip...it's called Suso Gelatoeca and it wasn't far from this part of town in Venice. It's very hidden, so poke around the back alley streets, but it's worth the confusion. It was literally the 1st thing I ate when I got to Venice and it was amazing.
Photo Credit: Yelp
1 comment:
Having menus in multiple languages does seem kind of touristy. I think part of the appeal of an Italian vacation is trying to learn enough of the native language to at least order a meal. And I can't believe wine is actually cheaper than water! No wonder Italy is so many people's favorite vacation spot.
Gregory @ Harbor Grill
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