I spent my last day in Venice taking a ferry ride over to the island of Burano and Murano. The first island is known for it's beautiful colorful houses and lace while the 2nd island is famous for blown glass. I went to Burano first since it was further way and it really is freakin adorable. All the houses are small and brightly colored. It's simply magical. Right before I left for Venice, I had seen an episode of Bizarre Foods where they go to this place called Gatto Nero for lunch but unfortunately I hadn't made a reservation and they were fully booked despite looking to be half empty. Oh well. Instead, we walked back to the main drag with all the shops and restaurants and randomly picked a place. I generally abhor going to places on a main street as they are generally super touristy and a rip-off but on an island the size of my bathroom, you don't really have a lot of choices. So we stumbled into Da Romano and at first I was annoyed that we had to eat here but the food was actually pretty good. Only now that I'm back and researching this place for this review did I realize that this place was featured on an episode of Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations - I must have somehow channeled it without even knowing.
If you get seated inside, it actually seems a bit less touristy than it does outside - it had a bit more of a classic Italian feel. The menu here is typical Venetian food of cuttlefish and seafood focus. We started with the Parm proscuitto (13 euros) and my mom and I split the seafood spaghetti (16 euros) and the fried calamari plate (15 euro). The proscuitto here wasn't quite as good as I would have liked, it was a bit on the dry side which was disappointing but my experience in Bologna more than made up for this bummer.
The spaghetti dish was quite tasty - the sauce had a very strong seafood flavor to it and it was stock piled with plenty of mussels, clams and shrimp (although the shrimp was also a bit dried out). The fried calamari was lightly battered and fried and wasn't too oily. It was also served with strips of fried veggies which was a nice break from eating tons of calamari.
Despite it's touristy location, the meal did surprise me. While it wasn't the best meal I had on this trip, it most definitely wasn't the worst. I'm still super curious what Gatto Nero would have been like but if you make the mistake of not making a reservation there, Da Romano is more than a fine substitute. Total bill for 2 people with a drink: $70 euros
Photo Credit: Yelp
Antica Osteria da Gino
Fondamente San Giuseppe 754,
30122 Venezia,
Italy 4 Forks
This was definitely one of the more surprising meals of the trip. While I'm usually a big planner and I do recommend people make reservations for their top restaurant choices, sometimes the best experiences come from just wandering around. I had originally wanted to check out this pizza place that a friend had recommended in the Castello neighborhood. Now this is the part of Venice that you should really spend some time in - it's only 10 mins away from the craziness of San Marco but it's a world of difference. Very residential, quiet and green. It's like you're in a completely different city. So I was pretty bummed out when I discovered that this pizza place was "full" - who knew you needed a reservation for a casual local pizza place?!
Disappointed, we just walked around the area and stumbled upon what was really the only other restaurant within walking distance. Luckily it was a real gem of an experience. They were super friendly and nice when we walked in and really made us feel at home. We split the mussels and clam appetizer and the tagliolini patsta with prawns and zucchini and the Venetian style cuttlefish with polenta as entrees. They kindly offered us a small spritz drink on the house to start (if you've never had one, get it. It's a delicious refreshing cocktail of prosecco and campari) which made me love them even more.
I loved that we told the waitress that we were splitting all our dishes and they pre-split all our plates for us. Very nice touch. The mussels and clams were super fresh and tasty - they had a very local and freshly picked feel to them. As for the pasta - it was strangely (or not strangely since Venice isn't really know for it's food) the first pasta dish that we had that tasted homemade and not out of a box. It was served with lots of olive oil, salt and ribbons of zucchini. Fantastic dish except for the fact that there was only 1 small prawn per person and it wasn't a particularly super large of plumb kind either. As for the cuttlefish Venetian style - well that just means that it's sitting in its own ink. It was a solid dish and the polenta was nice and warm and moist but definitely after this meal I was over eating anymore cuttlefish or squid ink dishes.
In the middle of dinner, they randomly gave all the women in the restaurant really nice long stem roses. So sweet of them in a totally non-creepy way. We ended the meal with a warm flourless chocolate cake with a warm lava center in it. If you can believe, this was the first place where we ordered dessert. You'd think I'd be all over the dessert scene but I much rather have some gelato instead of most of the desserts offered in Venice but this one was a nice change from all the gelato I was eating.
Overall, I really liked the vibe of this place - neighborhood-y, cute, and run by very kind and warm hearted people. Not to mention that the food is pretty great too. Total bill for 2 $79 euros
Photo Credit: TripAdvisor
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