From a seemingly uncountable number of days, we are now down to three in Venice.
I want only to absorb, pull in, experience, experience, experience. Today, we will go to Ca' Pesaro, a modern art museum, and at least one other cultural site, and then a pizza place Bonnie showed me last night that seemed most intriguing.
We found a new campo. Well, she found it. It's off the St. Stae vaporetto stop. She calls it Our Lady of the Eternal Chic Restaurants or something like that. It's exactly where my folding Italy Auto Club map is centered and torn. But we had not been there together.
We went to experience Osteria la Zuccha (the "pumpkin" restaurant, San Croce 1762 on San Giocomo dell ' Orio) a semi-vegetarian spot that has been highly praised in the media and for which reservations are a must.
Oh, thank God: Rice instead of pasta (okay, it was long-grain jasmine and not short-grain white but it was the first rice we'd had in a long time). A savory and rich pumpkin flan as a first course, so delicious I recommended it to the next party; I was moaning, actually. Rabbit in a kind of marengo (tomato, vegetable) sauce. A rabbit warren of small rooms paneled in strips of wood with views of a canal. We skipped dessert.
One campo after another, each more charming that the last, full of Italians. Find this place!
I must, I'm sorry, but no one's listening so why not indulge myself?, speak about the Long Night of the Italian Table.
Again.
What is it that Italian serving staff have against bringing THE (here insert preferred profanity) CHECK???? When I'm done, I'm done. I wanna go. I wanna give you my money and get the heck outta Dodge or Canareggio or wherever. Did you get the 'give you my money' part?? Moses, let my people go!!!
Even AFTER you ask for "il conto" (the bill) — and it takes a miracle from God to catch a waiter's eye to do that much — an eternity goes by. Michaelangelo paints the Sistine Chapel. Tintoretto does half a dozen commissioned portraits. Popes come and go. And then the bill appears. And then there's a negotiation about whether they take credit cards ("Carta?"), whether you can take your leftovers home ("?????") and then you dither about the tip because, by then, what I want to do is rise like Prometheus, burst my chains and run from the place.
And this is with restaurants I like.
I will never again kvetch when Sally "drops the check" early at a diner. I will pay it with a smile.
Next year in Alohaland.
Showing posts with label restaurants travel Venice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label restaurants travel Venice. Show all posts
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Saturday, June 20, 2009
La Bitta but no bill-a
You know you've been in Venice too long when you glimpse a heart-stopping vignette — a particularly lovely arched bridge, a yellow boat, the late sun offering a gentle light — and you're too jaded to unzip your purse and pull out a camera.
Also too full, I was, from last night's dinner at Restaurant La Bitta, just off Campo S. Bernaba, where carefully prepared but unfussy food finally met up with reasonable prices, just-what-you-want atmosphere and warm service. Tired and cold, too, Venice having switched faces as quickly as a tourist trying on Carnivale masks, from intensive, humid heat to a Friday night thunder-and-lighting show and drastically dropped temperatures. I spent the day wrapped in scarves, not having packed for the chill wind.
Despite the cold, we sat where we had previously booked, in the tiny giardino (reservations are a must at popular, 8-year-old Bitta) draped with ivy and offering a view of the ubiquitous swifts with their sharp silhouettes carving up a square of sky high overhead. Here, I finally experienced the attraction of two popular antipasti that, on American menus, have always struck me as pallid and uninteresting: caprese salad and proscuitto with melon. Insalata Caprese con Burrata (E10, burrata refers to the type or region of the cheese, I believe) encompassed a fat purse of fresh white cheese that wept milky richness over the grape tomatoes and lettuce. Orgasmic. Ossocolo de Casado Con Melone (E10) brought together paper-thin ossocolo (a cured ham) and sweet, ripe (this is key and rarely accomplished in the U.S.) honeydew with just a dustling of pepper. Ossocolo has a more pronounced salty, beefy flavor than conventional American-made prosciutto and is a bit drier in texture. Eye-opening. Oh, that's what the Italians are on about when it comes to these two dishes.
I remarked to Bonnie, who agreed heartily, that so much of Italian cooking is really quite easy and straightforward, but impossible to achieve properly without ingredients that approach perfection in freshness or manufacture. Easy for Bitta to make such starters with such cheese, meats and produce.
More work goes into the dish of the night for me, the owne'rs grandmother's recipe for Conlio in Tecia, rabbit stew (E10), a sort of coq au vin with rabbit, richly larded with pancetta and bathed in brown sauce with a breath of cloves and perhaps allspice, a typically Venetian touch (first time I craved steamed rice since I've been here). The smashed potatoes with which it was serve were also flecked with bits of pancetta, the potatoes so fresh they tasted of the musty earth (in a Good Way).
I'll leave it to Bonnie (alohafromveneziaredux on blogspot) to discuss dessert; it's her story, of the search for the perrect panna cotta. My tira mi su (invented in Treviso, near Venice) was wonderful. For all this, plus Bonnie's two glasses of wine and my espresso, plus tip, we paid under E80. (And it tells you how steep are prices here that that seems like a bargain, since it's about $150.)
Some observations, as I prepare to attend Mass on Isla San Giorgio Maggiore in a Benedictine monastery designed by Palladio:
Sitting on the vaporetto yesterday, it seemed to me there are two kinds of Italian men. Type 1 is appealing, dishevilled, with face hair and glasses and undoubtedly glorying in the title dottore or professore or possibly maestro. Type 2 is impossibly handsome with chiseled bone structure, fashionable clothes and hair that begs to be tossled; two-day facial stubble optional. There are other men, I'm sure, with paunches and receding hairlines and such, but they have escaped my notice.
Venetian restaurants have a peculiar habit that is beginning to annoy me intensely. The first course arrives rapidly (since we generally eat early and so are often surrounded by empty tables); grazie mille, I'm usually hungry however early we go. The following courses arrive in sedate succession. And then all action stops. The conto (the bill) never comes. You can ask for it. You can look bereft. You can gather up your things. Nothing works. What a contrast to the rapidity with which American servers tend to "drop the check" (often even before you've ordered dessert or a second cup of coffee). I am an enthusiastic but bird-like eater who does not care to linger at table once the food is done. Last night, chilled to the bone, intensely uncomfortable with an aching lower back (I pulled something), I actually left my money with Bonnie and walked out after waiting 15-20 minutes. It was another 15-20 before she emerged.
She was full of glee: She had spoken with the owner, who waited on us, and was so enthralled by her comments that she wrote them down. "What are you doing with that tira mi su," she demanded, eyeing my half-finished dessert. "Here," she said, "you do not order food you do not eat." They chatted about this for a while, and she insisted, literally insisted, that Bonnie, who had finished all her food and part of my rabbit and potatoes, too, felt in honor bound to eat the dessert. The woman then informed her that, at Bitta, you will never get the check unless you ask for it; you can sit there all night with nothing in front of you.
Bonnie thought this was charming. I thought it was indefensible. 1) If I'm paying for a dish, I'll eat as much or as little of it as suits my physical health and appetite (see my previous blogs on Venetian restaurants reactions to a request for a takeout container). 2) A server, in whatever country, should be alert to a table's needs, able to read, and willing to respond to, body language that screams "Let me out of here!"
While it's somewhat enlightening to hear her take on it, I'm pretty much appalled by this and it makes me want to take the remainder of my meals here in cicchetti bars (where you eat standing up and leave when you want) or in the form of take-away food. I resent being enslaved at $20 a plate! Harrumph!
Also too full, I was, from last night's dinner at Restaurant La Bitta, just off Campo S. Bernaba, where carefully prepared but unfussy food finally met up with reasonable prices, just-what-you-want atmosphere and warm service. Tired and cold, too, Venice having switched faces as quickly as a tourist trying on Carnivale masks, from intensive, humid heat to a Friday night thunder-and-lighting show and drastically dropped temperatures. I spent the day wrapped in scarves, not having packed for the chill wind.
Despite the cold, we sat where we had previously booked, in the tiny giardino (reservations are a must at popular, 8-year-old Bitta) draped with ivy and offering a view of the ubiquitous swifts with their sharp silhouettes carving up a square of sky high overhead. Here, I finally experienced the attraction of two popular antipasti that, on American menus, have always struck me as pallid and uninteresting: caprese salad and proscuitto with melon. Insalata Caprese con Burrata (E10, burrata refers to the type or region of the cheese, I believe) encompassed a fat purse of fresh white cheese that wept milky richness over the grape tomatoes and lettuce. Orgasmic. Ossocolo de Casado Con Melone (E10) brought together paper-thin ossocolo (a cured ham) and sweet, ripe (this is key and rarely accomplished in the U.S.) honeydew with just a dustling of pepper. Ossocolo has a more pronounced salty, beefy flavor than conventional American-made prosciutto and is a bit drier in texture. Eye-opening. Oh, that's what the Italians are on about when it comes to these two dishes.
I remarked to Bonnie, who agreed heartily, that so much of Italian cooking is really quite easy and straightforward, but impossible to achieve properly without ingredients that approach perfection in freshness or manufacture. Easy for Bitta to make such starters with such cheese, meats and produce.
More work goes into the dish of the night for me, the owne'rs grandmother's recipe for Conlio in Tecia, rabbit stew (E10), a sort of coq au vin with rabbit, richly larded with pancetta and bathed in brown sauce with a breath of cloves and perhaps allspice, a typically Venetian touch (first time I craved steamed rice since I've been here). The smashed potatoes with which it was serve were also flecked with bits of pancetta, the potatoes so fresh they tasted of the musty earth (in a Good Way).
I'll leave it to Bonnie (alohafromveneziaredux on blogspot) to discuss dessert; it's her story, of the search for the perrect panna cotta. My tira mi su (invented in Treviso, near Venice) was wonderful. For all this, plus Bonnie's two glasses of wine and my espresso, plus tip, we paid under E80. (And it tells you how steep are prices here that that seems like a bargain, since it's about $150.)
Some observations, as I prepare to attend Mass on Isla San Giorgio Maggiore in a Benedictine monastery designed by Palladio:
Sitting on the vaporetto yesterday, it seemed to me there are two kinds of Italian men. Type 1 is appealing, dishevilled, with face hair and glasses and undoubtedly glorying in the title dottore or professore or possibly maestro. Type 2 is impossibly handsome with chiseled bone structure, fashionable clothes and hair that begs to be tossled; two-day facial stubble optional. There are other men, I'm sure, with paunches and receding hairlines and such, but they have escaped my notice.
Venetian restaurants have a peculiar habit that is beginning to annoy me intensely. The first course arrives rapidly (since we generally eat early and so are often surrounded by empty tables); grazie mille, I'm usually hungry however early we go. The following courses arrive in sedate succession. And then all action stops. The conto (the bill) never comes. You can ask for it. You can look bereft. You can gather up your things. Nothing works. What a contrast to the rapidity with which American servers tend to "drop the check" (often even before you've ordered dessert or a second cup of coffee). I am an enthusiastic but bird-like eater who does not care to linger at table once the food is done. Last night, chilled to the bone, intensely uncomfortable with an aching lower back (I pulled something), I actually left my money with Bonnie and walked out after waiting 15-20 minutes. It was another 15-20 before she emerged.
She was full of glee: She had spoken with the owner, who waited on us, and was so enthralled by her comments that she wrote them down. "What are you doing with that tira mi su," she demanded, eyeing my half-finished dessert. "Here," she said, "you do not order food you do not eat." They chatted about this for a while, and she insisted, literally insisted, that Bonnie, who had finished all her food and part of my rabbit and potatoes, too, felt in honor bound to eat the dessert. The woman then informed her that, at Bitta, you will never get the check unless you ask for it; you can sit there all night with nothing in front of you.
Bonnie thought this was charming. I thought it was indefensible. 1) If I'm paying for a dish, I'll eat as much or as little of it as suits my physical health and appetite (see my previous blogs on Venetian restaurants reactions to a request for a takeout container). 2) A server, in whatever country, should be alert to a table's needs, able to read, and willing to respond to, body language that screams "Let me out of here!"
While it's somewhat enlightening to hear her take on it, I'm pretty much appalled by this and it makes me want to take the remainder of my meals here in cicchetti bars (where you eat standing up and leave when you want) or in the form of take-away food. I resent being enslaved at $20 a plate! Harrumph!
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