Last day in Venice

Breakfast at Locanda Orseolo

Breakfast today was as delicious as yesterday’s, in the top rated (#1 by Trip Advisor, from over 1200 reviews) bed and breakfast we stayed in, the Locanda Orseolo, sweetly hidden just behind Piazza San Marco. 

The buffet component of breakfast offers a very decent variety. Salami, ham and cheddar slices, little hard and tasty mini-baguettes or italian-style croissants (not buttery and flakey like those you’d expect but harder with a firmer bite), pastries, yogurt assortment, warm ratatouille, warm half sandwiches with cheese and ham/salami, jams, and assorted cereal and juices. The non-buffet part of the breakfast is the more delicious piece  - freshly whipped up entrees of your choice - they offer eggs - your style - and/or crepes - chocolate/chocolate and banana/chocolate and pear/lemon and sugar. Yesterday, our first breakfast, J and I both gobbled down freshly prepared fluffy scrambled eggs with cheese and greasy, crispy, seriously delicious bacon, and today J had the omelette (with cheese folded in the middle) and I had a perfectly poached egg. I like my poached egg not overly runny, but not too hard - and they did it just right. The cappuccino was declared delicious (J had two), and I had my usual black tea. I suspected they mean to offer guests just one hot entree (i.e. either you choose an egg or crepe dish) but I greedily asked for crepes (chocolate of course) after my eggs - and the request was smilingly acceded to. 

As today is our last full day in Venice, I declared (any excuse will do!) that we will be eating several meals throughout the day. Luckily, I was reasonably restrained during today’s breakfast and didn’t really overeat That much.

We headed out to the famed fish market near Rialto bridge - a quick ten minute brisk walk from the hotel, and quickly found the fish, fruit, vegetable, meal stalls colourfully spread out next to the canal. The goal was to have a mid morning (it was around 10am by then) snack at the recommended Pronto Pesce - a seafood bar of sorts next to the market that is supposedly trendy, and offers the day’s fresh catches creatively done up. I took some time to look at the labelled seafoods - many different types of squid - black ink (seppie), calamari (calamari), and other names that were new to me - hoping to beef up my vocabulary of italian food items.

Pronto Presce

It was empty when we arrived, and the sole service staff (part owner?) there spoke English and was friendly, and said the dishes of the day are available, but more hot dishes will be ready at lunch from noon. As I wanted to have another meal at lunch, I insisted on ordering a couple of items to “sample”. Ended up with a codfish pudding with pumpkin and a little mullet in tomato sauce. The mullet tasted distinctively of the sea - a bit too fishy for my liking but reasonably tasty. The codfish pudding didn’t taste like cod or fish to me at all, actually, though J says he can taste the fish - it had a chunky-ish pudding-y texture (not overly smooth like you may expect of a pudding pudding), and little chunks of pumpkin generously scattered throughout the mini-teacup sized pudding, which made the entire concoction taste slightly sweet with a nice undertone to it.

Lunch

We went hunting down the two places in Carnereggio that we had on the list - figuring that if we were lucky enough to find one of them - no easy feat in Venice’s really quite random streets - that would be lovely and if not, we would use our erm, instincts to lunch at another hopefully delicious place.

Carnereggio was about a 45 minute slow stroll from the Rialto bridge area inclusive of some detours and meandering - brisk, crisp, chilly weather that I reveled in, warm in my down (puffy) jacket with hood, ear muffs and other cold weather paraphernalia. No gloves though, they get in the way (btw, has anyone seen those “tech” gloves - with little tips at the thumb and first finger so that your iPhone can still be operated even with gloves on? I saw a pair in San Francisco Bloomingdale’s when I was there two weeks ago, but decided US$80 was too much to pay for them, quite cool though).

Not Osteria di Marisa:

This little place  - one of the two we were looking for - is right along the canal along the same row as Marisa, and we serendipitously managed to stumble upon Marisa - elation that didn’t turn into fruition when the proprietress of the completely packed place told us to come back at 1pm. We could wait (not really that hungry but still... it’s 45 mins away....) or keep looking. 

So we kept looking, down the same path was this other also-packed place, but we managed to grab one of two tables left - yay.

The proprietor was italian (naturally) and spoke charmingly accented English with a flourish, explained the dishes to us in detail, including what “bolognaise” and “caprese” meant -

first courses:

• penne bolognaise
• lasagne in cheese sauce (instead of the expected tomato base with béchamel layers) and dark meat, couldn’t taste any béchamel - beef? pork?

second courses:

• roast beef with a squeeze of lemon
• caprese salad (no basil came with it)

cappuccinos to end the meal - I’m no coffee fan but since coffee was part of the lunch set (I guessed) I had a few sips.

Everything was quite pleasant but nothing outstanding - still good value at 15 euros for a first and second course plus choice of coffee. Wine and water was charged separately.

Tea at Cafe Quadri

Cafe Quadri is one of the tea-rooms at Piazza San Marco - along with Cafe Lavene and Cafe Florian - that are considered institutions from a tea-room perspective - decor unchanged (and it shows) from the 1700s pre-Napoleon Venice. The drinks are famously overpriced but I figured the atmosphere was worth it - and I was sure I’d read somewhere that Cafe Quadri offered quite delicious foods.

J ordered the hot chocolate, and I ordered the darjeeling tea, and asked if I could have two naked scoops of gelato instead of the fancy ice cream concoctions which were four scoops upwards. Was hoping they had interesting italian baked goods but they didn’t, really. 

I promised J that the hot chocolate here would be molten - like liquid, just-melted chocolate - and it was really quite delicious, and came with a separate jar of warm steamed milk that you’d use to stir into your chocolate for one’s preferred level of chocolatey-ness.

The tea..... ok, I know italy is more coffee than tea, but when you wanna charge 8.5 euros, and then offer up a Twining's teabag (the convenient kind with the string, no less).... erm.... I just felt it was beneath them. And teabags came in an assortment too, that you choose from, like in a hotel minibar, instead of just the darjeeling that I asked for as listed in the menu. Sigh. Surely, it doesn’t take much effort to put a few little loose tea leaves from a random tea brand (wasn’t expecting Mariage Freres) and hide the blatant Twinings label..... that was sad, because in my mind, I had equated Cafe Quadri to basically Laduree (famed and touristy but maintains its reputation fiercely) J. said that the afternoon team at the Peninsula in Hong Kong would probably serve teabags from Twinings (or Lipton - what’s the difference) too and I was like, let’s go and see, I’m sure they wouldn’t!!!

The gelato was nice - not overly rich (chocolate + vanilla with chocolate bits) - with two very delicious wafers.

last meal of the day

The hotel had helped with reservations at the Ai Quattro in the Dorsudoro area, which was about 20 minutes on foot from San Marco.

We were super early and strolled around the stores and restaurants peering closely at their menu - around 7pm we went to the osteria (reservations were 730pm) hoping we could eat earlier - and saw staff in the background, but the door was locked, and remained so until exactly 730pm.

They sat us in a private-ish table for two, with a ridiculously glaring hanging pendant lamp directly focused on the table, like you have to avert your eyes. There were no other tables for two in the restaurant, and the person who gave us the menu was unfriendly (as warned) and I stopped J from asking for a change in table (silly I know) and said, I hope the food is worth it.

Joyously, it was!!

The menu was entirely in italian (“we prefer non- tourists”, is the sublimal message - I don’t mind because this means food is hopefully more delicious and authentic), but I knew enough Italian food items, and together with an italian-english app on the iPhone, figured out most of the short menu items. The menu changes daily depending on the day’s freshest catch. This is an entirely seafood place. 

We started with the vongole spaghetti and the grilled calamari -grilled with olive oil and sprinkled with parsley, with a lemon wedge to be squeezed over. Oh my oh my - the grilled calamari was the best grilled calamari I have ever had - crisp on the outside and super tender on the inside, as fresh as fresh can be, perfecto with fresh lemon and the parsley dressing. The vongole spaghetti was amazing too - didn’t taste like aglio olio (ie lots of garlic) like I expected, but perfectly cooked with tiny uber fresh clams - and Not A Hint of garlic, to my joy (I generally eat garlic reluctantly only, and only when worth it, like in very good aglio olio). 

The third item we shared was grilled eel - done in the same style as the squid, but almost-blackened to a delicious crisp on the outside, yet completely retains its juices within. That came served with soft, smooth white polenta that tasted curiously of chwee kuay (local Singaporean breakfast item made of white flour, steamed into little cups and served with salty radish bits) base.

They offered two dessert items - panna cotta or vanilla cream (described by the friendlier waitress). Since I am not partial toward panna cotta, we went for the vanilla cream - which had the consistency of creamy greek or icelandic yogurt, but tasted of caramel (not overly sweet at all). 


What a day! happy and satisfied, we were.