Food, art, food, art, food, (shopping), art, food, food, food...

And once again, I find myself behind the eight ball. So here...


Food - We wanted to have dinner last night at Riviera - Gill, Wanda, remember the spaghetti and vongole? We arrived at an empty restaurant at about 7:15 (no, no prenatazione [reservation]) and found a very harried yet cordial waiter. "Is not possible tonight. The Biennale. We have big dinner. Everything is very confused." So we did some grocery shopping - the thought crossed our minds for about a microsecond to cook dinner at home, walked along the Zattere and decided to give Casin dei Nobili a try. The prosciutto and melon was unreal. The fried zucchini flowers stuffed with cheese were delicious, Marcia had chicken with mushrooms and I had John Dory with thin slices of lightly breaded and very quick fried zucchini - almost tempura. Good, solid, neighborhood home cooking. We stopped at Nico for gelato - it's generally acknowledged as one of the best, if not THE best gelateria in Venice but we don't think so. Igloo is better - much better - and so is the place on the Zattere closer to the apt. I can't remember the name...


More food - the Contessa was shocked, absolutely stunned, that we had not been to Trattoria Ca D'Oro, affectionately known by locals as Alla Vedova. So, after a morning of false starts and Plan B (and C and D and...don't ask), we ventured up to Canareggio and found out what we'd been missing. The place is very cool - Venetian retro (Fonso, I FINALLY did a couple of good sketches!), first-rate cicchetti - asparagus cooked in olive oil, crunchy fried meatballs, sarde en saor, bacala, grilled eggplant and zucchini, marinated pepperoncini, bells peppers, zucchini and eggplant, grilled swordfish, good crusty bread, wine (duh...) - it's such fun to drink in the afternoon! And a bargain, to boot.


At the other end of the spectrum...we had dinner tonight at Lineadombra - remember, Wanda? You and I had dinner there your first night in Venice. It's a couple minutes' walk from the apt. on the Zattere, very contemporary - the menu and the restaurant design - and the food was perfectly prepared, unique, scrumptious. Monkfish sauteed with a red Martini reduction with toasted almonds on a canape with black grapes, Mille-Feuille scampi in saor with thin slices of green apple and raisins, Spaghetti with clams, julienne of zucchini and pumpkin flowers, Strozzapreti (homemade, hand-rolled pasta) with scampi, cherry tomatoes, peanuts and basil. The battle of the bands (desserts) continued with one panna cotta and one tiramisu - I'm afraid that although tasty, La Bitta, Vini da Arturo and Alle Testiere have nothing whatsoever to worry about. Lineadombra is very expensive. We knew this going in and decided it would be worth the splurge. The service was less than stellar - although in fairness, Venetians/Italians do not hurry through meals the way we Americans do - and I think it colored Marcia's impression. We did, however, have good fun and lots and lots of laughs and the food was absolutely delicious. So were the spritz and the wine.


I owe you, mi amici, lots of Biennale. It's late and my brain simply cannot embark on an esoteric, artistic, insightful, thoughtful trail at the moment. And when I do get to it - tomorrow, I hope? - I am thinking about a new tact. Photos with captions within the body of blog posts. We'll see how that works. But that is domani. For now, buona notte.