I have the books, now i need the hands-on experiences...we have a week in venice and 4 days in florence next month and are looking to stretch our budget on food, but want to eat decently for lunch and dinner...how can you help us??? we have an apartment so could also do some take-outs in dorsoduro if you know of outstanding places with prepared main courses or bakeries....

thanks for the tips

I'm certain you'll get recs here, but a couple of other boards you can search are slowtalk.com and chowhound.com.

Here is a thread on Florence from a few months ago:
http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34463655

Cheers!

thanks...ttt

to the top... for rhkkmk

Best wishes,

Rex

Venice has many small take-out sorts of places (called "vini&quot that serve a handful of quick lunches, and have a counter and maybe a couple of chairs. Some have less-than-fresh pizza and cold panini sandwiches. But others serve hot food - I had a fabulous risotti, my companion had ravioli. Just keep your eyes out for a likely place.

There are probably some food markets in Venice, though I don't know where, and there's a fish market near the Rialto bridge. If you feel like cooking fresh fish, give it a try.

In Florence, we loved the pizza places. You can go sit-down, or to the kind of place that's more like a cafeteria. Order your pizza, get it and a drink, then take it to a table. The pizza can be sold by the slice, and the variety is unbelievable - eggplant, or mushroom, or zucchini, etc.

Also in Florence is a great market, the Mercato Centrale, where you can buy anything you want for a picnic meal or food to cook. It's great fun!

The magic words to look in both cities for are tavolo calda (literally "hot table&quot. These are suitable for take-out or, in some cases, rudimentary eating in. The idea originally was a working man's cafeteria...they are now beloved by students and office workers with families to feed at home so look in areas that would service those folks. This is where the above posters likely found the risotto and other inexpensive versions of standard dishes. Mostly, the Italian equivalent of the blue-plate special, "speciale de guorno"(sp?) is the way to go...

In Florence, inside San Lorenzo Market, there is a terrific food stall that is almost always crowded with locals and non-locals. Once you're inside, it's hard to miss. My wife and I had lunch there twice during our last trip to Florence and had one heck of a good beef sandwich called ribollita (sp?) - great tasting boiled beef with the bread dipped on the au-jus from the cauldron. We'd sit on the communal tables, with our meals a carafe of red wine, alongside noisy, but friendly, construction workers who were working on the San Lorenzo church, as well as other locals and tourists.

Just like an earlier poster wote, ther are a lot of cheese and deli-style food stalls in the market, as well as fresh fruits and vegetables.

Hi rh

On caution on pizza in Italy: Make sure you can see the oven, otherwise you might get microwaved, previously frozen, inedible cardboard.

Isn't this good advice worldwide, ira?

kfusto should post here.

ttt

In Venice (and in your book) try Ae Oche for pizza.Great! I recommend the speck,brie and arugala pie.