Venice alla Zucca, A November Trip Report
Dec 4th, 2005 | 07:42 PM
#21
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 641
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beanweb24,
We were at the Locanda Orseolo the same time as you. When we left, we told Mateo and Barbara that we purposely did not do all the things we had planned, so we would have good reason to return. After reading your outstanding trip report, we want to return even sooner. Thank you again for sharing.
Woody
We were at the Locanda Orseolo the same time as you. When we left, we told Mateo and Barbara that we purposely did not do all the things we had planned, so we would have good reason to return. After reading your outstanding trip report, we want to return even sooner. Thank you again for sharing.
Woody
Dec 5th, 2005 | 05:23 PM
#26
Original Poster
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 3,009
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<b>Day 6: Two (more) Pints of Guinness, Please</b>
I can’t believe I forgot one of my favorite “Afternoon with Matteo” conversations from Day 5. If you have ever stayed at Orseolo, you know that Matteo always looks polished. It doesn’t matter if he’s wearing jeans (which he does…which automatically grants YOU permission to wear jeans in Venice, too!) or if he’s dressed a little more formally – he just exudes style. But yesterday, I saw him a little disheveled – mortified even. Why? Because I, a female, had the gall to attempt a discussion of football (soccer) with him. It started innocently enough. I asked him if he could recommend a bar for watching a Champions League game. He looked somewhat surprised that I was interested in watching a game, but then my hubby took it a little too far for Matteo’s comfort, “You might be surprised that she also plays soccer! We, in fact, play on a team together…men and women.” Whoo whee was that a little too much for Matteo to comprehend. “But you don’t understand,” he pleaded, “football is a religion to me!” “To me, too,” I said, “I’ve played for 25 years!” Matteo went on to explain that, in his family, his brother and father gather around the television to watch a football match while the women (you guessed it) cook in the kitchen! I turned to Barbara and said, “Barbara, help!” She apologized, “I don’t like football.” Aye. I managed to calm him down a bit by promising to sit outside the bar reading a book or knitting while my hubby enjoyed the game in the bar, and this amused him a bit. But for the rest of the trip, we had a daily dose of Italian machismo versus feminine persistence. I enjoyed the ribbing immensely.
Back to Day 6. I’m pretty sure that the weather of Day 6 was my fault. Just 24 hours earlier I had exclaimed, “People always say never to come to Venice in November, but it’s perfect!” Sucker. Today was frigid and windy – not a good combination. We had noble intentions to explore Castello, especially since there were some shops mentioned in my <b>Top Ten Venice</b> book that sounded interesting (shameless plug: I love this book). However, a walk to Castello would have required a stroll along the water, and there was no way we could brave the cold wind. Instead, we decided to visit <b>the other Rosa Salva</b> (this one at Campo SS. Giovanni E Paulo) for cappuccino. Warmed up a bit, hubby decided we should search for <b>Osteria al Portego</b>, a wonderful and tiny osteria we ate at on our honeymoon and again on last year’s visit.
We had the address, Calle della Malvasia 6015, and we found Calle della Malvasia, but we could not find the Osteria! I thought it was located near a bridge, so we spent a while finding little bridges, crossing them, looking around, and then going back in the direction from which we came. Since this wasn’t getting us anywhere, hubby suggested that we focus on the number – 6015 – instead the street name. Since numbers are used only once for each sestiere, this seemed like a good idea. We would follow the numbers as they got larger and then laugh when they suddenly took a giant leap backwards. But suddenly, there we were – 6015! It was our Osteria…hidden behind scaffolding, but open.
When you walk in Osteria al Portego, there is a nice area for standing at the bar and enjoying a fabulous selection of cicchetti. But, again, we prefer a sit-down meal. We were seated at a 4-top table with a couple who was speaking Danish(?) peppered with bits of English, yet we didn’t really interact with them even though we were practically sitting in each other’s laps. What draws us to this Osteria is the melanzane parmigiana…a soupy delight of obscene amounts of cheese, olive oil, tomato, and eggplant. I told my husband that if I choked on the cheese, to always remember that I had died happy. And fat. In addition to an order (each) of the eggplant, hubby had gnocchi and I had artichokes. The artichokes were actually artichoke bottoms (fibrous “choke” included) baked in gobs of olive oil and topped with parsley. We also enjoyed the tiramisu (another reason to come back) even though I believe they had to actually go retrieve a frozen box of tiramisu when we ordered it…I watched the server hack through it with a big butcher knife immediately before it was brought to our table. The red house wine is totally drinkable, but not memorable. Our total bill did not exceed 35Euro.
Remember the wind? So did I. I hit a wall this afternoon – too much food, too much walking, too much wind, too much [insert complaint here]….nothing an afternoon of sitting in a British pub watching god awful music videos, drinking Guinness, and reading books can’t solve! So there we were, parked at <b>Devil’s Forest Pub</b> for a period of time that I’m too embarrassed to mention here. I now want to take this opportunity to apologize to all of Europe for exporting Mariah Carey. But – how do you justify <b>Beats and Styles</b>? This group offered the most gloriously bad song and dance I have ever witnessed. Watching music videos in Europe is one of my guilty pleasures, and my delight is always inversely related to the quality of the songs and/or video. One final note about Devil’s Forest for you sports fans – if there is a football match on, they will show it on both of their televisions.
Back at Orseolo, we continued our football discussion and gender bashing with Matteo and Gigi (who I refer to privately as “Hot Gigi” but that’s beside the point). Gigi knows more about the NBA then I could ever hope to know, and my husband thoroughly enjoyed their conversations, and I smiled so much I think I sprained my cheeks. We rested briefly and then went back to <b>Moscacieka</b> for a light dinner of more beer and bruschetta. It was here that I vowed to buy a grill pan and cook experimental bruschetta every Saturday. (Update: bought the grill pan…haven’t made bruschetta – but I did grill polenta last night, so that counts a little.) We turned in early and couldn’t believe we were already facing our last full day in Venice – and so began the dread of the end of our vacation.
<b>Day 6 Helpful Links</b>
Devil’s Forest: www.devilsforest.com
Beats and Styles: www.beatsandstyles.com
I can’t believe I forgot one of my favorite “Afternoon with Matteo” conversations from Day 5. If you have ever stayed at Orseolo, you know that Matteo always looks polished. It doesn’t matter if he’s wearing jeans (which he does…which automatically grants YOU permission to wear jeans in Venice, too!) or if he’s dressed a little more formally – he just exudes style. But yesterday, I saw him a little disheveled – mortified even. Why? Because I, a female, had the gall to attempt a discussion of football (soccer) with him. It started innocently enough. I asked him if he could recommend a bar for watching a Champions League game. He looked somewhat surprised that I was interested in watching a game, but then my hubby took it a little too far for Matteo’s comfort, “You might be surprised that she also plays soccer! We, in fact, play on a team together…men and women.” Whoo whee was that a little too much for Matteo to comprehend. “But you don’t understand,” he pleaded, “football is a religion to me!” “To me, too,” I said, “I’ve played for 25 years!” Matteo went on to explain that, in his family, his brother and father gather around the television to watch a football match while the women (you guessed it) cook in the kitchen! I turned to Barbara and said, “Barbara, help!” She apologized, “I don’t like football.” Aye. I managed to calm him down a bit by promising to sit outside the bar reading a book or knitting while my hubby enjoyed the game in the bar, and this amused him a bit. But for the rest of the trip, we had a daily dose of Italian machismo versus feminine persistence. I enjoyed the ribbing immensely.
Back to Day 6. I’m pretty sure that the weather of Day 6 was my fault. Just 24 hours earlier I had exclaimed, “People always say never to come to Venice in November, but it’s perfect!” Sucker. Today was frigid and windy – not a good combination. We had noble intentions to explore Castello, especially since there were some shops mentioned in my <b>Top Ten Venice</b> book that sounded interesting (shameless plug: I love this book). However, a walk to Castello would have required a stroll along the water, and there was no way we could brave the cold wind. Instead, we decided to visit <b>the other Rosa Salva</b> (this one at Campo SS. Giovanni E Paulo) for cappuccino. Warmed up a bit, hubby decided we should search for <b>Osteria al Portego</b>, a wonderful and tiny osteria we ate at on our honeymoon and again on last year’s visit.
We had the address, Calle della Malvasia 6015, and we found Calle della Malvasia, but we could not find the Osteria! I thought it was located near a bridge, so we spent a while finding little bridges, crossing them, looking around, and then going back in the direction from which we came. Since this wasn’t getting us anywhere, hubby suggested that we focus on the number – 6015 – instead the street name. Since numbers are used only once for each sestiere, this seemed like a good idea. We would follow the numbers as they got larger and then laugh when they suddenly took a giant leap backwards. But suddenly, there we were – 6015! It was our Osteria…hidden behind scaffolding, but open.
When you walk in Osteria al Portego, there is a nice area for standing at the bar and enjoying a fabulous selection of cicchetti. But, again, we prefer a sit-down meal. We were seated at a 4-top table with a couple who was speaking Danish(?) peppered with bits of English, yet we didn’t really interact with them even though we were practically sitting in each other’s laps. What draws us to this Osteria is the melanzane parmigiana…a soupy delight of obscene amounts of cheese, olive oil, tomato, and eggplant. I told my husband that if I choked on the cheese, to always remember that I had died happy. And fat. In addition to an order (each) of the eggplant, hubby had gnocchi and I had artichokes. The artichokes were actually artichoke bottoms (fibrous “choke” included) baked in gobs of olive oil and topped with parsley. We also enjoyed the tiramisu (another reason to come back) even though I believe they had to actually go retrieve a frozen box of tiramisu when we ordered it…I watched the server hack through it with a big butcher knife immediately before it was brought to our table. The red house wine is totally drinkable, but not memorable. Our total bill did not exceed 35Euro.
Remember the wind? So did I. I hit a wall this afternoon – too much food, too much walking, too much wind, too much [insert complaint here]….nothing an afternoon of sitting in a British pub watching god awful music videos, drinking Guinness, and reading books can’t solve! So there we were, parked at <b>Devil’s Forest Pub</b> for a period of time that I’m too embarrassed to mention here. I now want to take this opportunity to apologize to all of Europe for exporting Mariah Carey. But – how do you justify <b>Beats and Styles</b>? This group offered the most gloriously bad song and dance I have ever witnessed. Watching music videos in Europe is one of my guilty pleasures, and my delight is always inversely related to the quality of the songs and/or video. One final note about Devil’s Forest for you sports fans – if there is a football match on, they will show it on both of their televisions.
Back at Orseolo, we continued our football discussion and gender bashing with Matteo and Gigi (who I refer to privately as “Hot Gigi” but that’s beside the point). Gigi knows more about the NBA then I could ever hope to know, and my husband thoroughly enjoyed their conversations, and I smiled so much I think I sprained my cheeks. We rested briefly and then went back to <b>Moscacieka</b> for a light dinner of more beer and bruschetta. It was here that I vowed to buy a grill pan and cook experimental bruschetta every Saturday. (Update: bought the grill pan…haven’t made bruschetta – but I did grill polenta last night, so that counts a little.) We turned in early and couldn’t believe we were already facing our last full day in Venice – and so began the dread of the end of our vacation.
<b>Day 6 Helpful Links</b>
Devil’s Forest: www.devilsforest.com
Beats and Styles: www.beatsandstyles.com
