I've used this site,rick steves,chowhound,NY Times,Frommers. I figured there would be a ton of info on resturants in Rome/Venice.

I'm not looking for off the wall stuff.I'm not looking for 3 * Michellin resturants. I like shrimp,light tasting fish,beef,pasta pretty normal stuff. I don't want to spend mega money but i'm not worried about spending money for a good to great meal. I just don't want to get somewhere and eat junk or tourist trap food.

I don't know where you are looking but our favorite place in Venice,,

http://www.zagat.com/Verticals/Prope...=8&R=81784

I just checked the NY Times for Venice and they recommend 25 restaurants in all price ranges in different areas of Venice. The article gives photos, prices, NYT review, Frommer's review, reader reviews.

Go to the travel section and enter Venice, Italy in the search box. The article I looked at is 36 hours in Venice. I'm sure there's a lot more on Venice.

There is lots of information on restos in Rome and Venice in this site. I saw a couple of threads in the last two days.

I loved Pierluigi in Rome. Moderately priced.

From your posts at chowhound, it does seem as if you're looking for "off the wall stuff." Personally, I do not go to Italy to eat what I can eat in any highly touted restaurant in New York, Toronto or London; I go to eat the regional cooking that I can only get in Rome or Venice.

For your information: The Met is the restaurant of the Hotel Metropole in Venice.

I think that you don't always get the lists in Italy because all of Italy has good to great restaurants. The Italians just think a little differently than we Americans. We love great food and have compiled a list of our favorite restaurants but most are in Tuscany. I would ask you hotel for a list or ask the people of this thread about there favorite restaurants. Also there is a good restaurant list on slowtrav.com.

Buy and take with you the Michelin Red Guide. My husband and I haven't had a bad meal of any of the restaurants recommended in that guide.

Enjoy all the great food in Italy!

NY Times does give reviews but your can't see a menu.The review alotr of resturants but only have 8 as a Times favorite. Everyones tastes are different so my review and liking of a place may be different then yours. I've never been in any highly toutes resturants in NY ..ie ..Daniel,Per Se. I've only been @ Nobu,Lugers,Craft Steak,Sparks,Roberto's. Trust me i'm hardly looking for off the wall items. I'm looking for good food with fresh ingredients.

Slowtravel has alot of reviews but not up to date.

I'll just walk and look myself. These message boards are of no help whatsoever.

Lordy, I wish you were here. I would start handing you the 8 million recommendations that I've culled from the forum, slowtrav, chowhound, Slow Food,Gambero Rosso, etc. If you search here on my name, you can find my Venice report from October. I wrote about each place we ate, and we ate pretty well, at not too high a price.

Wow,I think thousands of people would disagree.But coming from someone having a hard time finding restaurant recs for Venice and Rome,I can understand your disappointment.I've found more great recommendations than I'd ever be able to use in a lifetime or two.

I always check out gourmet magazine and epicurious.com.....plus egullet - all great resources.

I think part of the reason may be that most restaurants in Italy are good - if you're talking fresh, tasty and relatively inexpensive but not sophisticated. We have never had trouble finding places just wandering where ever we were. And in at least 10 trips to Italy we only ever had one really bad meal - and it was in a quite expensive and recommended place in Venice.

I don;t know if the chef had the night off or what - but the food was awful - as in we couldn't eat it and refused to pay. And as we were arguing with the maitre d' we saw another couple sending their food back as well.

I've read tons of recommendations from all the various sites. Example - Da' Fiore in Venice. Ny Times say's it 1 of there picks.it has 1 Michellin Star.A few people on the various message boards say it's ok but you get more people that say it's not good and not worth the money. Quinzi&Gabrieli in Rome ...same thing. I'm looking for non-touristy resturants ...the so-called hidden gems or even for that matter a good place for a good meal.

Yet you say in the chowhound forum that Il Pagliaccio is the only one among L'Altro Mastai, Agata e Romeo, Il Convivio or Il Pagliaccio that you're interested in from looking at the menu. I would suggest that Il Pagliaccio is hardly a "hidden gem" and that any one of the other recommendations - incidentally, from Maureen B. Fant, who has lived in Rome for decades and wrote the Williams-Sonoma Rome cookbook - is a more Roman restaurant than Il Pagliaccio.

Why is it hard for you to find restaurant information? There are many recommendations on this site if you search. Franco, for one has an extensive thread about it and many additional people have added their recommendations as well.

Many trip reports have very detailed restaurant descriptions including websites. I wrote one for a week in Venice and we didn't get to all the places I had read about on this site alone. I also got a lot of information on Trip Advisor as well.

Also, since you find this message board useless, it is very easy to Google the name of a restaurant and look at the menu on their website.

I don't read trip reports ..I don't have hours upon hours to read stuff online.

www.viamichelin.it

Click on "Ristoranti della Guida Michelin" and it will display recommendable restaurants of all price levels.

Be sure to enter the proper name of town, e.g. "Roma" and not "Rome" and "Venezia" and not "Venice".

I read the webpage and and recommendations By Maureen she recommended a resturant called "Osteria St.Ana" ----I ask on chowhound and someone says I could find better ? I ask here and nobody has heard of it ? So,you tell me ?

Maureen B. Fant never recommended Osteria St. Ana; you said you got an email about it. At least get your own story straight.

Still, there are plenty of threads about restaurants if you just search. If you want information, it does take time to find it. You have received a lot of useful advice here so perhaps it isn't useless after all.