A Couple Of Meals in Venice

I know many of you look forward to my blogs about food...I do, too.

I just want to say that you must forgive me for the not so great color...when we eat in restaurants here, there is always a dull yellow glow. The lighting is very low, and leans towards golden, so the food shots look so much less appealing than in real life!

Plus, I'm just using my lil' old phone. Nothing professional.

Ok, got that off my chest...shall we move on?

We are creatures of habit, Mr. J and I. We like the familiar, and rarely get brave and try new places. We love our tried and true! So, here we have two dinners from this week. One a tried and true...one an old fave.

First, Tried & True-

We love, love, love La Bitta in the Dorsoruro sestiere (neighborhood). We have eaten here many times, and it just rings our bells. There is almost always something interesting and vegetarian for us to try. 

We had a starter and a pasta course, and that was just enough.

Our starter was artichoke hearts with a creamy cheese sauce. We've had this here before, and it is just so good. The cheese is northern Italian and very flavorful.

We knew it would be rich, so we shared this dish. 
A perfect start.

They do gnocchi well here, and it was the only veg option, so we both ordered it. On this night, it was served with a winter squash sauce and topped with smoked ricotta. A wonderful combination of sweet and smoky. These were sooooo great!

Little clouds of heavenly tastes!

You must book La Bitta in advance. There are two seatings, 7 & 9pm. No website.

A couple of nights later, we tried a new place! Whaaaat?!?? Yeah, we did. We stopped by this spot after checking out the menu and having a glass of wine at the counter earlier in the day. The menu looked good, so we made a reservation for that evening...

I'm kind of amazed we found our way back, but Johnny is pretty good at navigating. Me, I don't know my left from right. I'm useless.

We did find it... thanks Johnny.

This is osteria "Ai Promessi Sposi", or The Betrothed...

It's a cute spot down a tiny calle (street)

We started with a bag of mixed bread, which we save for soaking up sauces later in the meal. Don't fill up on this before your meal! Don't ask for olive oil to dip it in! This is a no-no...

I'll admit ...this starter on the menu we saw earlier was why I wanted to come here and try it.

This is a ricotta mousse with sun dried tomatoes, capers and basil. It was very good. I liked it more than Johnny...

Again, we both ordered the same pasta. 

Spaghetti with a yellow cherry tomato cream, again topped with smoked ricotta. I don;'t mind...I love this change from parmesan or pecorino. It was good, but the pasta wasn't cooked quite enough. great sauce, though.

A little too "al dente"...

We shouldn't have, but we ordered some side veggies. They were just ok, not great. And one plate to share would have been enough.

I'm glad we tried this place, but we agreed we wouldn't want to go back. Ah, well...

We always order a half litre of house white wine, Johnny sometimes gets a glass of red. We have our routine down.

We're leaving Venice tomorrow, but there is more food to share soon!