Osteria Al Diavolo E L'acquasanta, San Polo, Venice

We stumbled upon this bar/restaurant (San Polo 561b | Calle della Madonna, Venice, tel : +39 041 277 0307) not too far away from the Rialto bridge purely by happenstance while wandering around in the early twilight of autumn within the maze like pavements in Venice. While we hadn't decided immediately that this was the place that we'll be having dinner, we did eventually head back. It was a pretty good thing we did.

The menu here was frills free, looked as Venetian (mostly seafood) as it could get and was crowded with plenty of locals. The proprietress was explaining that the name of the bar/restaurant referred the devil and the holy water and that holy water in Venice, refers to wine.

Having snacked through more than our fair share of cicchetti for the day, we skipped trying to pretend to eat like locals at the bar and dove straight into the menu. First up was their antipasto della casa which was basically a mixed plate of sarde in saor (a Venetian dish of sardines with onions, white wine and vinegar), baccala and octopus. Altogether, a great deal of mixed flavours and textures coming from the fishes and chopped up cephalopod tentacles.

Their clam and mussels soup was loaded with shellfish in a rich white wine broth. Here was when we noticed that they were not as heavy handed as most with garlic.

Steering away from the usual seafood laden items for a little bit, we had their bollito della casa which consisted of boiled tripe, salami and something that was described as beef head. I'm not too sure if those were really parts from the head. This rustic dish was simple and actually pretty darn good.

We haven't had some vegetables in our meals for a while so we thought it was a good to get some mixed boiled vegetables for fibre and whatever benefits vegetables brings to one's diet. Those bean like things that came with the contorni were very good.

Cuttlefish was in season, so we couldn't say no to some grilled ones dressed in simple olive oil, salt and parsley.

We were pretty stuffed from all the food and wine that we had to give a pass on the desserts. As unexciting as I may have described this, I think I liked this place and would certainly consider coming again if I ever visit Venice again before it becomes Atlantis.