Trattoria da Romano, Via Galuppi, Burano

Burano is a 40 minute vaporetto ride from the main island of Venice. Like its neighbour Murano, it is famed for craftsmanship. But here, it is lace instead of artisanal glass. And houses painted in cheerful happy colors that dot the residential part of the land. Until the day we had decided to visit it, I hadn't known that it was also a place where Anthony Bourdain visited once in an episode of No Reservations for their risotto of no tiny fame.

In an old school eatery call Trattoria da Romano (Via Galuppi, 221 | Burano, Venice, tel : +39 041 73 0030) where the waitering is still a respectable profession that required one to be genteelly observant, knowledge of what the restaurant is serving and a fish filleting dexterity that has been honed to the point that the job is done before a cooked fish has turned cold after it has been trolley-ed to the customer.

Seriously.

To start off, we had picked sea snails doused in olive oil and a squeeze of lemon.

The follow up was the one of the stars of the lunch. A risotto di Goa that was made from a fish broth reduced into the rice. The flavour of the risotto turned out to be very balanced. A little different from what I had in mind of a rich fish broth. There was just enough of that fish flavour and rich creaminess that hadn't threatened to overwhelm one another in a mask of savory goodness.

Mindblowingly awesome it wasn't. But it was still a good risotto.

Then came the second star of the lunch which was juicy grilled scampi that was a little expensive. Wished those scampi had more meat. It was truly wowingly good. The wowingly good was largely due to the fact that these crustaceans were sweet from the freshness. The grill elevated them to the next level. In fact, we liked it so much that after a while, the fork and knife were forgotten and we were happily sucking the contents out of the head.

Next up was a last minute add on of their cuttlefish ink spaghetti with bits of cuttlefish thrown in for bite. Totally enjoyable this was.

To wrap up with something sweet, a pretty and decent cioccolato torta which we spied on the cake trays by the bar.

This place did represent certain aspects of what we liked a lot about the food here being straight forward and delicious in spite of the fact that we're eating in a very touristy area. It was not an inexpensive lunch by any measure, but it left us leaving with a smile on our faces.

Service was excellent.