Osteria Bancogiro, Campo San Giacometto, Venice

This was our last dinner in Venice before flying the next day to Barcelona and was also unplanned. We were initially at St Peter's Square gawking at the eye widening prices of the Murano glass chandeliers (the diabolic ones were very beautiful!) and decided to let fate handle our dinner as we headed on foot to the Rialto Bridge. Just so that we could tell everyone who asked that we had been there.

Bancogiro (Campo San Giacometto, 122, I-30125 Venice, tel : +39 041 5232061) was one of two that we shortlisted near the Rialto Bridge. The menu looked quite appealing and the proprietors were rather helpful even though they had their hands full in the cicchetti bar. Which was packed and looked very very tempting by the way. Alas, we skipped it and headed upstairs where they were kind enough to seat us before dinner started.

The menu looked more forward thinking in contrast with what they served at the bar which looked more down to earth. Still, the ingredients that they were great and we were really spoilt for choice from all the options.

We decided to start with cuttle fish stuffed with curcuma (a genus of plant where tumeric belongs) spiced ricotta. The flavour of the ricotta stuffings were interesting and contained a hint of what my brain processed to be ginger. Everything else was fine otherwise. What wasn't described on the menu was the mille feuille of sliced eggplant and yoghurt potato mash that served as a bedding for the thinly crisp cuttlefish. The potato mash was awesome!

Antipasto number two was a sea bream tartare and smoked tuna with a raspberry and xérès sauce. The flavours here tasted quite Japanese from the soy and those flower bits that they added on the edges actually provided a "floral tea bouquet". Assuming that one didn't just leave the flowers alone as just decoration. Fish was definitely fresh. Raspberry and xérès sauce was quite tart.

I was not surprised that I didn't get sick of pasta after having them for so many days in a row now. Pasta here was so good. Here's a cocoa fusilli with wild boar ragout, cubed pears and sheep ricotta. The fusilli was pretty tasty with the cocoa curtaining as a background aroma. The pears provided breaks in the umami bed of flavors from the boar ragout, but most of the cheese was lost in translation.

Then, a black tagliatelle with king prawns with sage pesto. While I think I liked this, I also preferred the similar rendition over at Vecio Fritolin where the ink flavour was prominent and the scampi tails were much sweeter.

From the meats, came a pork loin that was described as cooked in low temperature and stuffed with Gorgonzola cheese and nuts. Nuts were probably crushed and mashed into the cheese. I'm not too sure though which type of the blue cheese that they had used. A lot of the saltiness from the Gorgonzola wasn't even present. I felt the meat would have benefited with more salt to taste and a sear for caramelization would have done wonders. 

Tthe scoops of mash they had served with this pork loin were exactly the same yoghurt potato mash that was from their stuffed cuttlefish. Have you ever experienced feeling stuffed and yet wanting to stuff more food into your mouth? It was like that here.

Here's a last dessert for the last dinner in Venice. Of an innocuous looking chestnut muffin in a hot spicy chocolate hazelnut sauce. And the sauce was - wow, packing a respectable heat from the spiciness. Done so in a good way that worked with the rest of the sugars. Since this wasn't anything close to the run of the mill sauce for dessert, I'm entitled to one use of a superlative here. Best dessert spicy sauce ever!