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.

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.

Cantina do Mori, San Polo, Venice

All'Arco, San Polo, Venice

This was a recommended joint (San Polo 436 | Calle Arco, Venice, tel : + 041 520 5666) to eat like a local for drinks and cicchetto, Venetian tapas which usually consisted of sliced crostini with any variety of toppings amongst other small bites. This was a uniquely Venice item to eat. No? The place looked like a small bar where one simply ordered what caught their fancy from the charcuterie, cheeses and bread with toppings that were available along with a spritz/beer/wine/prosecco.

What we picked from top left was prosciutto with sun dried tomatoes, a pungent Rocquefort with caramelized onions, a black truffle cheese paste of sorts with artichoke and the last, baccala that tasted like it was whipped with lard and bits of onions! It was just so easy to keep ordering more and more of these stuff to eat.

My first tramezzini in Venice

These tramezzini were just sandwiches sans the bread crust like they looked, nicely fattened in the middle with any variety of fillings. These ham ones with artichoke and boiled egg tasted exactly as they looked. Novelty of a fat sandwich aside, they were light and made tasty between meal snacking with a beer or/and espresso.

Trattoria Sostanza, Via della Porcellana, Florence

We had almost gotten ourselves lost looking for Trattoria Sostanza (Via della Porcellana 25R, Florence, tel :  + 39 055 212691) but for the kindness of a Japanese dude whom was kind enough to show us the way. In the end, the location turned out to be not too far of a walk from the hotel that we were staying in.

This trattoria was one of those serving straight forward home styled cooking without frills where one finds locals rubbing shoulders with tourists.  Their specialty I've heard was their bistecca alla fiorentina, an out of this world petti di pollo al burro (butter chicken!) and their tortino di carciofi. Since we've just had steak just the day before, we gave that a pass and gave the other items a chance to find a home in our bellies.

To be honest, most of the bread we've had in Italy were dull, airy and crusty stuff on the verge of being made into breadcrumbs. Sostanza's ciabatta was actually pretty good in spite of it's innocuous (or mundane) appearance.

There was something amazing about Tuscan chopped liver costinis that made us marvel at the magic of their taste. It was their brand of fragrance and savoury flavors, clocked in at the right quantities.

Their pasta was very decent, not experimental in any sense at all and served with a hearty ragu.

The highlight was their butter chicken. Imagine a buttery pastry with the texture of tender pan fried chicken. That was really how it was with the fillets fried in a generous pool of butter. There was enough of those charred bits and melted butter to dip each bite of the chicken and then mop up with the ciabatta they gave.

I imagine that one should at least order and try this to have considered visited Trattoria Sostanza.

Their artichoke omelette was also no slouch. It came out as a large tart of light airy eggs with soft chunks of the artichoke hearts embedded within, drenched in olive oil. This would have made an awesome breakfast dish.

As stuffed as we were, we managed their fruit and cream meringue cake thing for dessert. A second time where I was proven that meringue can be not overly sweet and taste pretty good. With the generosity of the cream in the equation, the crumbly meringue, the bits of airy cake along with the cold berries and chocolate crumbles were a party of textures.