Bacari

This semester abroad is really about looking at life from a new perspective. Most of that is through looking at cultural differences between Italy and the U.S. One of the biggest differences is that of the culture surrounding food and meals.

While there are the stereotypical differences such as Italian have long meals while Americans go to McDonalds, Italy also has dozens of cultural eating traditions that are each unique in their own way.

All over the country a meal is more than sitting down at a restaurant and ordering from start to finish. It is a journey through which you may find your self in multiple establishments eating and drinking in a variety of ways. One aspect of this journey is the first stop or first stage in called Aperativo. In Rome you may go for an Aperativo at an Enoteca, in Florence you would go to a Vinaio, but in Venice you go to a Bacaro. The differences in these three types of pre-dinner eating and drinking stems from both cultural or traditionalistic and dialectic differences. In a enoteca in Rome you might go before dinner for Aperativo where you would find a spread of little snacks ranging from fried zucchini flowers (fiori di zucca frita) to fried Jewish Artichokes (Carciofi alla Giudia). These snacks at some places are free when you order drinks. This may be something you do before dinner. Enoteca are often open late and you can go anytime during the night, stretching their limited and light food selections into a meal.

In Venice a Bacaro's function is solely as a before dinner or before lunch drink and snack. In the evening Bacari are only open from 5:00 - 8:00, serving only as a before dinner or after work social de-stressing environment.

Although this is not their function we used these Bacari as a full meal hopping from one to the next getting a glass of wine and a different snack (chichetti in venetian).

All'Arco was our favorite Bacaro out of the eight or so we went to. We instantly knew that it was the place to go from the hoards of locals pouring in and out.

You would always order the house wine at each place which was always good. Glasses were extremely cheap and ranged from .80 euro to 1.50 euro. There are two wines that are specific to the region, Prosecco (Sparkling Italian wine) and fragollini. Fragollino is a digestif made from concord grapes. It is a little sweeter but not as sweet as a dessert wine and has the distinct taste of strawberries, hence the name Fragollino (Fragola is strawberry in Italian). Fragollini wines come in either red or white, the red being less sweet and quite pleasant.
Each Bacaro had their own set of chiccheti. This particular one was a whole shellfish with the head on, on a crostini with olive oil. When it's raw it's blue. It's kind of a cross between a prawn and a langoustine. Underneath was a vegetably eggplanty spread.

There aren't any seats in these Bacari. Everyone is standing around with a snack in one hand a glass of wine in the other. It's more of a bar culture where everyone is served over a bar then socializes around it.
This one was a crostini with pancetta with sauteed radicchio and grated pecorino cheese.
Obviously since Venice is an island you find a plethora of seafood all over the city. Something that you see at almost every Bacari are these polpetti (baby octopus) cooked in its own ink, whole. They are really quite good. Salty, fishy but not unpleasantly so, and doused in a good amount of olive oil.
When we saw this we originally thought that it was going to be smoked salmon, but it was smoked tuna. It was so thinly sliced it practically melted on your tongue and was really surprisingly one of the better things we had all weekend.
Fried things seem to be quite popular in Venice. These tiny fried fish and shrimp were appealing because of their size. They were like little popcorn fritti misti. They could have been a little fresher but were quite good.
This is one of the more famous things that you find all over the island. It's whipped baccala with a little milk and olive oil (it's explained in the previous post on Dalla Marisa in more detail). But this rendition of it was okay. Again, just not that great. I still can't quite identify what the big fuss about this dish is.

This was at a new Bacari near All'Arco. They had quite a bit of seafood. Clockwise starting at twelve: Grilled shrimp, grilled squid, baby octopus in a tomato sauce, butterflied and grilled langoustine, roasted artichoke.
Again this is another Bacaro. You can really get the feel for the culture here of all the venetians coming in for a quick drink and a snack, standing around talking.
This place was into their toothpicked things. They had a small assortment of different things and their wine was quite good.
This was a spicy salami specific to this region.
Grilled zucchini and shrimp on a crostini.
This next place seemed to be into their fried things. They had a wide assortment of different fried seafoods.
We got their fried baccala which was good, but not amazing. It definitely needed salt.

Dalla Marisa

We ended up choosing Dalla Marisa for our one splurge meal after raving reviews from our Professor of Urban and Global Rome Piero Vereni (a venetian). When I had originally asked him about the restaurant and if he had heard of it, his mouth dropped in amazement and surprise that I a "tourist" knew about this locals only Gem over a 45 minute walk from the "tourist" part of the island. So of course this meant that I had to go there.

Dalla Marisa does one seating a night. It has a fixed menu for 35 euro which includes and endless carafe of vino. It's in a residential part of the city which is far to the north in Caraveggio. It was quite hard to find. Google maps did not even know where it was. But alas we finally stumbled upon it.

There are two choices for wine: the house red and white. Both were a bit naturally frizzante which we liked quite a bit.

We sit down and out comes five giant platters of antipasti served family style.

This was a creamy polenta. It was quite good, but not salty enough.

This was my one of my favorite dishes of the night. It was what we called ceviche. This particular one is Branzino (an Italian cod like fish) with red peppers and cilantro. It was out of this world. Fresh, lemony, salt, sweet, melt in your mouth. I will be drooling over this dish for years to come.
Baccala Montecato: A venetian dish that takes salt cod (baccala) and whips it with a little cream and olive oil. People rave about this dish and I was excited to try it in Venice. Earlier in the day we had a version of this which was just not that great. So we were hoping that here at Dalla Marisa it would be really great. But again we were quite disappointed. The dish was completely under-salted. So you are left with a bland creamy slightly fishy mass in your mouth that you don't quite know what to do with. This was the only thing all night we left unfinished.
These small polpo (octopus) were absolutely to die for. Some claimed that this was their favorite dish of the night. This was definitely the best rendition of this particular dish I have had in Italy: baby octopus stewed in a tomato sauce. They melted in your mouth, never once giving you any sort of fishy taste, in a fresh smooth perfectly salty sweet tomato sauce.
Stuffed Mussels (Cozze) were delicious. They were stuffed with their own meat and bread crumbs and then drenched in olive oil and baked. They were really amazing.
This was the real shocker of the night. None of us had seen or heard of this kind of dish before. Our roman professors had not even heard of it. It was a baccala and mussel lasagna. It was absolutely to die for. It was creamy and voluptuous without being overly rich. It was covered in olive oil and was delicious. We all licked our plates clean.

Fritti misti. It was again absolutely unbelievable. All of it was freshly fried which was a great change of pace from a lot of restaurants, who seem to have pre-fried frozen seafood. This was tender sweet and perfectly fried. There were shrimp (gamberi), squid (calamare) and little filets of sole (solglio) (under the lemons).

For dessert were little bowls of marscapone mad with rum. They were the perfect finish to a great meal.
We could not have been happier with Dalla Marisa. I would go out of my way just to come back here again. It is a must for anyone traveling in Venezia.

Tramezzini

When you walk into a Roman cafe (called a Bar) you will often see under the counter stacks of what looks like crustless wonder bread with gas station ingredients slathered with mayonnaise. And until recently that is exactly what I though it was.

A trip to Venice that we took with our program led to a reevaluation of these little white bread sandwiches called Tramezzini. Although you can find them all over Rome, their original place of origin and where they are at there best is on the Islands of Venezia.

These sandwiches although appearing like they may show up for sale in your nearest seven eleven with an expiration date sometime last year, in-fact these delicious and quick treats are quite the oposite.

This specific tramezzini is filled with prosciuitto and roasted crimini mushrooms in a light homemade mayonnaise. It was rich, savory and buttery while somehow at the same time maintaining its purpose as a quick light snack.

Tramezzini come in a plethora of varieties containing anything from a thin omelet with piselli (peas) to a blue langoustine type shellfish found in the adriatic dressed lightly with mayonnaise and put between the characteristic crustless white bread.

This tramezzini was a hodgepodge of vegetables and meats including mushrooms, artichokes, pork and salami all brought together with a little homemade mayonnaise and lots of paprika. It was quite spicy but left a great salty/savory after taste on your tongue enticing you to take another bite.

I struck up a conversation with the owner who was quite nice. He has run this place for over 20 years and is famous for his delicious tramezzini. We found common ground after bonding over describing a glass of wine I had ordered in Italian. This led to asking where I was from and then of course he had a brother who made Italian style wine in California and before I knew it we were taking pictures together.

This is one of the things I love about Italy. People are always eager to find a connection with you. Even if they know they will never see you again, everywhere I go I find someone reaching out to me and we end up bonding over some sort of remote commonality.

I could never imagine that happening in a random Cafe in the U.S.

Orvieto

Orvieto is one of the biggest hill towns just north of Rome in the province of Umbria. It's a picturesque town atop a large hill surrounded by steep cliffs and the beautiful Umbrian countryside. Orvieto is best known for its exquisite, beautifully crisp, delicious wine Orvieto. It makes for the perfect day trip from Rome, only a little over an hour by train, and offers a nice relaxing alternative to the fast pace of a big city. We were pleasantly surprised to find that we seemed to be the only tourists in the entire city on this beautiful sunny winter Tuesday.

You take a very fun funicular ride up the side of the cliff to the center of town.

There are great views from atop the cities hill, giving you the true feeling being in the Umbrian countryside. Which can feel really great after just an hour earlier you were in the hustle and bustle of the countries capital.
Jesse had his great photo post, so I had to give Leib some love too. We had a great time playing amongst the ancient city walls.
There are a ton of quaint churches all over the city. Which is surprising given the impression of being such a small pace, it seems like it would be hard for every church to have enough people to support them.
The main sight to see on the hill itself is the duomo. The giant gold leaf adorned, towering church in the middle of the city. It was such a magnificent day with crisp clear skies, the sun hitting all of the gold decorations really made it a great site to see.
If you have a few days in Umrbia or if you are in Rome for an extended period of time you must come to Orvieto. It's a great place to spend the day. The town has great food (see post on La Palomba) and amazing wine.

Cul de Sac (with Family)

Cul de Sac, is a well known wine bar by Piazza Navona in the center of the city. It's open on Sundays (a rarity for Roman Enoteche), and offers a full menu as well as a binder full of wine broken down by region from all over the country. Although their menu is not traditionally Roman, there are definitely some gems if you order carefully.

Fonduta is a traditional Piemontese dish. In its original form it is made from fontina cheese, eggs, butter, cream, salt and pepper with a layer of thinly shaved white truffles. Unfortunately this rendition is lacking in the truffle department. Even though it did not quite live up to it's reputation, mostly because of the absence of the truffles, it was still solid and I would think about ordering it again. It came with pieces of crusty bread to dunk into the molten salty pot of cheese. When we first saw this on the menu we had though about ordering one for each person thinking this was an experience we did not want to miss. But we are very glad we didn't. It's rich, creamy and filling, not something that you would want to brave on your own.

The Coda alla Vaccinara was good not the best I've had though. For that I would go to perilli. But it was fun to eat and suck all of the little morsels of meat of the giant pieces of oxtail. The sauce was quite good and something that is not to be underestimated. The big chunks of meat clinging to each bone were tender and melt in your mouth. Overall quite a solid dish.
Ravioli with rabbit ragu. This was the favorite of some of the people at the table. I would have to agree with them. These large ravioli or tortelli, stuffed with the perfect amount of ragu and smothered in cheese and olive oil were to die for. Do not miss these on your next trip to Cul de Sac.
This mixed plate of cheeses and salumi was alright. But then again I am quite spoiled by Volpetti and Roscioli.
This is the first time I have seen Pate on a menu in Rome, so we had to get it. All of these were made in house. One was supposedly a foie and fig, one was a duck and the third was a wild boar. They were good. The so called foie one was definitely not foie. The boar one was quite sweet and the duck a little bland. We choose these three out of the six or eight that they had on the menu. I wouldn't order them again, but I'm glad we did.
Since this visit I have already been back to Cul de Sac. With glasses of wine at about 3 euro, it's hard to not like it. The food was good but not spectacular and the (as they call it in Roma) cheek by jowl atmosphere is fun.