Hello, collegiettes™!
It’s been a long first week of Easter holiday, spent traveling Italy. There’s been ups and downs, but through it all there has constantly been food. Everywhere you look in Italy there is a market, cafe, or restaurant selling a range of food, of course with lots of pizza and pasta.
My friend, Michelle, and I arrived in Venice after an all night long ordeal of traveling. We were exhausted, and popped into a restaurant on our way to St. Marks Plaza to get some pizza. We thought we had hit the gold mine, lots of pizza (and fancy pizza with sprinkled arugula and olive oil!) for €6. Already, Italy was going well. Well, our pizza experience the next day from a stall on a side street near our hostel, which was a bit off the beaten path, was even better. A larger slice, heated up and slapped on a paper for take away, was mouth watering. Our slice was only €2.20, Crazy Pizza, the name of the stall, was a hit!
The next night we took a food tour of Venice. This was a wonderful way to learn about some of Venice’s history and culture, in a small guided tour. Plus there was food! Our tour was called a cicchetti tour. Cicchetti is similar to the Spanish tapas, which is an assortment of small snack like items, available for individual purchase rather inexpensively. We visited five places and received cicchetti at each one. Our first stop had polenta (a type of bread) topped with cheese, vegetables, fried mozzarella and fish, baguette slices with zucchini, salami, cheese, etc. on top, and finally some cookies! Cicchetti is a social opportunity for Venetians to meet with their friends after work, and before going home to dinner. Typically, they stand at a bar or counter (some places didn’t even have tables), inside or outside the establishment. This was similar to how a discount is given in a cafe if the coffee is drunk at the counter versus a table.
Of course, once we had cookies we wanted even more dessert. Lucky for us, a gelatarria was on our way to the hostel. Gelato is creamier than ice cream, and I prefer it. In addition to traditional flavors, there was pistachio, hazelnut, cherry, and a blue colored one I couldn’t decipher from the Italian label.
Around the corner from our hostel was a food establishment that constantly had a long line, and all of the people walked away with white takeout boxes, similar to Chinese take away. Michelle and I decided to venture out and see what the fuss was about, and we wish we had earlier! The place, Alfredo’s, is highly rated on TripAdvisor, surprising for a take away location. The boxes were filled with the most delicious fresh pasta and sauce I have ever had. You could choose between three types of pasta, about six types of sauces, and an optional eight additions. It was a small menu with a lot of creative room. I, however, stuck with fusilli pasta with a tomato and cream sauce, delicious!
Before hopping on a train to Rome, we opted for a take away cappuccino, and to our surprise, it came in a small plastic cup. It would have taken about three cappuccinos to fill a tall size cup at Starbucks, but the quality of the coffee was delicious, and we drank them fast considering the plastic does not provide much insulation.
Off to Roma for the Easter weekend!
Ciao!
HCxo,
Heather
Photo Credits:
http://thingstodo.viator.com/florence/files/florence_gelato.jpg
http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/02/61/1f/42/little-italy-…
http://www.chefgianni.com/shop/image/cache/data/Fusilli-Salsiccia-500×50…