Food from Last Night

Dear Justin*,

Last night MR and I walked the streets of Venice for over an hour searching for a little restaurant on a canal. Apparently snack bars and pizza places have a monopoly on the canal spots, though, because we could not find a restaurant by the water. Eventually we just began looking for any old restaurant where we could just sit outside, but it turned out that without a reservation we weren't going to be able to get in. At long last we returned to San Marco (more than an hour later after we'd left that area) and inquired at the Ristorante do Leoni, which is set back a ways from the water but still technically on the Grand Canal. I have to say, if every time I wandered aimlessly for an hour I ended up at a place like the do Leoni, I would wander aimlessly a whole lot more.

The waiters found a table for us outside immediately and refused to allow us to sit on our own; instead, they insisted upon pulling out our chairs for us and making sure we were pushed in sufficiently. MR introduced me to Belinis, which are AWESOME, and then I ordered an insalata mista and the Taglioni alla Astice** and MR got her typical spaghetti bianca. We were pleasantly surprised to receive complimentary shrimp cocktails and wonderful bread before the meal, and our pastas were extremely good (though mine came with a lobster shell on top of it, which I did not particularly appreciate). We declined to order dessert since we had plans to spend the rest of the evening in front of a group of musicians in San Marco, but were brought tiny complimentary cookies anyway. The wine we ordered was also left off the bill.

As we walked away, we discussed the fact that we had ended up with more free food than ordered food. At first we named the restaurant ridiculous, after further reflection, though, we realized that the service and little free foods had hooked us and that we would not be able to resist returning to the Ristorante do Leoni during subsequent visits to Venice - and that we would recommend it to everyone we knew (by the way, if you're ever in Venice, go to the Ristorante do Leoni). Overall, we gave them four thumbs up.

Dessert was chocolate cake and Spritzes*** in San Marco while we listened to the same group of musicians we'd picked out as the best the night before. MR got some videos of them playing, so look for that when we finally load everything on our computers.

This morning we found the Jewish Ghetto (even with directions we had trouble - it's REALLY tucked away) and have been strolling through the streets just looking around at everything. There are tourists EVERYWHERE. I ran through San Marco and along the end of the Grand Canal some this morning and thought I was playing flag football or something I had to dodge so many people. I almost purposefully took out some of the ones holding sunbrellas**** just because they were so annoying, but tried to be all zen and yoga-esque and ran around them in the end.

Tonight we head back to the Villa to spend the night and pack up all our things before the Amalfi Coast. Hopefully the train will be more comfortable than it was on Friday. Cross your fingers for me :) -

*I was really only going to do one "Dear Justin", but after last night's supper experience some requests came in that I do another. I guess in making fun of DI I discovered that documenting food is actually a good idea...
**Pasta with lobster
***Apparently THE cocktail of Venice. We couldn't figure out what was in them, but they were slightly bitter and had slices of orange as well as huge green olives hanging out on a stick in the drink. Yummy.
****Umbrellas that certain ethnic groups of people use to shade themselves from the sun