Venice, one of the most romantic cities in the world but also one of the most famous in Italy. Having been to Florence previously and tasting a sub standard pizza in a tourist buzzing environment I wasn't expecting much from the food side of Venice. However I did expect actual food and restaurants like you would any country where the hot spots attract tons of tourists every year.
Having few amount of restaurants was the least of Venice's problems. The area was crawling with snack bars, every corner was a snack bar. This was no exaggeration. On the very first day the local people who I assumed tried their hardest to give their best directions despite the language barrier, took us in a complete different direction and all in all it took us a while to get to Hotel Delfino.
Having arrived at our destination finally we decided the first thing we want to do is EAT. So back we go trawling on the unknown roads of Costo De Poplo to find what appears on the outside to be a quaint little cafe; which supposedly according to their signs, sells "hamburgers". What we find when we sit down is the prices are dear, a small and I mean SMALL dish of pasta is $7.00 in a cafe and a coca cola is $3.50, and not only that but they do not sell hamburgers. Why the false advertising? Bring in the punters who are too embarrassed to leave once they have sat down. Coming to this cafe, I am not sure what we expected.. maybe some proper food as it appears advertised, but no. Once our food is ordered and our drinks arrived I hear a 'PING', thinking to myself that noise is oh so familiar, seeing as much of my food at University is microwave cooked. Lo and behold she brings it right over.. microwaved in all it's glory. Despite that, I love microwave food so I was going to complain about the taste; but the price for that is ridiculous.
So we thought this would be the end of the bad food. How wrong we were. For dinner on the first evening we decided it would be best to eat in the hotel as it had been a long day including the flight and early morning. Again, we were disappointed by the choices and the prices. One of the few dishes we thought would be appetising was English roast beef, which 99.9999% of the time comes warm. Not in this Italian restaurant. Cold. So we stick with the Grilled Beef which I must admit was cooked perfectly but the portion size was just too small. For $15 it just was not worth it, considering outside was a shop selling pizza and a drink for $10! (Which we did not get a chance to try)
On our first full day we attempted brunch at a small cafe in actual Venice town and for the price quality was sub standard, although the pizza, better than I remembered in Florence. Although this may have just been due to hunger. (Having 'brunch' at 2pm does that to you sometimes!) and my traveling partner having a burger, which he managed to eat quite quickly.
The hotel did not supply 24hr room service, considering it was a 4* hotel, it came as a bit of a surprise. Hungry hoteliers could not get a meal after 10.30pm! No chance of a take away either if you cannot read Italian. Due to this we slept hungry that evening. Come sunrise we were both starving and having missed breakfast the first morning we thought we should hurry. Disappointment once again. The milk was.. different. The croissants far to sweet. And this was not just me being picky, even my traveling partner found it hard to stomach. That evening just as we had been shopping all day and attempted to find a restaurant to relax in and have a good dinner before we leave, we walked around and found NOTHING. So what did we have to do? Settle once again for a cafe. And no surprise, the food was microwaved. Which then just led us to eat pizza at the airport, which was the best thing we had had all week.
Overall, Venice is a beautiful city with friendly if not over friendly staff in most shops and the hotel itself was convenient and was nicely furnished. The food side however did not do so well. Food is the utmost important thing to me which is the reason I hate traveling, because how could I live without Dominos Pizza? So on this note if you are traveling to Venice to experience food you will be very disappointed; but if you are there to enjoy being with your other half this is a wonderful place to be.
