Venice 2013 - Dinner

We had wanted to look for a nice place for dinner, but after a long day of walking around a nice rest seemed more important than a nice meal. We settled on a restaurant that was near our hotel - Trattoria Bella Venezia in Cannaregio not far from the train station. Most reviews of this restaurant on TripAdvisor are negative - many complained of an expensive bill but terrible food or being charged for items not ordered. As for us - we did not expect much but had a nice enough experience. 

We settled on the Fixed Menu which cost around 20 euros per person with 2 courses - not cheap but about the average price in Europe. It came with a choice of pasta appetizer and a main course of pork escalopes. We also ordered a seafood soup to share. The soup was very good - it had baby octopus, clams, squid, fish and mussels. Quite tasty.

For pasta we ordered a squid ink spaghetti and a penne arrabbiata. The squid ink pasta was very tasty - and had slices of squid in it which were very sweet and tender. 

The penne did not look very well presented, but taste-wise it was quite good.

The main course was the disappointment. The presentation was half-hearted and the pork looked and tasted like it was prepared by the kitchen hand. It probably was !

In the pictures above the food looked like they were presented on napkins. In fact this restaurant had a strange system of serving their food on a glass platter, with a napkin underneath which gave the strange illusion. 

Many TripAdvisor posts warned of being ripped off - e.g. being charged for the food by weight, etc. Make sure you check the price of everything before confirming the orders.