Italian restaurants

Trattoria Al Passo, Venice – Only Fish!

September 29, 2007

While we were all in Venice, Jeet’s friend and Andrew’s colleague, Umberto, wanted to take us to his favorite restaurant in the nearby village of Campalto. The restaurant’s card says Solo Pesce (only fish), and that’s all we had – lots of very, very good fish, most of it local and extremely fresh. Umberto and [...]

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Italian Restaurant: La Quercia di Rosa

July 7, 2007

On our way down to Abruzzo for my mother-in-law’s 80th birthday, we stopped for lunch near Modena, the home of balsamic vinegar. Quite by accident (although this kind of accident is not unusual in Italy), we found an excellent restaurant, La Quercia di Rosa (the Rose Oak – ?). They make their own balsamic vinegar, [...]

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Customs and Etiquette When Dining Out in Italy

April 15, 2005

House Wine In many Italian restaurants, you can get a low-cost house wine (usually one white and one red selection) in carafes of 1/4, 1/2, or a full litre. In some places this is a decent though not stellar local wine, in others it will be something completely unrelated to the area. Personally, I’d try [...]

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Why Italians Have Stopped Eating Out

January 2, 2005

Like most people in Italy, we don’t go out for dinner as much as we used to. We love to eat out, and there are many great restaurants in Italy, but who can afford them anymore? It started with the euro. The official conversion rate was 1936.27 lire to the euro. In other words, a [...]

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Birthday Lunch at Lanterna Verde

August 21, 2004

Last Saturday we went to La Lanterna Verde, one of our favorite restaurants in the world, for the now-traditional celebration of Ross’ and Alice’s birthdays. Last year there were 11 of us, this year 10. The owners have become fond of us, though they’d like to see us more often! Most of us had set [...]

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Italian Restaurants: Osteria del Viaggiatore

July 15, 2004

I had driven past this place in Lecco many times, but it’s easily overlooked – the outside of the building is unprepossessing unpainted cement, though the large sign with a mysterious painting on it is intriguing, and we heard that it was good. So we finally went last night. The menu is fixed-price, 30 euros [...]

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Imaging in Italy: A Photographic Walking Tour of Rome – Day 4.5

October 31, 2003

After a restorative coffee in Piazza Venezia, we walked past Trajan’s Column and Forum, gorgeous in the evening light: We ate (a lot!) at a nearby restaurant called Massenzio; a bit pricey, but excellent. The spaghetti with shrimp and pecorino di fossa (sheep’s milk cheese aged in caves) was amazing. And we hadporcini again. Then, to aid digestion, we walked [...]

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Imaging in Italy: A Photographic Walking Tour of Rome

October 31, 2003

Oct, 2006 : Tony got a review in the Guardian I spent the week of October 12-18 in Rome,on Tony Boccaccio’s Imaging in Italy course, a wonderful, fun experience that I heartily recommend to anyone wishing to improve photography skills OR, even if you’re not an experienced photographer, if you want to do something completely [...]

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Imaging in Italy: A Photographic Walking Tour of Rome – Day 2

October 31, 2003

Our first activity Tuesday morning was a review of Monday’s (digital) photos, with expert commentary and pointers from Tony. He went on to talk about other aspects of imaging, but I confess I wasn’t paying as much attention as I should, distracted by these fuzzy little Romans: After lunch (at an excellent, old-fashionedosteria, da Alfredo [...]

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Imaging in Italy: A Photographic Walking Tour of Rome (and Viterbo) – Day 3

October 31, 2003

On Wednesday we took a train to Viterbo, a town with some unusual Gothic architecture. The symbol of Viterbo is the lion, which you can find in various incarnations all over town. Evidently the town went through some rough times; some of these lions look awfully worried. Clovis Aquino, a painter who accompanied us on many of [...]

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