Downtown

Corte della Pazienza, Venice, June 16, 2011—

ANOTHER FIASCO concerning reservations: I put off too long making one at the Osteria dalla Marisa. We ate lunch there several days ago, it's true, and were disappointed: but for precisely that reason I wanted to go back for dinner, to see if that would make a big difference.

But when I called this morning, they were already booked for tonight. We have reservations elsewhere tomorrow and Saturday; they're closed Sunday and Monday; we leave Venice Tuesday morning. So Marisa will have to wait until next time.

Finding ourselves quite hungry at two o'clock "downtown" this afternoon, after a long visit to the Teatro la Fenice, we fell into a table in front of a nearby restaurant for a pretty good, pretty ordinary lunch. I had tagliatelle with prosciutto and peas in an Alfredo sauce, a classic combination that always takes me back to the church Wednesday-night potluck suppers I suffered through the year I lived with my grandparents — though those creamed dishes rarely approached the stature of even an ordinary place like this.

With them as a side dish, radicchio from the grill, cooked just right, full of flavor. No salad, no dessert: that would wait until evening, at home.

Gavi, Michele Chiarlo, "Le Marne," 2010

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