Trip to Chioggia

This spring I have not really ventured away from Bologna. I’m not sure why. Perhaps it’s because I did a lot of travel last fall or because it seemed that I almost always had someone to see on the weekend or even because I really just didn’t want to go anywhere alone this year as I did for 3 weeks last year. In any case I mentioned to Liu’ at the library that I was really interested in going to Chioggia. It is on the Adriatic sea not far Venice, at least as the crow flies (I wonder how one says that in Italian) and is sometimes described as a little Venice.

Also it’s a real working town in terms of fish and seafood which is probably means really good stuff to eat which if you’ve read many of my posts is a real priority for me. In any case Liu’ said, yea, let’s go. So we planned an outing for Sunday the 1st of June and off we went.

The original plan was to take the train, which is about two hours each way and not a bad deal. Well, it turns out it is a bad deal because to have a schedule so short there are only about 5 minutes for a train change at the station where the train from Bologna arrives  – and the trains just run every two hours so a miss would be a disaster. So Liu’ offered to drive instead.  I decided to walk from the house to Porta Saragozza which was really pleasant at 9:15 AM. There were very few people out and on Sunday almost nothing open so it was a different experience.

After we got to Chioggia we parked the car and walked into the center. It’s not particularly large town which is not a bad thing. Since it was a holiday weekend (June 2 is Festa della Reublica). A short digression here. The day celebrates the choice of republic form of government rather than a monarchy which was established by national referendum. The vote was surprisingly close with 54 % voting for republic vs 46 for the monarchy. Oh, yes, this was in 1946. But back to Chioggia and the holiday weekend. Given that is was a 3 day weekend there were a bunch of tourists in town, principally Italians it seemed. There is one main street with bunches of little touristy souvenir shops and Liu’ and I walked to the end near the port area to have a nice spritz and linger a bit just relaxing and watching the crowd.

Then we walked over a canal bridge to a parallel street which in contrast with the main street was almost completely deserted. We were, unfortunately, too late when we  happened upon the rather large fish market which would be a great thing for me to walk through. It must be full of fish just hours out of the water even a couple of hours earlier. But we were on the way to the main event – lunch. And what a lunch it was. One of the best meals I’ve ever had in Italy.

First there was the carpaccio of fish and frutti di mare. Sadly Liu’ did not like (or perhaps was allergic to) scampi and shrimp so I was force, I tell you, forced to eat these incredibly delectable raw crustaceans. There were also clams, a scallop and an oyster as you can see. I’m not sure what the fish was, but as Liu’ said, it melts in your mouth. Just incredible.

Next a huge winner, the black ravioli. I don’t remember what it was filled with, it may have been ricotta but was fantastic as we both agreed. Again I was compelled to eat that shrimp and scampo (yes, there is a singular for scampi). Another digression, I just can’t help myself! Scampi in the U.S. is often used to describe a preparation for shrimp but a scampo, while similar is different. Note the long claw on the scampo. It is sweeter and more tender than a shrimp and I have really never seen them in the states. Perhaps you can find them in a REALLY expensive preparation somewhere where they are flown in overnight from the Mediterranean or Adriatic sea but it’s really worth eating them here where they are also expensive but commonly available. Now back to that interrupted lunch. We ate everything and used bread to soak up the melted butter. I considered licking the plate clean but that would really be rather crude don’t you think?

The other secondo was the big chunk of seared tuna. I was frankly disappointed in this one and I think that Liu’ was a little disappointed too. It was not as tender as I would have thought, perhaps not as good a cut from the fish and cooked a tad too much. It was nice to have the name of the restaurant written in mustard on the plate and it did go very well with the tuna. I’d never thought of that but certainly will in the future.  Let’s not forget the wine. With seafood, of course, white. Low alcohol is advised since Liu’ was driving and were were in the Veneto so the perfect choice was prosecco so that’s what we had and it was indeed the perfect choice.

At the end Liu’ ordered the tiramisu and I had a grappa. Both were excellent and Liu’ twisted my arm and INSISTED that I must eat some of the tiramisu. So I did. Excellent! A coffee at the end finished a meal to dream about.

We walked toward the exit and Liu’ simply said “ciao!” and went outside. I followed and said,”Liu’ but we need to go back in and pay.”. She said that she had taken care of it and it was her treat. I was left speechless. It was incredibly generous of her. This was not the end of the trip.

Instead of going back to the main street we walked along a street where the real work takes place. I always like this very untouristy parts of town. I wonder how many tourists wander over to this street and say, “oh nothing interesting to see here and turn back”? To me it’s sometimes the most interesting part of town. What do you think?

 

 

This entry was posted on Friday, June 6th, 2014 at 7:56 am and is filed under Food, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.