10/16/18: Venice day 2

We made a reservation yesterday to eat at Venissa, a Michelin-starred restored restaurant on the nearby island of Burano. Ok, not the restaurant with the actual star, but the adjoining osteria, which is actually open today. Some had said to go to Murano, but our concierge Andrea made it pretty clear in this markup of our map:

He panned Murano as a whole island of tourist trap shops. So we were bent on spending the bulk of our day in Burano to complement the lunch. 

We got up fairly early and ate a pretty good breakfast in the hotel. The charcuterie spread was solid, as were the croissant options. Could have paid for worse outside. 

Took a fast walk through various narrow Venetian neighborhoods. 

And took the ferry to Burano. It was a relaxed 40 min out. Burano's sleepy townhouses and farmland were, in a word, bucolic. There were few tourist knocking around, and with no cars, few boats, and little wind, the streets of Burano were very quiet. It was an extremely relaxed atmosphere. 

That last pic is of a church bell tower from the 14th century looking out over Venissa was private vineyard, the only one growing Dorona golden grapes. And for 25 Euros, you can have a glass. Which we did, at the osteria. 

I thought the dishes were nicely refined and had some new flavors mixed in with classics. We got as much seafood (in honor of Venice) as we could. The amberjack dishes showed a mastery of preparing fish. The pasta and pagu was possibly the best I've ever had.  The Dorana wine, not as much of a hit with Muslimah. 

It was about 2:30, and we wanted to see if we could use our 24h tickets for this special Burano route, even though we paid explicitly for that fare. We could, so we know we could go to Murano and then go back to Venice without paying more. So we went to Murano after all. It was more touristy than Burano as expected, but at least it's claim to fame, glasswork, was quite varied across all the stops we saw, instead of every kiosk having the same trite inventory. 

For dinner, we took a water bus back into the Jewish Ghetto part of Venice's Cannaregio district. This dates back to the 1530s, easily several decades before Shakespeare penned his play. Ghetto of course did not refer to poverty back then, and except for seeing the occasional Orthodox Jew and some Hebrew signage, the Ghetto looked like the rest of Venice. 

We dined in the Ghetto, at Gam Gam, a kosher Italian Jewish restaurant. The entrees were decent, but the appetizers were real stars. Eggplant 4 ways (jazzed up as Ghetto Style on the menu -- groan) was great in each way: grilled, cubed and roasted, sliced and in olive oil, and babaganoush. The hummus with chopped beef was hearty. Using the fat pita as a conveyance, I was reminded of beef stroganoff. 

After dinner, we hoofed it all the way back to the hotel. Muslimah got a "spritz" mixed drink, which was not all that.