We started our evening with a drink at the HK bar (Hell's Kitchen apparently - the restaurant it is part of specialises in flambé). This bar was right next to our hotel and had a very impressive looking glass 'chandelier' (although much cooler than a regular chandelier) and a very high-tech wine dispensing machine.
Our waiter was the absolutely outstanding Oscar (he made me wait to take this photo until he took his glasses off!), who was charming, sincere, super-friendly and bounced from language to language as he chatted with everyone in the bar. Bar staff like Oscar are rare indeed.
After a couple of glasses of prosecco for me and a Venetian Amarone for Kyle, we headed off to find the restaurant we had reserved for dinner, Al Covo. The rain had finally stopped and with more good luck than anything else, we happened across the restaurant without getting lost (it was on an unnamed street - both on the map and in reality). I had read some great reviews for this place, so expectations were high.
We arrived at 8pm and the restaurant was pretty quiet. The menu is quite odd, as there is a 'Hostaria" menu, which is basically just ordering three courses off the a la carte for 47 euros or you could have an entree and main which would cost about 45 and then have to pay a 5 euro cover charge. We went with the three courses.
Kyle started with Sauteed clams with white beans, which sounded really good but ended up being a bit disappointing. My warm seafood salad was reminiscent of the previous night's mixed seafood antipasti and was quite good (except for what I think may have been sea snails?). It was, at least, a nice light starter.
My main was breaded lamb cutlets with matchstick fries and baby artichokes. It looks quite funny on the plate as everything was some sort of fried and is all the same colour. In all honesty, it did get a bit greasy by the end, but the lamb chops were delicious. Soft and tender and with the most amazing fresh mint sauce. I have never really understood mint sauce before, but this was outstanding. Sweet yet sharp, it really helped to cut through the greasiness. The artichokes were also good, but it was a shame they were deep-fried in batter as you lost the subtle taste. The matchstick fries fall firmly in the category of 'too hard to eat'!
Kyle went with the Tagliata of top round beef, very rare with Mothia rock salt. This arrived with a couple of unannounced side dishes of roasted potatoes, stirfried pak choy, a chilli sauce and a balsamic sauce. The beef was, indeed, very rare, but was incredibly soft. The dish ended up being more about texture than taste as the beef was a little bland.
Wine was a Venetian Monte del Ora Valpolicella, which was quite a revelation. Reimiscent of Cabernet Sauvignon, this was a nice heavy red wine, perfect for all these meaty dishes.
By now, we were both incredibly full (what? after two three course meals in one day?), so I chose the hazelnut gelati for dessert and Kyle chose Venetian Cream, not really knowing what it was and hoping it wasn't that nice, so he didn't have to eat it. As it turned out, it wasn't really that nice, a little like Chinese deep-fried ice-cream. My gelati, however, was excellent, served with crumbly, buttery biscuits and sprinkled with chopped hazelnuts. We finished with some complimentary Venetian biscuits, which I really enjoyed - crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside.Overall, this was a pleasant evening. You could tell all the ingredients were excellent, but some of the execution ended up being a tad on the boring side. Service was also a little patchy - there were a couple of excellent people there (the owners?), but the old guy serving us was a bit shuffly and perhaps, unlike the others, didn't speak much English.
Of course, the real entertainment for the evening hadn't even started. While we had been munching away, Venice had been slowly going underwater, so by the time we left, St Mark's Square was a swimming pool and we had to wade back to the hotel! Very exciting . . .Al Covo
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