Thank you for the tips. I hadn't heard of the Scuola de San Rocco, but after one look on google I added it to my itinerary. And yes, I realize we might not be able to eat this much, but I plan on skipping breakfast and dining with the constant reminder to take it easy because I have quite a few great meals planned. Thanks again!

Yes I was referring to Barbero. Do you have any idea what their hours of operation might be? I didn't see any listed on their site. It looks like we might be doing a wine tour that day and I want to make sure we have time to go. Thank you!

Edit: And don't you worry I definitely plan on doing a full trip report :)

Thank you allende. I'll probably end up choosing La Torre since we definitely want to visit Barbero as well. I'd probably prefer a ristorante for our other dinner choice, especially since it'll be our last night in Italy so I will look more into Il Centro and Cascinalenuovo.

Thank you for the suggestion. I put Aciugheta on our map. I figure it'd be a great way to take a breather before heading out to see the sights. Thanks again.

It seems our last major decision is dinner Thursday and Friday. Thursday it's between la Torre in Cherasco and da Renzo in Cervere. Friday dinner is between Il Centro, Il Cascinalenuovo, and Del Belbo-da Bardon. I'll do more searching as I'm sure I'll probably have to make reservations soon. It's very exciting that we're leaving in two short weeks.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that I have secured a reservation for a late dinner at Borgo Antico for Wednesday.

I thought I'd post an update since our trip is just a few short weeks away. Most of the (food-related) research for our trip has come from this board, so for that both my wife and I are eternally grateful.

We arrive in Milan on a Wednesday afternoon. My friend will be picking us up and we'll be staying with him in Desenzano del Garda. I'm letting him take the reins for the part of the trip we'll be staying with him. When I asked him if I should at least look into places to eat, he assured me that hes never had a bad meal in Italy. Honestly, I'm just looking forward to spending some time with a childhood friend in a gorgeous country.

Our train arrives in Venice Saturday morning. We check into our hotel and have a lunch reservation at Il Ridotto at noon. Afterwards we plan on doing some touristy stuff around Piazza San Marco. Dinner will be at L'anice Stellato.

Sunday we're taking the vaporetto out to Burano to have lunch at Venissa at 12:30. Afterwards we might check out Burano for a while and eventually amke our way back to Venice. We plan on seeing a show at Teatro La Fenice (still waiting for tickets to go on sale) and afterwards having dinner at Bancogiro (outside, weather permitting.)

Monday we take a train to Bologna and pick up our rental there (unfortunately there weren't any automatics available in Modena) and drive to check into our B&B in Nonantola before a short tour and lunch at Osteria di Rubbiara. After lunch we have yet another tour at Villa San Donnino in Modena. After this I'm not entirely sure what time it will be or how hungry so we haven't planned anything. A lot of potential spots turned out to be closed on Monday, and, if anything, I figured we could just get a dinner recommendation from a local.

Tuesday is a day I'm really looking forward to. We start by checking out Mercato Albinelli followed by Ghirlandina Tower and Modena Cathedral. Then we have a 12:30 lunch reservation at Hosteria Giusti. Afterwards we plan on heading south to visit Rocca di Vignola and finally capping off the day with dinner at Da Amerigo in Savigno.

Wednesday we leave early to head out to Antica Corte Pallavicina for a large tour of their grounds and lunch. Afterwards we may check out Asti and have dinner at Il Cascinalenuovo, otherwise we'll head straight to our hotel in Monforte D'alba and have dinner at possibly Locanda nel Borgo Antico or Trattoria Della Posta.

Thursday and Friday are our most unplanned days of the trip. We have ideas in mind, but don't necessarily want to commit to too much. I definitely want to check out the tasting room at Castello di Grinzane Cavour to get a feel of the various wineries of the region, and a day-trip to Cherasco is something I've been considering as I've read there's a fantastic confetteria there and dinner at Osteria la Torre sounds great (although I am a little intimidated by the spoken-only menu.)

So that's it. If you have any comments, please don't hesitate to share, but I'm pretty confident in our current itinerary. Maybe a little more help for the Langhe region, which I'll be sure to research just a bit more in the coming weeks, because one can never have too many options. Thanks again for all of your wonderful input, you've been a great help.

Thank you for the reply. I can't wait!

How did you make reservations at Anice Stellato? I'll be visiting in October and can't seem to find an email adress or website. If you called, did you have any problems with the language barrier? Thanks.

That's actually exactly what we decided to do. After looking at their website and realizing tours start at 9am, we decided to schedule a tour for Wednesday morning after we leave ER on our way to the Langhe. I might email them and ask if I can do a tour and lunch as opposed to a tasting. I want the full experience, and a few reviews on TripAdvisor said the tasting paled in comparison to the meals served at their restaurant.

So here's a question: Since they're both closed on Mondays and I seriously doubt I can do both in one day--can I do both in one day?--would you rather have lunch at Hosteria Giusti or tour and taste and/or have dinner at Antica Cote Pallavicina? While quite a drive from where we're staying, that place looks like what I would imagine heaven must be like...

I've been doing some more Venice research and am liking the idea of hitting Il Ridotto for lunch on Saturday after we check into our B&B. Hopefully we can get an early train from Verona. After that I imagine we'll check out San Marco then have dinner at Ai Promessi Sposi.

For Sunday I think we'll hop a boat out to Burano and check out Verisssa for lunch (that place looks amazing) then maybe walk around the main island for a bit. I'm looking at either Bancogiro or Anice Stellato for dinner. I like the idea of eating on the water at Bancogiro (not to mention that their menu and pictures of their food I found on flickr had my mouth watering) but I'm not sure how the weather will be in October.

Chime in if you have any notes about my plans. Thanks :)

I've been doing some digging on Venice and I found a great place to stay in S. Croce Est. The restaurants on my radar so far are:

Il Ridotto (no-brainer)

Anice Stellato

Ai Promessi Sposi

and finally La Zucca

I've read great things about La Zucca, but there've definitely been some negative reviews as well. Does anyone have any recent opinions on this place? Bonus that it's right down the street from where we'll probably be staying.

As far as the ER leg of the trip we're definitely staying near Nonantola. As of now I'm looking at taking an early train from Venice to Modena then picking up our car and checking in. Afterwards I want to try to squeeze in a tour of Villa San Donnino then head south to check out the Ferrari Museum and the Rocca di Vignola. I found a great place to eat in Spilamberto, but unfortunately it's closed on Mondays. I will look into Ostaria di Rubbiara for a Monday dinner option.

I've already booked a Tuesday lunch at Hosteria Giusti. Pretty excited about that.

Thanks!

EDIT: One more thing I forgot. I've read there're a lot of pizzerias in Venice, but I regularly travel to NYC to eat pizza so my standards are pretty high. Should I go out of my way to sample Venetian pizza?

I'm actually struggling with what we should do in E-R right now. We arrive Monday morning and head out to the Langhe on Wednesday morning so two full days and I'm not sure how to spend them. I found an excellent B&B in Nonantola outside of Modena so I was thinking maybe we should use that as a spring board to check out Modena, Parma, and/or Bologna.

Aged balsamic, cheeses, and cured meats of all kinds are things both my wife and I really love, that coupled with some bad reviews about Bologna and traffic horror stories lead me to focus my attention on Modena and Parma, but now I just don't know. I also think I want to have a car after Venice because I've read numerous threads here saying that the best spots are the rural countryside gems.

I've got a fairly decent grasp on the Langhe, but I'm just sinking my teeth into E-R. This is something I'll be researching heavily in the coming days.

In terms of the trip down to Liguria I just don't know if we'll have the time to fit it all in. It's great to have all of this in-depth info to consider, especially for other readers who may be interested in the region. Thanks for all of the input!

Thank you very much. We've gotten responses from both places and I'm thinking we're going to stay in Monforte because the spot in Canale only had a suite available (which is over double the price of the room in Monforte) and a lot of the wineries I've been interested in visiting are much closer to Monforte.

I read about Castello di Grinzane Cavour in another thread here on CH and I really love the place. As of right now I also have Azienda Agricola Vigna Rionda (Massolino) Winery, Aurelio Settimo, and La Spinette winery although I haven't looked into visiting/tours.

Right now I'm liking the idea of hitting a few of the above mentioned wineries and capping off the day with dinner at Borgo Antico. I'm also toying with the idea of heading into Cherasco to check out the chocolate and hazelnut concoctions at Confetteria Barbero Di Torta Giancarlo before dining at Osteria La Torre.

I've also read good things about the Travel Langhe wine tour service based out of Neive, but haven't looked into it other than visiting their website. 150 euro per person for a day seems reasonable, but it also seems a tad expensive.

Thanks for the link PBSF. I don't have time to read it just this moment, but I definitely want to give it the attention it deserves especially now after we've settled on staying in Venice for a few days. Thanks again.

Thank you for the advice allende.

We're considering staying at a place in Canale (Villa Tiboldi.) How is that area in terms of access to restaurants and wineries? It looks like they have a pretty great restaurant on site as well. I'm very close to booking as we both love the look of the place. We were also looking at a place in Monforte d'Alba (La Toricella) which, according to my research is a more favorable area for restaurants/wineries. Thoughts?

Alright, I've flip-flopped on this issue yet again, hopefully for the last time. I took into consideration the beauty and the overall experience of visiting Venice and I've decided it's something we simply can't omit. The comments here made me realize that even though there may be a lot of not so great places to eat in Venice, with enough searching there's bound to be some gems (Il Ridotto for one.) So I'm thinking this will be the final version of our itinerary (although I really will miss not seeing Turin.)

Flight Arrives in Milan Wednesday afternoon
Wed-Fri Night in Desenzano del Garda
Sat morning we hop a train to Venice
Mon morning we hop a train (or pick up a rental car, need to research this) to Modena. If we rent a car I'll definitely consider stopping in Ferrara to see Castello Estense.
Tues morning head over to Parma.
Wed morning head out to the Langhe region.
Sat morning back to Milan for our flight home.

If we come across a particularly nice day while in Piemonte I will definitely look into taking a trip down to Liguria. My wife expressed interest in seeing the Italian riviera in some fashion or another so this would be a great opportunity to do so.

Aside from not seeing Turin, another major disappointment is not being able to visit Hosteria Giusti as they're closed.

After much consideration and talking with my wife we've decided to omit Venice from our trip. This won't be the last time we'll be in Italy I'm sure, so it'll be high on the list for subsequent trips.

Our itinerary is now looking like this (changing from days to nights for easier tracking):

3 Nights Desenzano del Garda

1 Night Modena

1 Night Parma

Here is where we've come across three options:

2 Nights in Cinque Terrre

3 Nights in Langhe

or

1 Night in Cinque Terre

3 Nights in Langhe

1 Night in Turin

or

3 Nights in Langhe

2 Nights in Turin

Or would you recommend another option in the vicinity? Assuming food is a high priority (other things are obviously being considered. For one, I'm hugely into castles and will be trying to see as many as I can while visiting.)

Thanks for all of the great feedback. As always, the information on these boards has proven invaluable. I just wish there were other travel sites that had as many knowledgable contributors as CH.

This is exactly the type of information I was struggling to find. Thank you for your post (although you're only making this decision harder for me... haha).

Skip Turin? I'll admit most of the things I've found for the city aren't food related (Cinema Museum, Egyptian Museum, Borgo Medievale) I've read nothing but rave reviews of the chocolate scene in Turin. It's a tempting thought for sure.

Another thing I should mention is we spent our last anniversary in SF and then Napa Valley so we've definitely done the wine country thing, although I'm sure the Langhe is much different than Napa/Sonoma.

First some background on our trip. My wife and I will be spending 10 days in Northern Italy for our third anniversary this October. The secondary reason for this trip is to visit a longtime friend in the Air Force whos stationed in Desenzano del Garda. Nothing, aside from our flight, is set in stone and as of right now our tentative travel schedule is:

2-3 days in Desenzano del Garda (probably checking out Brescia and Verona as well during this time--I'm leaving the plans for this leg of the trip up to my buddy.)

1-2 days in Venice

2-3 days in ER (with a focus on Parma and Modena)

2-3 days in the Langhe region and Turin

I've been surfing the Italy CH boards for a few weeks now, updating my google map with restaurants that've piqued my interest and I've noticed the general consensus here that the dining scene in Venice leaves something to be desired. This combined with the fact that neither my wife nor I are big seafood eaters has lead me to reconsider our plans for visiting Venice. On the other hand, I'm reading nothing but great things about the other regions we're planning on visiting (especially the Langhe!)

Restaurants I have marked on my map include Il Ridotto, Hosteria Giusti, Ai due Platani, Il Cascinalenuovo, Ristorante Centro, and Ristorante Bovio among others.

So if you would be so kind as to give your opinion on this matter I would be eternally grateful. General comments about our planned itinerary are encouraged as well!

Here's what my wife and I have planned for the next two days visiting NYC.

Our bus arrives early Friday morning. Our first stop is City Bakery for hot chocolate, pretzel croissants, and cookies.

After some shopping we have a noon reservation for a prix fixe lunch at Del Posto. I'm pretty excited about it, but nothing on their current menu is really jumping off the page at me.

After lunch we're going to check in to our hotel and do some touristy stuff for once. We're going to check out the 5th Ave window displays and the tree at Rockefeller.

I expect it to be around 4-5pm when we finish shopping so we're going to head over to the West Village for a few drinks at Blind Tiger. We have a 7:30 dinner reservation at 84 on Seventh. If we're still hungry I wouldn't mind hitting L'arte del Gelato right across the street.

Saturday morning we're going to Shopsin's for breakfast. After that I don't really have too much planned. We might check out the Guggenheim or do some more shopping.

Lunch will be pizza at Motorino. I'm anxious to try their egg pizza, hopefully they'll top it with Brussels sprouts for me.

We have an early dinner reservation at Public because we have tickets to go see the 8pm showing of Stomp. I play the drums and I've wanted to see Stomp for years, so I'm pretty excited about that. After the show we head straight to our bus back down to Baltimore.

We might try to squeeze a few other snacks in along the way. I want to check out Dominique Ansel Bakery and my wife loves Coffee Roasting Plant, but we'll probably have to sacrifice one of our meals to fit any more in...

Thanks for reading, have a great weekend.

For pizza I think I'll be taking my wife to Motorino since she's never been there. That BS&P pie is second only to Di Fara's square pie for my favorite pizza in the city.

In terms of dinner our first night I'm torn between 3 American spots or Greek. Pylos is the Greek option, otherwise it's between Public, The Dutch, or Saxon + Parole. I also had Allswell in the mix, but I don't think we'll be making it out to Brooklyn this trip. Recommendations highly encouraged!

Thank you.

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Pylos
128 E 7th St, New York, NY 10009

Motorino
349 E 12th St, New York, NY 10003

To get the ball rolling I guess I'll throw out the ideas I have so far:

Our bus arrives at 9am so we'll head down to City Bakery for some hot chocolate and pastries. There's some shopping around there we wouldn't mind doing, then we'll head over to Del Posto for their prix fixe lunch.

I'm not sure what we'll do after lunch, maybe see the tree at Rockefeller Center. I imagine we'll probably want a late afternoon snack and a lateish dinner (8 or 9pm, which is late for us tourists). I wouldn't mind seeing what all the fuss is about at Eataly. Any recommendations there? I'm a huge DFH fan, so I wouldn't mind checking out Birreria.

Saturday morning will be breakfast at Shopsin's. I imagine we'll have a few more opportunities to eat before our bus leaves at 8pm.

I wouldn't mind trying some pizza while in town. We've been to Motorino (both locations), Paulie Gee's, Di Fara, Totonno's, Co, Keste. Are there any new heavy hitters in the Neapolitan scene I don't know about?

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Shopsin's General Store
120 Essex St, New York, NY 10002

Del Posto
85 10th Avenue, New York, NY 10011

City Bakery
3 W 18th St, New York, NY 10011

Eataly
200 5th Ave, New York, NY 10010

Birreria
200 5th Ave, New York, NY 10010

I'd say apps no more than $18, entrees no more than $30, cocktails around $12 or so.

My wife and I will be visiting the city in mid-December and I'm looking for your recommendations on which moderately priced restaurants you feel serve the best winter menu. I'm talking braised dishes, game, stews, reductions, dark bold flavors, etc. It seems like there are so many highly recommended mid-range restaurants, I'm having a hard time discerning the good from the mediocre.

I'd prefer nothing above 59th street as I don't think we'll be venturing that far uptown. Oh, and please feel free to recommend any Brooklyn restaurants that are within close proximity to the island. We loved Vinegar Hill House a few years back, and Paulie Gee's is my wife's favorite pizza.

Thank you!

My first choice would actually be Golden West, but it's pretty far out of the way. That is, unless I take 83N up to 695 and go home that way. Hmmm, how's parking in Hampden? :)

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Golden West Cafe
1105 W 36th St, Baltimore, MD

We'd actually planned on spending the early evening at Toronado (the day we had the Anchor tour and went to Monk's Kettle) before our evening tour of Alcatraz, but the place we wanted to go to for a late lunch was temporarily closed so we went to Monk's Kettle in the afternoon and went back to our lunch destination for dinner before heading off to Pier 33.

I'll be staying with a friend in Bolton Hill this upcoming Thursday night and am looking for a place to grab breakfast Friday morning before I head back to Harford County.

I've considered On the Hill Cafe, Attman's, Broadway Diner, and Blue Moon Cafe. I've been to Miss Shirley's and while good, I thought it was a tad overpriced. I love Attman's but have never been there during breakfast and am nervous about the lines at Blue Moon Cafe. Suggestions are welcome and appreciated!

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Miss Shirley's Cafe
513 W Cold Spring Lane, Baltimore, MD 21210

Blue Moon Cafe
1621 Aliceanna St, Baltimore, MD 21231

Broadway Diner
6501 Eastern Ave, Baltimore, MD 21224

I won't go into quite a whole lot of detail here as I'll be posting a very detailed report on my blog http://microcosmk.blogspot.com but I wanted to give a brief overview of my experiences in the SF area.

Our first day we went out to Oakland and checked out both the Trappist and Beer Revolution. I was expecting to like BR better, but was happily surprised with the service and atmosphere of the Trappist. The guy behind the bar really new his stuff, they made great use of the natural light and it wasn't overly crowded or loud. I was tempted to order Dogfish Head 120 Minute, but the high abv deterred me. Instead I went for De Dolle Boskeun at a slightly more managable 10%. I'm definitely enjoying strong golden/blonde ales as of late.

Beer Revolution was extremely loud and quite packed. They were happy to let me sample a variety of beers, but where the Trappist was somewhere I could've spent all afternoon, at BR I just wanted to drink my beer and leave. I had Great Divide Old Ruffian which is a 10.2% barleywine. While not the best barleywine I've had, it was servicable. My experience here came to an abrupt end when I went to use their coed bathroom and walked in on a cracked out chick blowing up the toilet. I knocked twice before I entered, but I guess it was too loud to hear her response... Why would you not lock the door in a public bathroom?

A few days later we did the 10:30 tour of Anchor Brewery. They had a gorgeous taproom with all sorts of interesting memorabelia. This was without a doubt the best smelling brewery I've ever been to. The 100% roasted barley smelled like oatmeal laced with roasted dark fruits. It was heavenly. We sampled their Summer, Steam, Liberty, Breckle's Brown, Porter, and Old Foghorn barleywine. I liked their summer and brown, but disappointed in the barleywine, the only brew I hadn't had previously.

Later that day we went to Monk's Kettle and really enjoyed our time there. The people behind the bar were extremely nice and accommodating, and since I'd read that this place catered to beer snobs I was happily surprised. Just proves that you shouldn't believe everything you read on the internet. We'd already had a pretty long day of drinking and eating so I opted for something lighter. I'd been wanting to try the Green Tea IPA collaboration beer by Stone/Ishii/Barid and it hit the spot. It was light and hoppy and the green tea flavor really shone through. I enjoyed it so much I ordered two.

A few days later after a long morning hiking Muir Woods and Mt. Tam I convinced my wife to dedicate our first day in "wine country" to beer. So we hit up both Lagunitas and Russian River Brewing Co. Lagunitas was... how do I put this... interesting. A moment after we walked through the door they announced they were doing a brewery tour with free beer samples. The guy led us upstairs and started pouring samples. We sampled the Pils, Pale Ale, Lil Sumpin Sumpin, IPA, and Lil Sumpin Wild. I hated the Pale Ale, and absolutely loved Sumpin Wild. After we got our samples my wife and I ditched the tour and headed back down to the bar so I could sample some of the beers I really wanted to try. I was unimpressed with Maximus, Hop Stoopid, and Gnarley Wine, but I enjoyed their Brandy Aged Hairy Eyeball. The beer that really wowed me was their Bourbon Aged Cappuccino Stout. Holy hell now that was a good beer. You could actually taste the bourbon from the barrel aging. Too bad you can only get it there. It was one of my favorite beers of the trip.

Next up Russian River. Oh yes, I'd been looking forward to this. It was loud and the lighting sucked, but I didn't care, this place was all about the beer. I immediately ordered the sampler and eagerly awaited my beer. While there are far too many beers to name them all I will tell you that I felt Pliny the Elder, while quite good, is seriously overrated and that their beers aged in wine barrels are some of the most unique and delicious beers that have ever crossed my lips. My hands down favorite was Consecration, but I also enjoyed Supplication, Damnnation, Temptation, and O.V.L. Stout. I didn't care for Defenstration or their blonde. Three bottles of Consecration came home with us in our checked bag, and I'm praying that the 106* heat during our layover in Houston (damned hurricane!) didn't skunk my precious, precious beer.

Since our flight was delayed a day due to Irene, our extra day in wine country lead us to Sonoma. I did a quick google search on my phone for a decent beer bar and was directed to the Olde Sonoma Public House. This turned out to be my favorite bar of the entire trip. They encouraged sampling, the space was huge and open and brightly lit. They had free wi-fi and encouraged you to bring in your own food. They had a great juke box and you could tell that everyone in the place (besides us) was a local. When I played Juke Box Hero it was met with rampant applause. My first beer was Grand Teton Cask Conditioned Double IPA and while it was great, it was upstaged by my second round which was Urthel Hop It which was a Belgian Style IPA that hit all the right marks.

All-in-all I was extremely impressed with the bar scene and the beer selection in the Bay area. I told my wife I wanted to move somewhere between Santa Rosa and Sonoma so I could have immediate access to both Russian River and OSPH. You locals don't know just how lucky you are.

If you want to check out some (alright, a lot) pictures, here is a set of our entire trip on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/57628994...