My wife and I really like to travel, cook and try new cuisines all over the world, but the food we tasted in Ristorante Ca'd'oro can be simply described as dreadful and hideous; in fact, when we think of the food served, this description sounds like a euphemism.
Canned pet food looks and smells more appealing than those things served in our plates in this so-called Italian restaurant. We were shocked to acknowledge that genuine Italian staff actually works and cooks here as the food in this place looks anything but Italian. We ordered a pizza and a calzone whose dough was burnt beyond recognition! Every honest Italian chef would be ashamed to even think of serving something like this to a customer.
Actually, the chef/waitor or whoever this person is supposed to be, started removing the charred parts with his unclean hands -- he actually took the money from us a few minutes before that and did not even wash his hands while doing this. Moreover, he actually put some HORRIBLE sweet/sour sauce on top of it (which tasted like sweetened, rancid soy sauce!) -- probably to cover up the bitterness of the overburnt parts -- making it even more dreadful than it was in the first place!
The foundation of both pizza and calzone (if you could call this calzone at all!) was hard as concrete, and we literally struggled to cut every piece of it. Around 95% of the "calzone"-like thing was filled with grated potatoes, but we were actually SO lucky to find two pieces of mushroom, one small piece of aubergine and a small part of tomato.
Another issue was the use of the bathroom. There's actually a tunnel/hallway leading to the bottom of this place where the lavatory is, and once it's been reached, a code from the receipt has to be entered to gain the access to it. Despite the MI5 headquarters security measures needed for the lavatory entry, we were shocked to find out that it was not so clean: lavatory paper was missing, and the bin was small enough to fit a few small handkerchiefs.
Yet, another shock was that the while I was in the lavatory, I became seriously concerned about my personal safety since the cleaning lady made so much frightening noise that I thought they were beating someone up in the compartment next to mine, or that the demolition of the building has just started.
All the time during our meal, the staff was speaking and "singing" loudly (in Italian), which was extremely upsetting. I guess they wished to make (a fake) impression that their guests are sitting in the middle of Venice.
In the end, we just wished to escape from this chaotic, shoddy place, which we would have never entered was it not near the main railway station and we were looking for a place to eat while waiting for our train. read more