La Tavernetta

Spurred on by some positive posts (either here or on CH, I forget which) we dropped in last night for dinner.

The biggest surprise was that none of the posts - as I recalled them- made any reference to what seemed the very retro quality to the preparations.

Owner and staff appear to be Italians. Our host (owner?) had a strong accent, as did the young man who bussed our table. Our waitress did not appear to have a discernible accent, but was named Antonella.

It's a small space below sidewalk level on Broadway (3023 N. I think it was). The very picture of a neighborhood Italalian spot where one wants to become a regular. Cozy but not claustraphobic, flatteringly shadowy, but not merely dark. BYOB - no charge.

We arrived at about 6:45 and there were only a few other people there. By the time we left there was a 15 minute wait.

If the family has any regional loyalty, it is not apparent on the menu which you could recite 90% of without ever seeing it. Bruschetta, calamari fritti, polenta topped w/ sausage and tom. sauce. Gnocchi, ravioli, manicotti. Fett. Alfredo, petto di pollo vesuvio, braciole. The specials included gnocchi w/ tom/basil sauce, rotolo w/ ricotta, and tilapia w/ lemon and capers. (The one hint of regionality was the menu description of the agnelotti as being prepared in the piemontese style in a light sauce of white wine and beef stock.)

I was hungry and happy to be there. The more so as we were greeted with genuine friendliness.

They brought warm bread immediately (butter, oil and grated cheese were on the table). I have to say that the bread looked like a formerly nice loaf (D'Amato-esque, if not the thing itself), but had somehow become rather tough (as opposed to crusty/chewy). Perhaps a bit old, and then microwaved? I don't know, but not fun to eat.

My app. was the polenta w/ tom. and sausage sauce. I liked it a lot but it showed exactly where we were, stylistically. Two large square slabs of polenta drenched in a thick, long-cooked sauce.

My wife ordered the rotolo in a salmon-colored creamy tomato sauce. Again - two large oval slabs in a sea of sauce. She said it was good, but that she preferred the same dish at Ana Maria's Pasteria up the street. It was a bit heavier and blander here.

I had really wanted a main dish to drink red wine with, but was torn between trying the Vesuvio, which I haven't had in years anywhere, and the braciole. I asked the waitress which she would choose (something I almost never do) and I was pleasantly surprised when, without hedging for a moment, she came down on the side of braciole. So, braciole it was.

This is a dish, which though I know it to be genuinely Italian, I associate with old fashioned Ital.-Am. restaurants, and dinners at Ital.-Am. friends' houses in my youth - in NY or NJ. (Always cooked by the grandma or an aunt, never my the mom.)

The menu described flank steak rolled around cheese and herbs, and what I expected from experience was indeed a discernible rolled up thin slice of meat around an also descrnible filling. What arrived was rather different.

At first glance it was a very large plate with an ocean of dark red tomato sauce covering some small sunken islands. This was a portion of nearly Rosebudian proportions. The islands turned out to be beef, but they were so thoroughly cooked that they were no longer rolls with filling, but solid golf ball-sized masses of pot roast. Not un-tasty, but certainly unexpected.

After a few bites something light-colored emerged from the pomodorian deeps. This was revealed to be orrechietti, I pile of which were submerged in the center of the dish, sorrounded by the braciole balls.

The dinners came with a side salad and I have to say that the sad, limp. sweetly-dressed pile we received would not have been out of place at a wedding for 500 at the Rotary Club. There were some exhausted lettuce leaves, collapsed under the very light weght of a couple of carrot shavings and a single, mealy tomato wedge. (In the height of summer, yet!)

We were too full for coffee and dessert.

This sounds very negative, taken all together when the overall experience was merely surprising and a bit disappointing in being so completely like a meal from any "Italian" place between 1969 and 1975. I would have thought that in 2004, in this neighborhood, with genuine Italians running the show, we would have seen something quite different.

What they do beautifully, however, is hospitality. The host seemed to know everyone in the place but us. All were greeted at the door with a smile and a hand or arm clasp and an inquiry as to their general well being and what had they been doing since they were last in. Every party seemed to feel recognized and valued. As we left, a couple was being informed that there was a wait. The man said they'd go and get a drink at the sports bar just beyond and the owner said, he'd just pop out and come get him when his table opened up. This is what you want a neighborhood joint to act like. If I lived within a 10 min. walk, I'd probably be there all the time.

Just reviving this topic...very curious......anyone been lately? Thoughts?

I was there this past winter. I just thought I'd post to say that it's no longer BYOB. When I was there, they had a very small selection of wines.

Yea, last time I was there they had a few wine options. Nothing great. I found the food to be just average. What I did like about the place was that I felt like I was dining somewhere in Greenwich Village.