No Red Tablecloths

M. and L. opened a new restaurant near The Great Plotnik World Headquarters and Meatball Kitchen. It is not an Italian restaurant, per se, but features food from a nearby island named after a small fish. Plotnik had great hopes for this restaurant, as he has dreamed for years of finding a good New York/Buffalo/Boston-style neighborhood Italian restaurant in Saint Plotniko, and M.and L.'s place is right on his corner.

What does he mean? He means red checked tablecloths, great pasta, delicious veal, inexpensive house wine, a strolling accordionist, grumpy, bald, fat Papa at the cash register and dumpy, sweet, white-haired Mama in the kitchen. It means food prepared by people who love to eat for people who love to eat. It means the kind of ambience that makes you want to go back as often as you can. It means home.

Alas, L. is beautiful, not dumpy. Neither one of them is fat. M. is an expert on Italian wine, and their restaurant appears to more about the wine than the food -- not unlike Incanto down the street, only smaller. Portions are small. It's rather expensive. Sigh.

M. and L. might make a go of it. Plotnik hopes they do. But forget the sweetbreads and the Sicilian red at $75 a bottle. Plotnik is still looking for a good neighborhood Italian restaurant with food prepared by people who love to eat for people who love to eat, and he wants it on his corner.