Avoiding the East Side (above 42 street)
At the advice of some old timers I know, I wandered into Il Postino last weekend for dinner. They had warned me that it would not be anything like the glam places that I often frequent, and told me to just go and enjoy it. That is easy to say, but for many a grumpy New Yorker, especially on the eastside, it is hard to do. Many a time I have been out on the eastside and listened to other diners bitch and moan about every little detail, nagging the servers to unbearable degrees. For that reason, I often avoid the east side between 50th and 90th.
“I don’t know,” I said. “It’s the eastside.I get indigestion listening to the nagging complainers over there.”
“It’s different at Il Postino,” one of my friends replied.
“How?” I asked. I have been hoodwinked before. Once, I had to great displeasure of listening to a man and his wife figure out a way to negotiate a “discount” with the poor unsuspecting server. He had no idea that they had arrived at his table already looking for a way to not have to pay for 50% of their meal.
“I don’t know,” I said. “It’s no fun to listen to nagging. I hate that.”
“You’re all wrong about it. Ask for Vincenzo,” one of them said. “You have to have Vincenzo. It’s not the same without him.”
Reasons to go to the East Side
We decided to go and check it out. Its far-eastside address puts it out of glam-radar range, proven by the fact that there were no Babettes in the dining room (although there were a few older versions with recent “face enhancements” and strangely orange-purple tans). Instead, there was a crowd obviously not concerned about the menu prices (which is great, since there are no menus).
We had arrived on time, which was at seven, or two hours earlier than our normal eating time. The dining room was already packed, and at least three waiters in white coats shot past me at the speed of light.
“Senora,” someone said, “permit me to take you coat.”
I much prefer to be called “senorina”, but time is marching on and I have to live with that fact. There were no senorinas in the dining room, but plenty of senoras, the kind who have enough money not to broadcast it by wearing obviously labeled brands. They just ooze it.
“Okay,” I said, and with a whoosh my coat and shopping bags were whisked away to a place I could only guess at.
“This way,” a waiter said.He installed us at our table and lit the single taper, then disappeared down a tiny hallway barely wide enough for a full-sized pair of American hips.
Behind us, a table full of Italian Americans were swapping stories about their respective vacations to Naples and Rome. They spoke Itanglish – that mixture of Italian and English indigenous to New York. Periodic bursts of laughter punctuated their conversation. And then Vincenzo arrived at their table to recite the menu. Like an opera singer warming up, he started with the appetizers – all ten of them.
Meanwhile at our table, more waiters arrived bringing with them a basket of bread, dishes of olive oil, some very tasty marinated zucchini and an endive salad. The bread was extremely tasty, lightly
flavored with rosemary and other Mediterranean spices. A wine list appeared.An empty plate disappeared. A woman who was slightly abuzz with wine accidentally elbowed my husband in this head. A passing waiter apologized.
And then Vincenzo came around to our table, and began to recite the menu. We had already eavesdropped on the appetizers, but there was something very special about the way that he recited each item. When he did not want to commit to a dish, he would raise his eyebrows slightly, as if to say, “eh”, but when he was truly impressed with something he would close his eyes and his moth would melt into what can only be described as pure joy.
“Tonight,” he said, “we have a beautiful octopus carpaccio.” He closed his eyes as if he were remembering a truly transcendent experience. “Delicioso.”
It is truly inspiring to have someone tell you about a dish as if it were a religious experience . It is even better when that dish is something that you really want to try. So I ordered it. It was delicioso. It was also extremely well plated.And expensive.
While I have had better Italian food around town, I have never had a Vincenzo experience. Here is a man who loves (or not) each dish individually, as if they were women he had known long ago, when he was a young man with black rather than white hair. Nothing is more sensual than that.
The next day, my friends asked me what I thought of the experience.
“Did you pass out when you got the bill?” one of them asked.“Or did you cheat and look at one of the menus.”
“Menus?” I asked.“I didn’t see any menus.”
“Ah, then the place was filled with regulars. But what did you think of Vincenzo?Did he sing for you?”
Damn! He did not! He did sing for other people, but not for me.
Feeling Slighted
I really do not feel slighted. I just feel like I should have had at least one aria. After all, I did order the ravioli with truffles, and the octopus carpaccio, and a big fat bottle of Barolo. What more does it take to get an aria?
Thanks to my friends for suggesting that I check out this place. It is as close to being in a Scorsese film as I will ever get.
