| I ate at Mama Leone's a couple of times before it closed, in the theater district of New York. It was like an old fashioned Neapolitan trattoria, with white "christmas" lights, old male waiters who barely spoke English, the obligatory candle in the chianti bottle in the middle of the table, and so on. 20 years ago, two people could get a five course meal, with antipasto, a small pasta dish, a larger entree, some salad, and dessert, with a bottle of chianti, for about $70, and the food was all excellent, if a little heavy by the time you finished. Meanwhile, a violinist would cruise the room, and you could easily imagine that you were in southern Italia, where one of my grandfathers came from....... |
