Take A Review
I have never done a restaurant review outside of a couple YELP comments, but fuck it, I am doing one today.
I will probably post this on YELP eventually in one form or another, similar to the way I cut-and-pasted a review I wrote for Barstool on the iFly- Indoor Skydiving experience I had a month ago.
I am publishing this blog later than normal thinking people can either read it on the way home or later on tonight when they are taking a shit.
I went to Rao’s last night with my bride and one other couple we are close with. I posted a couple of shots on social media and received a number of messages afterward asking for my opinion on the place, so here it is.
First off, I have no “hook” at the restaurant. If I did, I wouldn’t be there after 9 on a Monday. I have been there 3 times and each time it was by invite from someone who either had a standing rez or somebody that “knew a guy.” I don’t “know a guy” and (in more ways than one) I am not a guy myself… I am simply America’s Guest, and I rarely turn down invitations to iconic meals.
Secondly, this was the first meal I had at Rao’s where I was the only person at the table who had been there prior. As a result, I got to drive the bus on the ordering which is something I enjoy doing.
We had a 9 PM reservation on a Monday night, so although the place was packed when we got there, the 4 of us had no issue getting a spot at the bar. When we left around midnight, we were the last people to leave. We essentially shut the place down which is always a good feeling for a fat alcoholic.
I drove in from northern NJ and got there in about a half hour even though I inexplicably got off the GWB on the West Side and then had to cut across Harlem. People will tell you that Harlem has gotten much better in the past decade or so, and that is certainly true, for the most part. But at no point in our casual drive past the Apollo Theatre and its neighboring Red Lobster did I feel comfortable pulling over and asking for directions.
“Roll ‘em up.”
We parked on the street less than a block away, and as is normally the case, the street outside was filled with waiting car services and a handful of cop cars. There is an urban legend about Rao’s commanding such respect in a piece of shit part of NYC that people can basically leave their cars running outside while they go in and eat. That is bullshit of course, but I will say there is a “halo of safety” surrounding the corner the restaurant is on, and it made the trip into Spanish Harlem much more comfortable for a coward like me. Plus, I think it was refreshing for my wife to walk through a ghetto with me by her side without the fear that at any moment “shit could pop off” (urban term) and I would be forced once again to use her as a human shield.
If you don’t give a fuck about food and drink, then just turn away from the blog now because I am about to get granular, and I know this type of content isn’t for everyone. Here’s a little eye candy for your trouble…
Now I invite you to go back to the homepage to catch up in the Wild Card, and stuff. Thank you for your patience thus far.
For the fat fucks who want to stay with me… Back to the meal.
Booze-wise… I had a couple martinis at the bar. I went with vodka again, not gin because I wasn’t sure if I was going to stop at 2. There’s a legendary bartender at Rao’s named “Nicky the Vest” who wasn’t there last night. Nicky is a much older gentleman, and since I hadn’t been to the restaurant in so many years, I wasn’t sure how to ask whether or not “The Vest” was still alive. After a couple martinis, I crafted a perfectly sensible way to approach the subject and I yelled over to the bartender, “Is Nicky dead?”
Nicky’s fill-in answered, “Almost… But he just works Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays now.”
I then said, “Well, tell that old fuck that, ‘Large’ said hello.”, but I don’t think the guy was listening anymore.
We had a couple of bottles of Sangiovese brought over once we got to the table. I didn’t see a wine list. I am not sure they even have one, to be honest. I think you just order the grape and they bring you what they have. The only downside to that practice would be if they fucked you on the pricing, but they don’t. That is one of my favorite things about Rao’s, like it or hate it, the people there are not looking to screw you. They are looking to feed you.
I will get to the fact that there are much better Italian joints in the area, but a lot of those joints will push the seafood tower for $300. Or they’ll “make nice for the table”, and then “Brett Kavanaugh” your wallet with a truffle dish that is forgettable. Or you’ll get a dessert tray sent over that is a fucking waste after a big guinea meal. They don’t do that at Rao’s, or at least they don’t do that to me. Maybe there is some low hanging fruit that comes in with wide eyes, clear hearts, and full wallets (cash only) who are almost willing to pay up to have someone else guide their meal, but the gent who came by our table to talk food left the ordering to me.
By the way, that gentleman’s name is Joe, and he is from Bayside. I know Joe has been there for a very long time, but he still seems like he enjoys talking food with the patrons, and I feel he does a much better job out front than the late Frankie Pellegrino… RIP, Frankie (pours out some red wine onto the ground).
Onto the food… We started out with the baked clams, meatballs, fried calamari, and the cold seafood salad.
I thought the clams were good, but nothing spectacular… So they get no more than these 2 sentences.
I do not like Rao’s meatballs. I told Joe this, and he asked, “Why?”
I said they are too soft, and I like my meatballs small, fried, and not covered in sauce. I went on to tell him about a hero I get at Lioni’s in Brooklyn made up of fried meatballs on Italian bread with nothing else on it but shredded iceberg lettuce, s&p, olive oil, and red wine vinegar. All of the heroes at Lioni’s are numbered (there are over 150 of them) and named after famous Italians. This meatball one is the #79, Francis Ford Coppola.
Here’s a link to the full list of Lioni’s heroes, if you’re bored (the #96, Charloots DiSalvo sounds disgraceful, but is also very very good)…
Back to Rao’s… Joe had then offered to give us a full order of meatballs PLUS one more on the side that was fried and served without sauce. I agreed, and the one he put to the side for me was cold in the middle and too grainy. Not sure if he was purposefully trying to send me a message that I should shut the fuck up about their meatballs, but either way, I was disappointed in Rao’s balls once again.
The fried calamari appetizer was more of a fritto misto platter because there were a couple fried shrimps in there and also a couple of nuggets of fried cod, and it was as good a plate of fried fish as I have ever had… Honestly. There were even some thinly cut fried zucchini strings thrown over the top, what a delicious garnish. There was one ramekin of marinara on the side, and another that contained a house made remoulade (which is like a thin tartar). The remoulade seemed out of place at first next to an Italian calamari dish but wound up making perfect sense with all the other seafood, and I licked that ramekin clean like a fucking animal. I had zero problems with this dish.
The cold seafood salad was also very good. It was served traditionally with shrimp, calamari, celery, parsley, and scungilli in a citrus vinaigrette of sorts, but they also threw in couple shelled lobster claws and a handful of lump crabmeat. I had zero problems with this dish also, and the other 3 people at my table agreed.
For the pasta, we chose two dishes. It seems like that is how they like to do it at Rao’s unless you have an overwhelming affinity for one pasta in particular. I don’t, so I had no problem trying a couple out.
The first was the sausage and cabbage, which they traditionally serve over fusilli, but I asked for it to be served over rigatoni just to remind the waiter who’s boss after that cold meatball fiasco.
Again… A very good dish. Most people balk at cabbage over pasta, or make a joke, “Leave it to the fat Mick to order cabbage at Rao’s.”, but most people are stupid. There is a place in New Hyde Park called Fianona’s that serves rigatoni with cabbage, and it is one of the most simple yet delicious peasant-style pasta dishes you can order. I am not even sure if Fianona’s is still open because the legend I used to go there with died way too young (RIP Enzo), but the place made a pasta dish that is in my top 3 of all time.
Unlike Fianona’s, Rao’s does their cabbage pasta in a light red sauce with big chunks of Italian sausage that looked like they were cut up whilst still in their casing, so the sausage meat is bursting out from either end like a gay porno.
The other pasta dish was pesto over gemelli, and I wasn’t a fan at all. I loaded it up with crushed red pepper and grated cheese, but the dish still fell flat. We left most of it in the serving bowl and declined when they offered to wrap it up to-go.
The main courses were coming out and everyone was pretty stuffed except me, but to make it a little less daunting, I asked the waiter to not bother bringing out any sides of vegetables. Just bring on the fucking meats.
The waiter said, “Sir, what do you mean by ‘no vegetables’?”
I assume he was confused for a sec, or maybe thought there was an allergy concern, so I told him simply, “Please don’t put anything on this table that a rabbit might have fucked on.”
And we all laughed.
Real quick: We did the pork chops with vinegar peppers and the lemon chicken. Both were good, but I can’t say that they were much better than what I make at home or have at other restaurants, so I can’t gush over either dish as I did about some of the apps and one of the plates of pasta. And even though I asked him not to, they brought out some peas with prosciutto that were soft and forgettable.
I skipped on dessert, but the fat bastard who was with me ordered a cheesecake that came out of a box. I wanted something sweet, so I had a double Bailey’s on the rocks, even though I was clearly in a Wop joint.
So, that’s it.
That was my Rao’s meal soup to nuts although there was no soup nor a single nut (except for the pignoli nuts in the pesto).
On a scale of 1 to 10, I would probably go high 6’s to low 7’s if we were in a vacuum, but even if I didn’t convey this properly in the bulk of the blog, there is an atmosphere in Rao’s that makes up for what some of the food lacks. I don’t want to get too hipster-ish, but I think the authenticity of the joint gets diluted when there are jars of Rao’s sauce in every supermarket in the US. And I would never recommend going to their other locations (Vegas and LA) because they’re just not the same. But that little corner in Spanish Harlem has a unique allure, and eating there makes you really feel like a part of New York City that is disappearing and or changing for the worse.
Because of that, I give the whole meal experience an 8.1, and would highly recommend for everyone to go once… And that is coming from a fat/angry food snob that loves to shit on NYC.
I almost didn’t want to like it as much as I did this time because I know there are better Italian joints strictly for food littered throughout the boroughs, but I had a really good overall experience, and so did the 3 Rao’s virgins I was with.
Good luck getting a table, order the calamari, and stay away from the cold meatballs.
Take a review.
-Large