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Oh, how the mighty have fallen - even though it has taken a long time (about 25 years, actually). Once, one of our favorite restaurants, with fine service, cooking Roman/Italian food just about right, then falling out of favor for reasons maybe not totally related to food. So, before a show at The Bitter End (!!), we decided to pop in for a few bites, as it's just around the corner. The apps we started with were pretty good; baccala croquettes and marinated artichokes. No complaints there. I ordered a special pasta (linguini with Jonah Crab) and here's where things started to go awry: Now, I have no problem paying $38 for this pasta (I think they may feel a little guilty about charging so much, but then they've basically doubled the portion size), but enough with the bread crumbs! And so much Jonah crab - which was basically tasteless. Kind of a hot mess, as was Significant Eater's ricotta gnocchi, which lacked both sausage and fennel in the sauce, at least to our taste. We didn't order secondi, as how can one eat another full plate of food after so much pasta? So maybe the play here is to order apps and secondi? Oh, lest I forget - don't order the broccoli rabe...this is how it is served: And this is how it ended up: Impossible to eat, as it wasn't cut into any sort of pieces, which if you are going to not cook broccoli rabe as they do in Rome, is a necessity. I could not cut this broccoli rabe into pieces with the knife I had on the table. Oy. Note how I cook and serve it at home, if I want it to remain bright green: Either that, or cook the hell out of it!

On Utopia Parkway, in Whitestone, Queens. Survivor of pandemic. Still quite good. And across the street from one of the better bagels in NYC - at Utopia Bagels. I never had heard of this little neighborhood called Malba, which sits basically adjacent/under the Whitestone Bridge. It's kinda insane. With houses that look like this... Yes, that's a running fountain in the "courtyard." And there are like 6 garages.