Thursday, June 2, 2011.
Italian Lunch At DiMartino's.
When the Marys declare that they will no longer go out to dinner with me, because their weight-loss programs rank higher than my petty happiness, I needn't worry. I just have to wait them out. And an invitation will come from them to me.
One such came today for lunch. After the usual indeterminacy, we agreed that DiMartino's would be good. The restaurant in Covington is too new for me to try for another few months, but the Marys' preferences top my own. They picked up an order from there a week ago and thought it looked intriguing.
A man whose enthusiasm gave him away as the owner or manager made a run for the door when he saw me making my way up the slightly inclined parking lot (something you wouldn't notice unless you were pushing yourself with one leg on an unsteerable four-wheeled cart). Once I was inside, however, he just left me there. I remained in place while Mary Ann moved her car (she will not leave it in a handicap parking space, lest she discomfit someone who's really incapacitated).
The manager didn't know that, though, and he realized that I didn't know that one orders at the counter in his restaurant before sitting down. When I pointed to the advent of the girls, he became helpful again and asked me if I needed help getting into a nearby booth.
I sat down. But I had to get back up and go through the line anyway. They don't have any kind of printed menu here. The manager said that the menu was on line, and if I wanted he would get his laptop out of the office for me to look over.
The Marys converged on the scene. MA told the man not to bother with that, and told me to roll myself into the line and look over the menu over there. I thought about complaining that my knee--the one on the leg with the broken ankle, which rests on an underpadded seat on the cart--was giving me more discomfort than ever today. But I bucked up my courage.
DiMartino's ordering station is like the Burger King's, and the menu board has about as many items. But it's much more complicated. DiMartino's made its name over the thirty or so years it's been in business with muffulettas and other sandwiches. But this is a full-fledged casual Italian restaurant, with about as much variety as a pizza-and-pasta house. And it's a handsome building inside and out. If it were to close, a gourmet French bistro could move in here without making any interior changes except for adding tablecloths.
But all the food we ordered was delivered by waitresses who seemed fully competent and hospitable. So why the order-at-the-counter rigamarole? It doesn't fit the restaurant at all. Especially not since we spent $75 for the three of us inclusive. It rushes the ordering decisions--an unpleasant thing, especially when others are in line behind you. This is what you see in the Bonanza Steak House in a little rural town in the middle of nowhere, but that's not what Covington is anymore.
An upshot of the rushed menu selection was that Mary Ann double-ordered the salad she wanted for an entree. It was not clear at the counter--even after asking--whether Mary Leigh and I would get salads with our entrees. We did, and that put way too much salad on the table. Good, though--tossed Italian-style jobs.
Also on the table was a pile of very good onion rings, dusted with Creole seasoning and served with Secret Sauce (mayonnaise, mustard, and ketchup all mixed together, like all other Secret Sauces everywhere).
ML had chicken Parmigiana with spaghetti and red sauce. The chicken breast was enormous and nicely prepared. The red sauce was uninteresting (we both thought so), and most of the pasta wound up in Mary Ann's growing portfolio of leftovers.
My dish--at $18.50 the most expensive thing I saw--was baby white veal with pasta Alfredo. This was a daily special, and a step up from the standard veal Parmigiana on the menu board. They said it was better quality veal. It was indeed very white, tender, good. I could only finish a little more than half the portion, so large was it. The sauce on the pasta was innocuous, and if I were guessing I'd say it came from a commissary--although I don't know, and neither did the clerk at the counter. (A waitress could have whispered the facts in my ear, but in chain restaurants the servers are rarely on your side.)
I asked about dessert. The waitress told me about tiramisu, and I went for it. But since we'd already paid, I had to pull out the credit card again and run another of what finally proved to be three separate charges. Whatever efficiency was gained by having customers make their not-so-final decisions up from was lost here.
The tiramisu was good, and had the advantage of forcing me to stop halfway through. The interior was frozen. A blessing in disguise.
Well fed, I did the radio show, then continued in high gear until around ten p.m., finishing the newsletter for tomorrow completely and even setting it up to be e-mailed at eleven tomorrow. I must get to bed. Tomorrow at six a.m., I am to report to Ochsner to get unscrewed in a brief surgery.
DiMartino's. Covington: 700 S Tyler St. 985-276-6460.
It has been over three years since a day was missed in the Dining Diary. To browse through all of the entries since 2008, go here.
