Tuesday, May 25. Awfully Glad To Be Unhappy. If I were a tunnel guard or a cement mixer or a bathroom attendant, today would have seemed like an exciting day. But everything's relative, and relative to my normal days this was my idea of an exasperating one. Most of it had to do with yet another unannounced crippling of hundreds of websites--including mine--by Network Solutions. At the radio station, I found that I had to do eighteen live commercials during my three hours. That may not seem like much to complain about. But every commercial I ad lib means one fewer recorded one. Most talk show hosts use commercial breaks to catch their breath and organize their thoughts, a luxury I don't have.
No, not a horrible hardship. But. . . it was the kind of day which, two years ago, would have had me running out of the radio studio at the end of the show for an emergency martini. The thought crossed my mind, but I'm happy to say that I am largely out of the cocktail habit. It started with Katrina, and continued for four years. I now have one or two a week, if that. I don't know how close I got to a drinking problem, and I don't want to know.
I had a couple more commercials to record after the show. By the time I was finished those, it was too late to do anything serious for dinner. I wandered uptown and wound up on Maple Street again, in the dining room of Antonio's. Empty. Antonio said to come in anyway. A few minutes later, a couple of young women entered and brightened the room a bit.
The menu is full of steaks, lamb chops, pork chops, and big seafood dishes that sounded good but were well beyond appreciation by my appetite tonight. I settled on a dinner of a salad and a light pasta dish. The former was extraordinarily good, a collection of greens and vegetables--avocado and artichoke hearts among them--all chopped up into dice. I love salads like this, and this one was everything I hoped for.
Antonio helped me choose between pasta entrees of two different colors, recommending the pasta rusticana, with its richer, creamier sauce. It contained grilled chicken cut into strips, large stems of broccoli, and a lot (maybe a little too much) shredded parmesan, all over penne pasta. Never found anything to make me stop eating this until I hit bottom.
I couldn't quite handle a whole piece of tiramisu, but I got through enough of it to know that it's in the top rank. This had been a very good meal for a light one.
Why Antonio's doesn't attract more business I don't know. There's a chance that it's the building, although there's nothing obviously wrong with it. The dining room is spacious, nicely decorated, and pleasantly lit. It's in a converted house with some steps and a small porch, which may communicate a lack of seriousness in the kitchen--but that is certainly not the case. But it's something, because quite a few good restaurants have failed to make it here. I hope this one does.
Antonio's. Riverbend: 7708 Maple St. 504-218-5457.
