[sarcasm]

Manducatis, a red sauce restaurant on Jackson Avenue in Long Island City, Queens, is a relatively youthful 27 years old, but it has the feeling of a village trattoria. The large, tile-floored front room is empty of everything but a bar, a couple of tables covered with newspapers in Italian and English, and a television tuned to an Italian news station; the three back rooms have low ceilings with exposed beams.

Definitely worth the trip.

[Molly Pitcher]

Fascinating social and culinary history!

[southernnorthcarolina]

Everything comes back, if you wait long enough, in architecture, hemline length, music, and certainly food. I suppose some arbiter of taste decreed in the '60s or '70s that Southern Italian food was "out," and that Northern Italian food (Italian trying to be French) was "in."

Southern Italian seems to be making something of a comeback. As far as I know, I haven't a drop of Italian blood (Southern or Northern) in me, being of Limey/Kraut extraction, but I've never lost my taste for good old Southern Italian food. Tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, red wine -- some foods being "rediscovered" for their nutritional benefits as well as their taste. Change the pasta to whole wheat, and finish with fresh fruit rather than cannoli, and you could build a pretty healthy dietary regimen around the foods served in "red sauce restaurants" -- in fact, not surprisingly, it would fit right in with the so-called "Mediterranean Diet." Ah, but to hell with the nutritional aspects. Pass the wine, will ya?

[carlo3b]

In Brooklyn, I would encourage you to try Areo and Da Tomasso. In Queens, Piccolo Venezia. Wonderful old time rich, red, full bodied sauce...yummmmm