One of the many things I love about Larchmont is the plethora of restaurants within walking distance of my house. Now this isn’t a love affair spawned out of convenience alone. I’m talking about a handful of real quality restaurants all within less than a 2 mile radius. In fact, there are probably very few suburban locations where you can live in such proximity to eateries of this caliber. Ironically, even though I’ve been at my current address for over two years (and in Larchmont for over 10 years), I had yet to try the closest restaurant to my house, Risorante La Sala. So on a recent Saturday, my wife and I decided to make reservations to sample their pre fixed menu (served before 6:00 PM).
It happened to be a gorgeous day and the walk to La Sala (albeit short) was lovely. When we arrived, we were surprised to see a large group vacating the private party room. Who knew? I jog by La Sala several times a week and I didn’t have the slightest inclination that they even had a private room. The main dining room however was empty and my wife and I were the first table seated.
For a pre fixed menu, there certainly wasn’t a shortage of choices – half a dozen appetizers and ten entrée selections. For my first course, I had the fried calamari. There’s no doubt that the calamari were a bit tough, but the breading was extremely flavorful. In fact, the tasty coating almost made up for the chewiness of the mollusk. My wife started with the baked clams, which were on par with the clams we had at La Villetta. That is to say that they probably came from the same vendor of prepared frozen food.
For the main course I went with the veal Nordano – scaloppini of veal sautéed with mushrooms and sage in a cognac sauce. There were no complaints with this dish. The veal was tender and the mushrooms and cognac combined to form a pretty flavorful sauce. My wife had the sole francese. Now let’s face it, francese is a pretty simple dish, but regardless there were no complaints with this dish either – the lemon from the sauce complimenting the tender fish.
For dessert, I had the “ricotta” cheese cake. At least that’s what the waiter said it was. This had to be the densest ricotta cheese cake that I’ve eaten. It was more similar to Authentic New York cheesecake than to any ricotta cheese cake that I’ve seen. This was fine with me because I prefer this to the texture of real ricotta cheesecake.
I guess one could describe La Sala is “red sauce” Italian, although to me that seems to have a negative connotation. Maybe “Old School” is a better way to describe the food. There was certainly nothing bad about it (except for the maybe the clams). In fact, for the price, this was a good meal. I don’t think I’ll be going back there any time soon , but that’s not to say I wouldn’t.
What really stood out about La Sala wasn’t the food, it was the ambiance. Believe me, I’m lucid to the fact that we were there for the early bird special, but I didn’t expect that we would be the youngest people in the restaurant by a good 25 years. I felt like I was living in Del Boca Vista (minus the Floridian décor). Actually the table right next to ours reminded me more of the Golden Girls, with their white wine glasses filled to the rim. The oddest part of the experience had to be the live entertainment – the nice old gentlemen who sang “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina” in Italian. His singing wasn’t bad, but his suit must have fit him fifty pounds ago. His jacket was gigantic! The whole experience was rather comically.
