A beautifully plated crab cake, stuffed with jumbo lump meat and delicately seasoned was served with an herbed creamy house tartar sauce and offset by a bed crisp greens garnished with a grilled corn relish. Forum Newsgroup photo by Patricia Adams.
It’s just about a year since Bruno-Risotrante made its debut on the busy Cross Bay Boulevard in Howard Beach. But the eatery’s owner, Bruno Rinaldi, is no stranger to the area, having been the co-owner of successful family restaurant Carosello, only blocks away, for many years.
Guests entering Bruno’s will at once admire the welcoming atmo- sphere with its stylish furnishings and intimate table settings. Our host stepped up to greet us immediately, showing us to a comfortable and quiet corner of the room.
Our evening started by ordering two goblets of homemade red Sangria which arrived overflowing with chunks of fresh fruit, and accompanied by delicious hot brick oven bread and olive oil for dipping.
We chose two appetizers to start, the first a regional favorite, Stuffed Zucchini Flowers—a dish very rarely found and almost never, cooked as this was, to perfection. The flowers from the zucchini plant are a tradition cherished by all Italians who know them, and appear only for a short time at the beginning of every summer. Here we were both shocked and delighted to see them on the menu, their gentle, fragrant petals stuffed with freshly made ricotta and mozzarella cheeses. Four of them were served with a rich and mild tomato sauce that was seasoned only enough to allow their flavor to shine through. After a short spat over who would finish the last one we moved on to a beautifully plated, delicious crab cake delicately fried and served with house tartar sauce, a bed of fresh greens and arugula and topped with a sweet and savory grilled corn relish.
It was about this time through the meal that the painful realiza- tion came—we were getting so full we knew we were afraid we weren’t going to be able to order too much in the entrée category. Scanning the menu, we were offered many tradi- tional choices in veal, beef, poultry, pasta and seafood but one clearly stood out– the two pound lobster with shrimp and clams served in red sauce over a bed of pasta. We looked at each other and then at our waiter –he smiled and said “we’ve made this dish easy for our customers by removing the entire lobster from the shell. Now there’s no dirty work involved, just enjoying the lobster.”
About 15 minutes later, we noticed people at the other end of the dining room craning their necks to see what the passing server had mounted on his shoulder. It was our dinner.
A massive, fire-red shell hous- ing huge chunks of lobster meat was set down on the table. Jumbo shrimp and clams dotted a mound of steaming pasta. Despite thinking we were full, there was no way this dish was going to remain uneaten. For seafood lovers, this is a must and for people who don’t love seafood, if you ordered this dish, you would. With one twist of the fork, sweet succulent lobster meat was attached to the end of a hefty pull of al dente linguine and dragged through tomato sauce. The shrimp and clams were equally well prepared. If we had to de- fine this dish with one word we couldn’t. It requires two…absolutely delicious. Do yourself a favor and look for it on the menu—it’s the Lobster Special and for $50 is as much a great value as it is a great taste.
The rest of the menu offers traditional choices, as mentioned, but always includes a variety of evening specials. Although we were too stuffed to try any other dishes, we watched a variety of beautifully plated orders come from the kitchen and monitored the other diners who were all having similar reactions to us—a lot of eating and not so much talking—always a good sign in the restaurant business.
