Lost City Asks "Who Goes to Forlini's?"

I've been to Forlini's a few times. I keep hearing how it's a fave with lawyers and judges and the like. But I always seem to go where there are no lawyers or judges around. Of course, I don't know exactly how to spot a judge on sight. (Silver hair and a black robe, right?) But one of these days, I want to catch Morganthau at the joint.

Here's the Eater column:

Who Goes There? Forlini's

The answer to “Who Goes There?” as it pertains to Forlini’s right now is, of course, no one. The conventional scuttlebutt on this family-owned, half-century-old restaurant—a lone life raft of Italian cuisine in the great China Sea below Canal Street—is that is survives on the patronage of the judges, lawyers and various legal professionals who work at the hulking Manhattan Criminal Courts Building just across Baxter Street. And that scuttlebutt is true. But those courtroom jockeys are all on holiday in August.

“This is a big vacation month for us,” said the smiling, moustachioed bartender, whom I had pretty much all to myself. “Very slow.” Why not just close during August? “We close only one day a year, Christmas Day. There’s still enough people to stay open.” Among those few people on a recent night were a family whose son kept fleeing the table to play a video game in the bar area, and a resident loudmouth holding forth on subjects including Russian literature, politics, the Romanian revolution of 1989, actor Peter Ustinov, and a married couple, known to both he and the restaurant’s manager, who had put on a show of bad behavior the previous evening. “That was what you would call a sketch,” said the manager, with exacting syntax.

Lunches are the big thing here, not dinner. I ate at one of the tables opposite the bar. It seemed more convivial. When it’s sparsely populated, the airless main dining room—with its salmon-colored booths, tan walls and bad oil paintings—can feel like an upholstered mausoleum. The narrow bar, where it is also possible to eat, feels more like a tavern you might find in any New York neighborhood.

I’ve eaten at Forlini’s a few times. The food is not special, though I could see getting attached to it if I ate there five lunches a week. I acted on a tip that spaghetti and meatballs, though not on the printed menu, is available and good. True on both counts. Plus, it is one of the cheapest entrees available—$9!—on a menu that can skew pricey. I did not opt for the numerous listed cocktails which the menu “suggested”: Kir Royale, Rusty Nail, Singapore Sling, Pink Squirrel. (Bet they were already suggesting those back in 1956, when Forlini’s opened).

I thought of asking my usual question: do the proprietors of the restaurant own the building they occupy. But they I thought: What’s the difference? When you’re best customers are judges and lawyers, I think you’re chances of losing a fight with a landlord are pretty slim.
—Brooks of Sheffield

Apologies to Forlini's

When, as guest-blogger at Curbed.com last week, I wrote a little quasi-tribute to Forlini's, the Italian restaurant standby in deepest Chinatown, the last thing I intended was for my words to cause the ancient eatery distress.

But, as Fats Waller said, one never knows, does one. Seems my few paragraphs—posted on Curbed's sister site Eater.com—provoked New York Post's Steve Cuozzo to sick himself on poor old Forlini's. Reading the item, along with another Little Italy-related item on eGullet, Cuozzo deduced that the food blogs were suddenly touting the touristy area as reborn. (Such are the ways of logic at the Post.) Not having any of such nonsense, he charged down to Forlini's and found it lacking on the Cuozzo meter.

Steve: I never said it was the living end of Italian cuisine in NYC; just said it was venerable and worth a tip of the hat. And it still is.

That's a Wrap

Unless I get a sudden burst of energy, I believe I have submitted my final Curbed item of the week. The gents over there made it easy and were tolerate if my general technological cluelessness.

For the curious, my last batch of items included ruminations on Carroll Garden's own French Quarter, the old Italian holdout restaurant Forlini's, why Kenmare Street is still named Kenmare Street, Court Street very old wine, and What Columbia Street Once Was.

I also got to indulge in a South Brooklyn mini-news cycle involving a controversial Community Board 6 meeting and a Carroll Gardens Town Hall meet.

My final post was about the mysterious Luso-American Cultural Center on Henry Street. That's all she wrote. See you tomorrow at this address.

A Few Status Reports

In the past, I've withheld my opinion on the old Best Pizza in New York debate that newspaper editors love so much that they turn to it every year. This is mainly because there are huge holes in my knowledge.

Well, I filled in one of those gaping cavities recently, and finally dined at Grimaldi's, the pizza joint on Old Fulton Street that the good folks at Zagat's routinely rank as tops in pies year after year. It's fairly maddened me these many years of living in Brooklyn that I've never been to the place, despite the fact that I can easliy walk there. But the lines are so ghastly on the weekends and evening—the only time I can go.

That line was once again snaking down the sidewalk on a recent Sunday when I dragged wife and kid to see it we breach the entrance. I was actually standing behind a real Italian, who turned to me and asked "Is this normal?" (Don't have to wait for good pizza in Rome—it's everywhere.) We gave up and had a mighty unmemorable meal at the Water Street Restaurant in DUMBO.

But I had the next day, Monday, off, and forged a plan with my wife. We arrived at noon, when Grimaldi's opens, and, sho' nuff, we were quickly escorted to a table. Let the word be spread. Early birders on weekdays will face no crowds! Our pizza arrived in under ten minutes and, yes, it's as good as they say. Crisp thin crust, flavorful sauce, toothsome mozzarella. Though I have to say that Totonno's in Coney Island is still my favorite pie, with extra points for atmosphere.

Later that week, I was wandering aimlessly through Chinatown—a wonderful pastime, and a good reminder that not ALL of Manhattan is gentrified and homogenized. As I swung around Bayard onto Baxter, I made a weird discovery among the many Malaysian and Vietnamese eateries. Chinatown has been slowly encroaching on Little Italy's territory for years, until the goombas are fairly surrounded on their tiny stretches of Mulberry and Kenmare. But here on Baxter was a stubborn holdout I've never heard of: Forlini's. An unfancy place of more than 50 years standing, it has three sections: a bar with booths, a small downstairs dining area and a more plush upstairs level. Apparently the joint, so near to Centre Street, is and always has been popular with judges and district attorneys. And according to every review I've read, the food is not just the usual red-sauce mediocre stuff, but top notch Italian.

You always here about New York's so-called "best kept secrets"—unknown treasures that are actually pretty well known by the time the press writes about them. Well this has got to be one of the real secrets. 18 years in New York and no one's ever said boo about it to me. Never read about in in the Times or Post or any "best of" lists. Zagat's doesn't mention it, even in it's list of old New York restaurants, where it certainly should rank.

Also, just a few doors south, is Paulie's Place, a tiny sandwich shop storefront, with a simple, ancient neon sign, an old green paint job and the look of something Berenice Abbott shot for the WPA back in the 30s. It was closed when I saw it, but a peer inside revealed a counter, a couple tables and a simple menu or heros. Obviously a local haunt. It had the look of a number of NYC places that are legendary for their longevity, modesty, old world ways and "echt" quotient. Yet, who's ever heard of Paulie's Place?

Maybe Baxter Street is where great restaurants go to be left alone.