Classic Italian Dishes Still Reign Supreme at Park Side in Corona, Queens

The stroll south down 104th Road from Roosevelt Avenue to the Park Aspect Restaurant — an Italian-American old-timer within the coronary heart of Corona that I longed to revisit — is a stroll backwards in time. It traverses a former Italian neighborhood courting to simply after World Battle II, of which just a few vestiges stay.

One institution you’ll move is Leo’s Latticini, which began out promoting contemporary ricotta and mozzarella when this neighborhood was nonetheless dappled with farms, and ended up as a multi-store advanced housing a pastry store, Italian grocery, and sandwich counter. One other, for those who occur to be coming from the opposite route, is the Lemon Ice King of Corona, one of many metropolis’s most irreplaceable locations for frozen desserts.

Ultimately, you’ll arrive at Park Aspect, a sprawling restaurant with a particular inexperienced awning on the northern fringe of triangular-shaped William F. Moore Park, well-known for its bocce courts. There, a decade in the past, previous Sicilian males competed with a lot youthful Latinos below strings of tiny coloured lights, with spectators drifting over from the restaurant as darkness deepened. Now the gamers have vanished.

Park Aspect is one in every of solely two dozen or so historic Italian-American eating places nonetheless open in Brooklyn and Queens. It’s trendy by the group’s requirements, based round 1980 in its current type by Anthony Federici, who famously stored racing pigeons on the roof, and in addition serves as its chef. Beforehand, it was often called the Corona Supper Membership, a a lot smaller cafe opened in 1960.

The nook entrance opens right into a bar, after which a glitzy eating room, embellished with copies of historic Roman statuary that bely the origin of a lot of the menu in Sicily and southern Italy. A bowl of contemporary peaches invitations patrons to take one or two residence with them — such is the hospitality of Park Aspect, the place a Christmas tree is stored lit 12 months spherical.

My final meal there six years earlier than had been mediocre. It had definitely not been as much as the requirements of Michael’s in Marine Park or Frost in Williamsburg, two different red-sauced Italian-American institutions, each positioned in Brooklyn. However, on this event, the meals was a lot better, I famous whereas sitting within the paved aspect yard with three mates, penned in by palm bushes and flowers. Because the solar set, the tables surrounding us stuffed with prolonged households, who appeared well-acquainted with the menu and workers.

Naturally, we went for probably the most Italian-American dishes, eschewing extra trendy substances like arugula, balsamic vinegar, and pesto. The eggplant rollatini ($9.95) was spectacular, not a lot rolled as layered, with alternating strata of eggplant and mozzarella smothered in a energetic marinara. One other don’t miss appetizer are the baked clams ($11.95), delicate littlenecks slathered with olive oil and heaped with breadcrumbs and garlic. The dish was so good that, as soon as the bivalves had been dispatched, the bread basket got here into play as each drop of the intensely flavored juices had been sopped up.

The bread basket deserves particular point out by itself. Whereas this traditional restaurant freebie has declined over the previous couple of years or been eradicated completely, right here the basket bristles with a number of types of contemporary bread. One is the fabled lard bread, speckled with the minced fatty trimmings of prosciutto, creating little salty taste bombs in each chew. There’s additionally an herb-topped focaccia, sesame-seeded semolina bread, and olive rolls. To our shock, a plate of salami, cheese, and pickled pepper bruschetta additionally got here together with it. Actually, at Park Aspect you wouldn’t want any appetizers in any respect as a result of the bread basket and antipasti plate are so beneficiant.

Nevertheless, we additionally ordered a seafood salad, which was the least interesting of the three apps. Although piled excessive with squid, shrimp, octopus, and oil-cured olives, it additionally included tidbits of pressed seafood paste that diminished the dish. We calculated rightly that the pastas would are available in humongous parts, and thus may get pleasure from a single serving as a second course shared amongst 4. The penne puttanesca ($19.95) was much more aggressive than others you may need tried, with loads of black olives and plenty of anchovies delivering a salty and fishy kick. The tomato sauce that underpinned it was thicker than regular, making it a really wealthy course.

We’d seen secondi, the bigger entrees, crusing by on the prolonged arms of servers and knew that these had been as voluminous because the pastas and much more so. As soon as once more, we went for some classics: a pork chop ($29.95) we knew can be double thick, smothered in pickled cherry peppers and sufficiently big to be sliced like a roast. The portion was so lovely we paused to admire it earlier than digging in. We additionally went for the hen parm ($24.95), a dish the restaurant has develop into recognized with, rather more so than veal parm or veal milanesa. For sure, when it arrived we couldn’t see the hen, solely sauce and cheese. However chopping into it, the crumbly crust crackled, and attractive juices oozed from the plump hen cutlet.

We had been so full at this level (and the bread basket was now empty), that we couldn’t take into consideration the desserts displayed contained in the restaurant, luscious as they appeared. Apart from, we’d supposed to get ices elsewhere within the neighborhood for the meal’s conclusion. Washed down with a blended drink or glass of wine apiece, and together with the tax and tip, our meal got here to round $220, which we reckoned a cut price.

However the meal wasn’t over. As we ready to go away, a complimentary plate of biscotti appeared. We gratefully munched the cookies as we marched throughout the park, sadly noting the dearth of bocce gamers and heading for the Lemon Ice King of Corona’s beckoning signal, the place lemon and watermelon are two extremely really useful flavors.