We began with Mushrooms & Long Hots. Long hots are Italian-style hot green peppers that can vary in heat from a slight nip to explosively hot. It’s fun eating them because it’s like Russian roulette – you never know the punch each pepper is about to deliver until you eat one! The heat doesn’t hit immediately; it takes about 10 seconds to really set in. A couple of these were very, very hot, delicious laid across a slice of Italian bread.
Entrees come with a choice of a side salad, Caesar salad, or soup. The side salad is huge and fresh, notable for the topping of their string bean salad, which is dressed with olive oil, garlic, and the occasional chunk of potato.
We inspected some of the baseball memorabilia around the restaurant a little more closely than usual. Al Rossi, founder of the restaurant, was a pitcher. Of course, there’s plenty of old Yankee photos, including shots of Joe D dining here (well, not this place but the old place in Trenton). What shocked us near the hostess desk was a bill of sale transferring Babe Ruth from the Red Sox to the Yankees. That has to be a reproduction, right? There’s no way something like that, if they really owned it, would be hanging in the restaurant, would it? We have to ask.
A cup of pasta e fagioli, here named pasta ‘tre’ fagioli because they use three kinds of beans and three kinds of pasta. Be sure to top your serving with grated cheese.
Wednesday’s special is prime rib, and Rossi’s makes a good one. The hefty slice of soft beef is sided by good, real mashed potatoes.
Pencil points are the patron pasta of Trenton, here topped with marinara and meatballs.
You’re forgiven for assuming that a plate of cooked broccoli served with your prime rib will be of no interest. But you’d be wrong. The broccoli is cooked through, not crunchy (which is how we like it) but, even better, it’s dressed with olive oil and massive amounts of garlic – that white pile in the center is garlic! We had no trouble whatsoever finishing it.
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