Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 13, 1991 TAG: 9103120238
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Dolores Kostelni
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Straightforward is the word that describes both both sophisticated and homespun Italian foods. Much of it is "alla minute," which means a quick saute in a bit of hot olive oil, a deglazing and a brief braising to finish the cooking and blend the flavors. It is cooking in harmony with nature.
Sal's & Duca's, an Italian restaurant at Towne Square Shopping Center, has appealing murals on the wall and a staff of friendly waiters. But the food is difficult to describe.
The menu lists dishes that are known to everyone as Italian; many are even listed in Italian, such as fettuccine al funghi (wide noodles with mushrooms, $6.25), zuppa di pesce (fish stew, $13.95), and shrimp fra diavolo (hot "devil-style" shrimp, $8.95). Regrettably, these dishes bear only slight resemblance to even good American-Italian food. Nearly everything I ate in three visits to Sal's & Duca's was unsatisfactory.
What is so disappointing is that there's no reason this food can't be better. At this writing, the preparations are clumsy and unskilled. They don't even taste good.
Richard Bhong is co-owner of Sal's and Duca's with Salvatore Vitale of the Sal's Italian restaurants in Lynchburg. In a telephone interview after my visits, Bhong told me that the menu at Sal's & Duca's is a blueprint of the dishes that are popular at the three Sal's establishments in Lynchburg.
Chef Tony Piccolo learned how to cook in his hometown of Carini, a small village near Palermo, Sicily. Bhong praised Piccolo's cooking: "People really like it, especially his chicken and seafood."
Bhong explained the restaurant's operation this way: "Tony cooks ahead, preparing items for the next few days. The dishes are kept in the refrigerator or the freezer so that thawing and reheating are all that have to be done when there is a rush."
Bhong says he orders the best fresh veal from New York for his veal dishes. Unfortunately, someone is neither capable of slicing cutlets and medallions nor of correctly cooking them.
In both of the veal dishes I ordered, veal a-lemon ($8.95) and veal a'la Marsala ($8.95), the meat had been butchered into rough, irregular pieces that came to me virtually uncooked. An unmistakable fluorescence shone on the pale surface of the meat, which defied chewing. Furthermore, whatever sauce there was seemed more greasy than saucy.
I ordered another supposedly sauteed dish, chicken piccata ($8.75), as take-out so I could be clinical with it in private. As a hot dish, the nicely sized chicken breast piece was as white as new snow, slightly chewy and somewhat bitter. The sauce was slippery on my tongue. After chilling overnight in the refrigerator, the chicken and mushrooms emerged encased in congealed fat. No sauce was visible.
Sal's & Duca's French onion soup ($2.25) should really be called Italian onion soup because of its molten cap of melted mozzarella cheese. This soup consists of a sturdy beef broth, enough thinly sliced sweet onions and a goodly number of pleasant croutons under the cheese.
Tortellini in chicken broth ($2.25) is one of the easiest soups to make, and it's easy for it to be good. Here, however, the broth was pale and watery; the tortellini tasted stale.
A chicken parmigiana sandwich ($3.95), consisting of crisply fried chicken breast with tomato sauce and melted mozzarella on crusty bread, tasted pretty good with the first few bites. But as I continued into the center, an off-flavor suggesting that the chicken had been too long in the freezer became so obvious and intense I could not finish it.
This same off-flavor envelope the cannelloni Florentine ($6.45), "veal and spinach stuffed into a long tube noodle, topped with tomato sauce and melted cheese." As I cut into the overly pureed filling, my fork punctured something that squirted water. Besides that, the filling was cold.
Lasagna, usually an easily executed casserole that can be very attractive, is described on this menu as "sliced noodles, baked with a blend of Italian cheese, ground beef, topped with tomato sauce and melted cheese" ($6.45). What I got was a totally unsatisfactory dish with plenty of bland tomato sauce with a few bits of meat, two layers of noodles and a very small amount of melted mozzarella.
The employees I spoke with at Sal's & Duca's were exceptionally friendly and informative, even if they were unable to pronounce and describe some of the dishes on the menu. My waiter on all three trips was well-intended, pleasant and informative, although badly trained. Whatever he brought - water, bread, flatware, coffee, cream - was placed where there was room, not where it was needed or where it belonged.
When properly done, Italian food is as good-tasting as it is healthful. It doesn't depend on luxurious, fatty ingredients or complicated preparations. With some specialized Italian cooking classes - Guiliano Bugialli's come to mind - a better understanding of what Italian food really is, lots of practice and conscientious effort, Sal's & Duca's could present Roanokers with some quality Italian dishes.
Dining Out's evaluations of restaurant accessibility to the handicapped are conducted by the Center for Independence for the Disabled, a non-profit organization.
CORRECTION
PUBLISHED CORRECTION RAN SUNDAY, MARCH 17, 1991
A restaurant review in Wednesday's Extra section incorrectly gave the ownership of Sal's & Duca's at Towne Square Shopping Center. Salvatore Vitale has had no association with the restaurant since December 1990.
Memo: correction