Restaurant Review: New York City's Vincent's Clam Bar, a BIG Part of Little Italy

1978. Little Italy was a lot less little; my hair was a lot less gray. And boy did I look like the shiz-nit, as the youngsters (or is it only Jamie Kennedy?) say in my powder blue Saturday Night Fever poly suit with potato chip yellow Qiana shirt. My friend, Joe Pastorino, in his Sergio Valenti jeans, black tee-shirt, gold chain and crucifix (You know the one with the relief of Jesus with the crown of thorns?) wasn't a slouch either. First stop, Studio 54. Then, if we didn't get lucky, back in Joe's Eldorado, always called an Eldo, right downtown to Little Italy, park in the lot on Broome Street and to Vincent's, on the corner of Mott and Hester Streets for over a century , for raw clams and cold Buds.

Joe and I were a personification (some would say clichés, a Jew and an Italian, of where we grew up, in Massapequa, called Matzo-Pizza. Babeless but not crestfallen, we'd walk up to Vincent's clam bar on a Saturday night, or early Sunday morning. Some times, we'd break from the raw clam tradition, anointed with tabasco and drizzled with fresh lemon juice right from the lemon, with an order of Vincent's shrimp and biscuits, actually stale bread, smothered in a red sauce so rich, so smoky, so slow roasted, if it fell on the bar, you'd want to take a bit out of it. Hint about the clam bar. Go late. You'll meet some interesting people. Good food. Good convo.

Vincent's Clam Bar was founded by Giuseppe and Carmela Siano in 1904, named after their son Vincent. Joe's father went there. That's how Joe knew about it. But it's not just about the clam bar. The dining area, with the wood toped tables, the mosaic tiled floor ("Easier to mop up when some gets clipped," Joe would joke.) It's about the spirits of working class people, real people with real joys and sorrows, that reside there. It's more than memory. Maybe it's some sort of Jungian cuisine archetype that infects you and you, in turn, leave a part of yoursef behind, contributing to it.

Let me give you one of my contributions. I took Joe's sister, Francesca, down there one Christmas to impress. Vincent's Clam Bar at Christmas could even make Moses convert, red and silver balls, flickering white lights around the big windows, all mingling with the smell of roasted garlic. Ah, I still remember Francesca taking a bite out of her chocolate dipped canolli with dried fruit. "Oh, my Gawd, this is so good. Have some." I can still see traces of her lipstick on the end as she guided it into my mouth, and her smiling, which, mein friends, is all I got.

Then, feeling down after Francesca's, "no," Joe arranged for two ladies to meet us one night. We sat down for a sumptuous dinner starting with appys of fried scungilli and clams. Then, some rigatoni with Vincent's medium spice sauce (Warning: That's hot for most.) and a shrimp ball. What is a shrimp ball you ask? A meatball but with shrimp instead of bread. YES, try it. As my "date" and I got closer over dinner, Joe leaned over to me. "Look, she's my sister, but she can be a stuck-up bitch." And it's all still there at Vincent's Clam Bar.

I know what you're thinking. "Ed, what about now?" Now Vincent's Clam Bar is owned by Vincent Generoso, and it still holds up. Prove it? You outside of New York may have seen footage of rats playing tag one night at a Taco Bell in Manhattan. I was down there last year, and Vincent told me that he has a five year, blemish free record with the department of health. Vincent being Vincent, he then produced the laminated "Daily News" story.

And the food? That sauce, that sauce! Pour it in a glass, and I'll drink it straight. The clams still taste like Jones Beach on a summer day. But for the newly initiated to Vincent's, I would recommend one of the seafood combination platters; shrimp and mussels always pleases. But if you really want to shift into high gear, go for the stuffed lobster Fra Diavolo with linguini. And you must have a side order of Broccoli Parmigiana. You read right. Broccoli sautéed in olive oil with Parmigiana cheesed broiled on top.

If you want a benchmark for a restaurant, it's not that tourists go there. That's a negative with Vincent's during summer time, particularly at lunch. It's the people who no longer call NYC their home, who make it a point to come back to Vincent's when they're in town. When I take the Number 6 train down to Little Italy and park myself at a table, I seem to meet someone from Florida or L.A. who has "come back." The food is the draw, yes. But the spirits of those long ago dinners, some of them of which they were a part, that's what draws them.

So if you're in Little Italy, make it a point to be part of the collective spirit, that food mysticism. And for that dinner so many, many years go, "Thank you, Joe Pastorino, wherever you are."