Dining out with Moira Hodgson

Dining à la Groucho Marx

At an East Village Southern Italian

“This way, please.” The friendly young maître’d at Frank in the East Village was standing on the sidewalk and motioned me inside.

Not so fast. A red-faced waiter charged out the door, brandishing a plate of spaghetti. I jumped aside in the Read More

The Raw and the Cooked: Deep Seafood at Esca

During lunch one Monday at Esca, a southern Italian seafood restaurant in the theater district, chef David Pasternack stopped by our table. “We have a wonderful Kenai River steelhead salmon from Alaska, which is only in season for one week a year. It has so little fat you can’t cook it, so I serve it Read More

When Not in Rome, Sandro’s Is the Next Best Thing

Sandro’s is the sort of trattoria you stumble upon in Rome or Naples, having run the gauntlet of Vespas and gotten lost several times. It has a jovial, outsize chef and waiters who hectically weave their way among the tables, wielding Parmesan and pepper mills and setting down free glasses of grappa after dinner. I Read More

Jonathan Richman on the Bowery

“When I was 19,” Jonathan Richman sang to the crowd at the Bowery Ballroom, “I was over-intellectual … I was such a little brat.” Then he grinned his goofy, mournful grin, reeled back from the microphone and launched into another acoustic 1-4-5 guitar solo, for “Nineteen in Naples.”

Now 48, Mr. Richman has a Read More