Fettuccine al sugo Toscano ($8.95) has a wonderfully mellow meat sauce with layers of flavor that unfold in the mouth, while rigatoni Napoletano ($8.95) is served southern Italian style, with meatballs and sausages left intact in the sauce.
Osso bucco ($16.95), sprinkled with chunky gremolada or minced garlic, parsley and lemon peel, adds a fresh, sprightly flavor to the mellow meat that was generously portioned but not fall-away tender.
Orecchiette with broccoli rape and house-made sausage ($13) is excellent, with the mellow meat rounding off the bitterness of the green, while linguine with tiny clams and garlic ($14.50) sounds familiar but is given an unusual, breezy quality by a careful addition of herbs.
Linguine alla vongole ($11.95) was loaded with tender minced clams; a casserole dish of baked lasagna ($9.95) contained alternating layers of mellow tomato meat sauce and parmesan and fresh mozzarella cheeses; and linguine pescatore ($12.95), a mountain of pasta enveloped in a husky, robust plum tomato sauce, yielded a trove of shrimp, clams, mussels and soft calamari rings.
The flavour may strike you as a bit harsh when you make it, but I assure you, the flavours will blend and mellow as the meat cooks.
This way the flavors mellow and the meat moistens, plus all you need to do is reheat, in untroubled fashion (but make sure it is hot through and through when you're ready to serve).
Here every ingredient is distinct in flavor and texture -- the crunchy bread, the fragrant garlic, the rich, mellow homemade yogurt, the juicy meat, the bright tomatoes -- and the results are a plate-clearing triumph.
Back upstairs at a dining table, I tasted assorted cured meats, including a mellow garlic-and-white-wine-seasoned felino, the elegant Parma sausage.
I would have to give that honor to the magnificently mellow curried goat ($6.50), tender chunks of meat in a mild green sauce.
A big bowl of rich black bean brew, swirled with sour cream, was good and another of the mellow, soothing chicken soup, crammed with white meat, soft potato cubes, carrots, onions and peppers, was even better.
To accelerate the process, the astringent, or hard, persimmons can be placed in the freezer overnight and -- like most of us forced to spend time in a meat locker -- will be mellow in the morning.
