Recommended dishes: Portobello mushrooms, salads, stuffed eggplant, fried zucchini, salad pizza, linguine carbonara, penne Siciliano, rigatoni alla matriciana, salmon oreganata, chicken francese, chicken scarpariello, fruit sorbets.

On Fridays some diners celebrate noisily from lunch until dinner over platters of oysters Rockefeller, stuffed eggplant, creamed spinach, and hunks of butter on French bread as martinis and wine bottles come and go.

Recommended dishes: Seafood gumbo, fried oysters, sauteed oysters and Brie, alligator sausage, stuffed eggplant, blackened steak, blackened catfish, buttermilk-battered chicken, eggplant with shrimp ettouffe, mirliton with andouille and fried oysters, desserts.

Recommended dishes: Combination salad, Caesar salad, seafood salad, fried peppers, stuffed eggplant, stuffed mushrooms, shrimp oreganata, chicken scarpariello, chocolate mousse cake, tiramisu, cheesecake.

As the waiter arrived with the appetizers that are common in red sauce restaurants - clams casino, mussels in marinara sauce, stuffed eggplant - Ms. Bamonte pointed to a couple a few tables away who seemed to be in their 70's.

A Map Our favourite budget choice draws on Armenian, Greek and Lebanese in dishes like kebabs, stuffed eggplant, moussaka and tabouleh.

Enhanced by garlic sauce, a chunk of steamed salmon was cooked perfectly, and a delightful mince of shrimps stuffed mellow Chinese eggplant.

Dishes like pan-seared softshell crab with pine nuts, stuffed eggplant, and grilled calamari were freshly made and sparkling, as was a dessert that consisted of fresh peach slices inside a parcel of well-browned phyllo dough, served with vanilla ice cream.

"Lobster thermidor today, baked potatoes, stuffed eggplant. . ." "But what's this, Henry?"