RESTAURANT WEEK RESCUED

Sabatino’s

901 Fawn Street
Little Italy
Baltimore, MD 21202
410-727-9414
http://www.sabatinos.com/index.asp
Reservations via Open Table: http://www.opentable.com/sabatinos-reservations-baltimore?rid=45034&restref=45034

Some friends could not join us on a weeknight for dinner earlier in the week at Da Mimmo but suggested that we join them for dinner on Saturday night at Sabatino’s, another of the many restaurants participating in Restaurant Week Baltimore.

I’m very glad we accepted their offer.

This was an entirely different experience from the Da Mimmo trip, from atmosphere to meal. Saturday night is a very busy time in Little Italy; the streets are hopping with tourists on the sidewalks and diners arriving by car. Sabatino’s is on one of the busiest corners, sharing it with 3 other popular eateries. We chose to use the very efficient valet parking at a cost of $10.00 rather than try to find a rare paring space along the narrow streets or park in the garage two blocks away at Bank & Exeter Streets. The valet parking team really hustles, pretty well directing the traffic in the area while doing so.

My first impression of Sabatino’s was that it is huge with several different dining rooms on two floors, it is a family place, and both crowded and noisy. We were promptly seated by a maître‘d who was quite calm amid the flurry of diners arriving and leaving, occasionally shouting to someone at the top of the stairway to ask if a table was available for diners. It works for them as the place was packed with obvious regulars who have been coming for decades. Hey, there were linen tablecloths on every table, something I fully appreciate in this day of paper placemats.
The servers work as a team to assure that all guests are taken care of promptly and attentively. As soon as we were seated a waitress brought us very plain glasses of cold tap water, followed only a few moments later with a huge basket of fresh, crusty Italian bread and our menus, both the regular and specials for Restaurant Week. Unlike the specials at Da Mimmo, this list was quite long, offering four appetizers, eight entrees and three deserts. And then the most pleasant surprise of the even appeared, our waitress Kitty. We knew immediately from her demeanor that we had a server who was at ease with the pandemonium around us and capable of the multi-tasking that working at Sabatino’s demands. While my friend and I discussed a choice from the wine list (prices from $18 to $75), Kitty near floored us by offering a special Restaurant Week wine list with about eight very reasonably priced selections from which we quickly settled on the Ruffino Chianti so that if we felt the urge to share a second bottle it wouldn’t give us second thoughts. I won’t be writing a paragraph praising the complexity of this wine but it ended up the perfect match of an acceptable Italian red wine to go with a fine Italian meal. I come from an age when restaurants in little Italy served inexpensive home-made house red wine in pitchers with the meals and no-one at the table cared that it didn’t come from Montepulciano in Tuscany because no one could pronounce it anyway. (Remember Maria's 300 on Albemarle St. from decades ago and Mamma Maria with a rose in her high hat hair -do?)
I was disappointed when we ordered that we didn’t choose a wider array of entrees to provide a better sampling of the choices but that’s the last complaint you will hear of me about this night out. Two diners had the fried calamari which arrived in more typical large portions with a large bowl of marina sauce, unlike the portion at DaMimo of which one could count the number of calamari rings with one hand. The calamari was breaded and nicely fried. I chose to overindulge and spend an extra $2.50 to convert the garden salad to a house specialty, a “Bookmakers” salad which added large portions of shrimp, salami, hardboiled egg, pepperoncini and olives, making a monstrous proportion of a salad covered in the creamy house  dressing. In all fairness, that salad would make a meal for some people I know. My friend had the regular house salad, also large, and he raved about it.

Out of the eight possible entrée selections, three of us somehow decided to have the Chicken Parmigiana. Timing throughout the meal was perfect – how Kitty and the kitchen manage to keep things that way on such a busy night is no easy task. Having enough servers is no doubt a part of it and we could see that there were several other attentive waitresses working our large dining room, often communication with one another by shouts to assure that all the tables were adequately covered and the food flowing. The pounded chicken breast fully covered the plate, lightly breaded and covered in mozzarella cheese a tomato sauce. The spaghetti with sauce had to be served in a separate bowl. Perhaps because of my Bookmaker salad, this was the first time I can recall in many years that I could not eat all of my entrée – I usually scoff at the idea of there being anything left to take home in a doggie-bag. The odd meal of our table was the Shrimp Renato, large butterflied shrimp in a brandy, lemon & white wine sauce. The numerous shrimp were accompanied by a side order of spaghetti.

Dessert came with the special menu although I don’t believe any of us needed a dessert to top off that meal. We chose the house-made cannoli and rum cake. The cake was indeed rum flavored and had a delicious layered filling in addition to the icing glaze. In keeping with all things Sabatino’s, the portion was not sparse. The cannoli’s disappeared so quickly I never had a chance to steal a sample. Our friend capped off her meal with a cappuccino served beautifully in a glass mug. Kitty was a terrific waitress, offering suggestions and filling us in on the restaurant that she is obviously pleased to work for. It isn’t often these days that you receive such personable, attentive service. We noticed that the owner was right in there with his crew escorting diners to their tables and checking with every table to make sure they were pleased with their meals.

The valet neither lost nor damaged the car, making it a pretty successful evening out.

If you decide to go to Sabatino’s be sure to pick up one of the free maps of Little Italy available in the foyer, it’ll help you plan future trips as all the restaurants and points of interest in the community are featured. Dress code is what has unfortunately come to be accepted in Baltimore these days: just about anything and everything from t-shirt & jeans to suit & tie. They won’t try to bump up your bill at Sabatino’s with unrequested bottled water or harking of garlic bread & bruschetta, although I have no doubt all are available on request. They even offer large and small carafes of inexpensive house wines as well as wine by the glass for those so inclined.

The great service and a vast regular menu are certainly enough to have me planning on another trip to Sabatino’s.