by Dorothy Cascerceri
My family has spent most of the summer at the beach, but with living in Manhattan and working full-time (imagine that!!) I haven’t been able to join them very much.
So when my mom and sister came to town for a girl’s day out (my 12-year-old brother’s idea of a perfect day in New York City is not browsing Bloomingdale’s fall collection), I knew the perfect place to take them for lunch.
The Beach Café on Second Avenue and 70th Street is a place I’ve passed several times and been meaning to check out, and if I can’t make it to the actual beach with them, we may as well do something beachy.
Dave, one of the owners, seated us at an outdoor table for three right next to a beautiful flowerbox. As we browsed the menu I realized how simple the selections were. The sandwiches were pretty standard beachfare: tuna, chicken salad, egg salad, in addition to a few others.
And even the entrees were simple: meatloaf, salmon, trout, steak.
We decided on three dishes to share: poached salmon salad, farfalle with fennel sausage in a tomato cream sauce and chicken marsala with broccoli and rice. It didn’t sound like anything too fancy, but we soon realized that sometimes simpler is better.
The salad was large enough for two people to make a meal out of with two huge thick, juicy pieces of poached salmon.
The farfalle in a homemade tomato cream sauce beat out any Italian restaurant I can think of off the top of my head.
And the Marsala sauce tasted like it had an additional secret ingredient which we all guessed had to be honey. Everything was absolutely delicious, filling and fairly priced.
With nothing on the menu exceeding $20 (even during dinner time), it’s easy to see why The Beach Café has been a favorite of the neighborhood since its 35 plus years in business.
When I excused myself from the table to use the ladies’ room, I was able to see the interior of the restaurant, which was a mix of rich wooden floors and beautiful brightly-colored paintings of beach scenes hung against the exposed brick walls.
On my way back to the table, Dave told me the bar was over 100 years old and came from the original Waldorf hotel! A great restaurant with some history, too…sounded like the perfect combo to me.
A day at the Beach (Café) was exactly what I needed!
The Beach Cafe
1326 2nd Avenue (between 69th & 70th)
New York, NY 10021
212-988-7299 |
Read the next Uppereast.com review:Bella Blu
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