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By STEVE & LISA ALCAZARI
Hartford Advocate
Published: 5/9/05

Of the people we saw leaving La Notte, a vast Italian restaurant and banquet facility in East Windsor, just about everyone was carrying at least one large to-go container. Lisa and I found the food plentiful, and there's a familiarity to the thick layers of cheese and tomato sauce on many of the dishes, but there's little finesse. One shouldn't go looking for a delicate touch or much of a bargain at La Notte.

The restaurant certainly has its loyal fans though. And word must get around, because it's not like you'd just stumble on the place by driving by. La Notte is situated in a sort of out-of-the-way area surrounded by large warehouse-ish office complexes, shipping centers and agriculture. We recently stopped in on a rainy Friday evening. In front of the restaurant we could see a white stretch limo and a gazebo lit up by strings of Christmas lights. The place was packed. There was a festive wedding reception in progress, but the bar too was filled with a boisterous crowd starting the weekend off with good cheer.

There are a few chambers to the dining room area. The main area is ringed by a tier of tables along the walls, which are a sort of marbleized green decorated with miniature Greek friezes. Someone played a Fats Waller tune on a slightly out-of-tune piano in an adjoining room.

The list of appetizers at La Notte gives one the opportunity to choose from routine favorites like fried mozzarella, clams casino, fried calamari, shrimp cocktail, stuffed mushrooms or buffalo wings, most of which are in the $7 - 9 range. We tried the La Notte dip, a kind of spinach and cheese dip made with artichokes and shrimp and served with small pieces of warmed pita bread. A thick layer of cheese suffocated this, making the dip heavier than it needed to be. A better, more balanced starter was the delicious sautéed broccoli rabe served with sausage (it can also be ordered without the sausage). All the elements -- the slight bitter tang of the rabe, the sweet golden flavor of garlic sautéed in olive oil, and the taste of fennel in the sausage -- worked perfectly together.

What wasn't immediately visible on the menu was the standard pasta offerings -- all the spaghettis, fettuccines, angel hair, et. cetera -- that one expects from an Italian restaurant. The pasta section lists five dishes -- carbonara, lobster ravioli ($16.95), fussili Napolitano ($15.95), and others, with a few variations. But, as we learned, the pasta is there; you just have to ask, or wait to be told about it. There's a $19.95 grilled swordfish served over spinach, or a filet mignon in a cognac mushroom demi-glace sauce. Or you can have pork chops and apple sauce ($18.95). There are also the expected chicken and veal marsalas, Florentines, or piccatas. Lisa tried the eggplant parmigiana ($13.95). Thick pieces of eggplant were fried and lightly layered, instead of packed into a dense mass, but the sauce was a little too thick and sweet, with too much of the taste of tomato paste. One can get comparable eggplant parm at countless Italian-style family restaurants in the area for half the price.

I tried the jumbo lobster ravioli, served in a roasted red pepper coulis and topped with gorgonzola cheese. One could clearly taste the lobster here, but there were also several bits of shell to navigate around too. The flavor would have been more dramatic without the competition of the strong cheese. And though the jumbo size allowed for abundant lobster stuffing, the raviolis needed to be a little doughy in order to contain all the meat. What's more, the plate had lingered a little too long under the heat, drying out the top layer of cheese.

The dessert menu was chocolate-heavy, but we tried a cheese cake with strawberry sauce. We giggled a little at the vaguely phallic presentation of the plate, with a wedge of cake and two round lumps of whipped cream on either side. Lisa discreetly re-arranged things with her spoon, undoing the symmetry. I found the stewed strawberries to have a peculiar tanginess, but the cake was pleasantly fluffy.

Lisa took more than half her eggplant home. I didn't much want what was left of the ravioli.

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