Alfredo's Riverside

For years Lisa and I have been meaning to get to Alfredo's Riverside. Driving south on Route 9, Alfredo's is the very first building you see in Middletown. From the road the neon lobster sign and the two-tone brick patterns on the building hint at the time-warped quality inside.

Alfredo's is either the casualty of poor urban planning or one of those weird and marginal places that naturally bloom on the outskirts of a town.

The restaurant is literally on the other side of the railroad tracks -- with a disconnected clump of buildings lopped off from Middletown proper. We had no easy time navigating there.

To enter the dining room at Alfredo's diners must pass through the dim bar, where a game show blared on the TV the night we went. The dining room is spacious; a shining espresso machine separates the two sections of the room. While looking over the menu we could hear a guy seated at the bar occasionally yelling answers to the TV set. After ordering glasses of the house Cabernet and the shrimp scampi appetizer, we realized we had sat directly beneath some recent plumbing mishap. The suspended ceiling panels overhead were bulged and discolored from water damage; a chunk had been ripped out to get at the pipes. It didn't seem as if we were in danger of getting soaked, so we stayed put. The walls were crowded with framed prints of rifle-toting sportsmen and faithful bird dogs in woodsy hunting scenes. Our wine arrived in large, generous wine glasses. Warm, thickly sliced dinner bread kept us busy while we waited for the appetizer.

Our scampi came in a shallow bowl with a fleur-de-lis design, a ubiquitous pattern at Alfredo's -- definitely evocative of grandma's house. In the dim room, reflected light from the neon "steak and chops" sign swirled around on the buttery surface of the scampi broth. There were about a dozen chunks of shrimp -- close inspection revealed cut up pieces of large shrimp. The scampi had a curious sauce, with less butter and oil than expected, but the lemon, parsley and garlic flavors were all present. Unfortunately the shrimp was overcooked, and while there's nothing necessarily wrong with cutting up shrimp, it seemed more a cost-saving method than a cooking technique.

The offerings at Alfredo's cover a lot of territory. There are pizzas and sandwiches, pasta specialties like gnocchi and fettuccini and some of the usual Italian suspects -- chicken parmesan and veal scallopini. Alfredo's serves lobster and a selection of other fresh seafood, too. Our waitress said the swordfish was especially popular. After our usual lengthy deliberations, Lisa selected the shrimp Alfredo (a fried specialty of the restaurant, not the cream sauce) and I ordered the chicken marsala.

Both dishes showcased the cook's skill with delicate frying. The tender chicken was drenched in a rich sauce that left no doubt about the marsala in the dish's name. Chopped flat-leaf parsley and halves of small white mushrooms swam in the sauce. Like the scampi, the flavors in the chicken marsala were built primarily on parsley, lemon, garlic and butter. All it needed was a little extra salt. Parsley is one of the most under-appreciated herbs. Not just a garnish, parsley's subtle flowery flavor helps keep garlic and olive oil in check.

Lisa's shrimp Alfredo was further evidence that frying is one of the restaurant's strong suits. A dusting of paprika and squirt of lemon juice completed the huge batter-fried shrimp.

The entrées came with a choice of spaghetti or french fries and a vegetable. We both chose the pasta. I opted for meat sauce and Lisa went the marinara route. Both sauces had a fair bit of pepper -- red and black -- I bit into a whole black peppercorn in the meat sauce. Better than a bone, I suppose.

We concluded our evening with coffee and a cannoli to go. The waitress was kind enough to tell us she would make a fresh pot since the brew had been sitting for three hours. Extra honors for the cannoli, which had the perfect low-key sweetness.

Alfredo's was almost empty when we visited. Dim and quiet, it would be a good spot for conducting discreet extra-marital affairs; you're unlikely to run into anyone you know there. Maybe it's because we picked a Monday night following a snowstorm, or maybe the physical location of the restaurant deters people from dining there. But even before our entrées were brought to table, Lisa and I had the hunch that most people would probably feel that, for the price (we paid around $60 for our dinner), Alfredo's skimps on atmosphere. To be fair, the food is good, and the place has a film-noir charm to it. Some might seek it out for the hard-boiled tone, but there is some dissonance between the expense and the ambience.

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Middlesex County restaurants, Connecticut restaurants, Middletown restaurants, Seafood restaurants, American traditional and classic restaurants