Why, Yes, as a matter of fact, we can use another Italian place in town

Cipriano's Italian Café
6825 San Pedro (just south of Oblate)

When we say "Italian restaurant" in this country, we usually don't mean "Italian"; we mean "Italian-American," as in red-and-white-checked tablecloths and Mulberry Street and Chico Marx's character. The misapprehension caused by this shorthand way of speaking is generally insignificant, and serves the useful social function of keeping food snobs in a state of apoplexy, which helps keep them from disrupting our daily lives very much. For the snobs, a category which, yes, sometimes includes the Curmudgeon-About-Town —  and for those who merely know Italy, and prefer its flavours to those developed by our immigrant ancestors after they got off the boat and found that nobody, but nobody around here understood the treasure that is garlic — there are a few genuine ristoranti italiani scattered around the country, including one or two right here in good ol' San Antonio. About as many as the market demands.

The rest of us — I include myself, because I'm only occasionally a food snob — are perfectly happy to chow down on what I think of as New York Italian (pronounced "Eye-talian") food, even though it's about the same among the Italian immigrants of other places, like my sometimes-immigrant kin in Louisiana. And for that we have a number of good places to choose from — again, about as many as the market demands — and some of which even manage to excel at some particular or another.

I stumbled across another one of those good places today, a little (11 tables, with the suggestion of another small dining room beyond an accordion door) strip-center café of eight months' vintage in a vaguely tawdry stretch of San Pedro: tattoo parlour next door, faded motel across the avenue, lots of concrete, no hint of roadside landscaping since the road was widened years ago. Inside, the place has been done up pretty nicely, with a bit of charm and grace that I didn't suspect from the outside. And it was well staffed with friendly people who knew they had some quality products to offer, and were justly proud of it.

Cipriano's red sauce — let's get this out of the way — is nothing really special. It's all tomato sauce and seasonings, with a little too much oil and none of the body provided by vegetables and wine and tomato paste and hours of simmering. For some reason it makes me think of Calabria, but it's really more Napolitana. (Sorry: overcome by a moment of snobbishness there.) It's reasonably good, it coats the pasta well, and it does full justice to the excellent breads they serve. (And considering my recent run of so-so breads at Italian places, I should probably say more about that. But, uncharacteristically, I'll forbear.) If the pasta had been a little more al dente I'd've been happier with it, but it was close enough that we're talking mere seconds in the water.

One of the specials today was a shrimp salad, which my tablemate ordered. The salad was large, and loaded with all the best things: shrimp, of course, in good number, and marinated artichoke hearts and hearts of palm, and it looked fresh and sounded crispy. I can always tell when my friend really enjoys a dish, because a quietness descends over the table as conversation comes to a stop. I don't believe he said two words, except in terse answer to specific questions, until the last drop of dressing was wiped from the bowl. That, good reader, was a salad thoroughly enjoyed.

The city has not yet inspected this
restaurant.

I was pleased with my lunch, too, despite the quibbles I've already noted about the pasta and sauce. And there is one other, relatively minor, thing to complain about (and Lord knows, I like to complain). The menu refers to my dish as having "four sliced meatballs" on it. What it actually had was two meatballs, sliced in half. Fortunately, they were very well-made meatballs, not over-large but substantial, with excellent seasoning and texture and none of the cheap filler material one so often finds in ... ahem ... medium-priced Italian chain restaurants. I enjoyed them immensely, yet felt cheated at having "four sliced meatballs" in only the hypertechnical sense.

But I'll tell you what: after the soup, nothing else really mattered. The cream of potato soup with (Italian) sausage was so very good that we could have been satisfied with anything. It was, it really was, a great soup. I gave some thought to ordering another to take home, but decided that I live close enough, a straight shot of about three miles down San Pedro, that I can just come back any ol' time.

Pretty sure I will, too. And next time I'm going to save some room for dessert.