"I'd like the Chicken Dion, please- overdone."

[captainsblog]

"And for my companion, the DiCaprio ham. Don't cook it- just toss it overboard."

Once again, I bring you aboard in medias res about something you will probably never understand.  To begin the journey, you have to understand Salvatore's, and I cannot explain it to you. Even Googling is futile. You have to experience the full glorious spectacle in real time and space to appreciate its place in the Greater Buffalo Terminal Tackiness Hall of Fame.

Salvatore's Italian Gardens is an Italian steakhouse, in much the same way that the Taj Mahal is a shrine next to a reflecting pool. It is, by their own website's definition, "over the top." Statuary, fountains and mirrors are everywhere, including the property line on the main drag a mile the wrong side of the Buffalo Airport. We've been there exactly once in our 18 years here, and that's the only time I've set foot inside all the marble since getting here in 1981. But you know it if you've seen it. It exudes awesome tacky. Making it more interesting in recent years is that the third-generation owner of the business, Joe, has forced out his father Russell, who really took the place and turned it into a semi-mental institution.  In retaliation, Dad has now moved down the street, opened his own competing restaurant (and connected hotel, to compete with the even weirder "Garden Palace" right off Exit 49 of the 90 which Russ and Joe built in the 90s before the schism), and they've now divided that end of the dining community which specializes in high-end meals served under the naked armpits of Greek and Roman goddesses.

So they need to keep it fresh. And next month, on Tax Day at the original Salvatores, you can do just that:



From the restaurant's blog:

On April 15, 1912 the Titanic, the largest passenger steamship in the world at that time, hit an iceberg and sank.  Salvatore’s is remembering this tragic event with a replication of the last menu that was served to the Titanic’s first class passengers.  The dinner consists of an eight course tasting menu with wine pairing.  This event will occur on Sunday, April 15th, 2012 with cocktail hour beginning at 4pm and dinner starting at 5pm.  The entire 8 course meal will cost $135.00 per person.

Payable in advance, I presume.

Now they do have regular live entertainment there, so I wouldn't entirely rule out a guest appearance by the divine Miss D to recreate the atmosphere of that Big Night, but I do have a few other suggestions for the evening's festivities:

* Invite a head table of local and national politicians and put them in charge of rearranging the deck chairs as the evening winds down;

* Commission a full-size ice sculpture of an iceberg and put it in the middle of the main ballroom;

* In place of the Easter Bunny now riding up and down every day in the Garden Palace glass elevator, attach a life-size model of DiCaprio and hang it leaning over the outside of the shaft.

* Kidnap all the evening's patrons from the competing Russell's steakhouse and force them to spend the night in steerage.

Worst of all, of course, would be if we were to have some heavy weather on that Night to Remember. Keep in mind that we're about 80 inches short on our annual snow quota, the lake is fully thawed (and thus just waiting for a good early-spring Arctic blast to dump 8 million gallons of lakewater on us after we've put the plows away for the winter), and we're due.

I just hope nobody from the cast of Downton Abbey makes a rezzy. That could really screw up the upcoming season.

Comments

[greenquotebook.livejournal.com]

Steven is familiar with Salvatores. His parents ate there regularly and had their own waiter. He says that if you go, ask for Glen, if he's still there. ;)

[headbanger118.livejournal.com]

"Over the top" is so entertaining...from a distance and with no investment in it.