Toscana 52

[rlibkind]

I met cousins from North Jersey who were in the Northeast calling on a client. Based on a recommendation of my cousin's client, we went to Toscana 52 on Street Road in Feasterville, near the PA Turnpike.

I wouldn't recommend it. Not bad, mind you, but I'd rather head to a South Philly red gravy establishment, like Villa di Roma. If you're in the area, hungry and not too picky it is adequate.

I had a bowl of pasta fagioli which was tasty but not quite what I expected. It had an almost creamy appearance and mouth-feel, which I guess was because they might have pureed some of the beans. The beans and pasta seemed interchangeable in texture. The soup was much better than the fried calamari, which were rather large tubes plus, to their credit, some crunchy tentcles. But the tentacles were the only crunchy part; the tubes were cut bit too large and the semolina coating just didn't fry up nicely. Not too greasy, though. The plate also featured some fried zucchini sticks. The marinara served as a dip was pleasant, though because of the lack of pepper taste in the batter I would have liked more spice in the sauce.

Although it's not a chain and they claim to make everything from scratch, the menu and quality seemed like a better-quality chain, like Maggiano's. The decor is faux Tuscan, though I enjoyed the classic photo in the men's room of a beautiful young woman dressed in black walking by an Italian city street corner and the eyes of about two dozen men are fixed on her. As for the clientele, at least at lunch, although everyone in our party of four are in the low to mid 60s, I think we brought the average age of the room down. Quite a number of birthday celebrations for this crowd during hour 90-minute visit. Must be a high-end eatery for this part of lower Bucks.

I thought our server was a bit over solicitious in tenor, but he handled the required duties well enough. Though he thought the French Fries my wife ordered were steak fries, and they weren't. Larger than shoestrings, just regularly sized fries.

My cousin had the chicken parm, which he liked. His wife did the crab cheesecake, an appetizer, which she enjoyed. She Who Must Be Obeyed went with an angus burger. She didn't rave, but she didn't complain.

Our lunch (no drinks or dessert) was $51 before gratuity.