LA PRINCIPESSA in Kingston

[Rich Pawlak]

Thank God Ive been getting out to eat in the past few days, the affects of cabin fever, no doubt.

Tonight our foursome ventured a little north of Princeton to tiny, utterly romantic La Principessa, located in an unlikely, and very un-romantic shopping center on Rte 27, called the Kingston Mall, a few miles north of the college town, in tiny Kingston, NJ.

A single, 40-seat dining room, framed like four-poster bed in white trellis-work covered in faux grapes and grapevines, a small, 6-seat full service bar beyond that, and that is the entirety of the place. Two cheerful waitresses working. We got there, fortunately, early, and the place soon filled up. On a Sunday night no less.

We started with warm, crunchy, little garlic-sesame knot rolls brought to the table with a herbed olive oil, yummy.

We ordered the Antipasto La Principessa, a "specialty of the house", and were not disappointed. On the huge plate were roasted red peppers, fresh mozzarella disks, roma tomato slices, sopressata, garlicky brocolli rabe, grilled zucchini, hot cherry peppers stuffed with ham and provalone and flawlessly fried calamari served with a fra diavolo sauce, some of the best calamari I've had in a long time. We asked for, and received some bread for accompaniment, and it came sliced, warm, rustically crusty.

Complimentary salads with dinner, and no afterthought salads either. Organic field greens and roma tomatoes, as promised on the menu, dressed in a nice balsamic vinaigrette.

Entrees were enormous and pretty decent. A good rendition of fettucini Alfredo, made with home-made fettucini, was the classic, eggy, cheesey delight, almost feather-light, with good bite to the pasta.

Nephew chose a safe bet, Chicken Parmigiana,an enormous, lightly breaded cutlet over home-made linguine, sauced with a beautiful tomato-basil gravy. A very nice version, and almost laughably huge. But nephew is 16; he didnt leave a bite on the plate.

Another dining partner chose roast pork loin, with side of broccoli rabe and pasta. The pork itself was tasty, but lukewarm, and the surrounding demiglace was a bit congealed, perhaps spending some time under a heat lamp. Her pasta was more of that superb fettucini, sauced with some of that outstanding red gravy. The broccoli rabe, as it was on the antipasto platter, was served cold, an odd thing to me, but it took all of the rabe's bitterness away. Our waitress couldnt explain why it was served that way, and never returned with an explanation from the chef, as she had promised.

My entree was outstanding, a rustic bowl of grilled, marinated chicken breast tossed with fennel-filled sweet Italian sausage, portobello mushrooms, red bliss potatoes (the menu described Yukon Golds) and home-made linguini. Like my nephew, I didnt leave a scrap. Everyone at the table agreed that I had the best entree, but no one was really complaining about theirs either. Peace at last, and relative silence at the table, with everyone concentrating on their food. We noticed that was pretty much the drill with every table around us. A table full of food brought relative silence, and humms of pleasure.

Too stuffed to even consider dessert, we departed, after paying a modest bill of $80, an oustanding value for the quality (and quantity ) of food received. Wine list and beer list (plenty of Italian selections on both lists, including Moretti Birra Rossa, the hard-to-find Italian red beer) both looked good, but none of us was in the mood for alcohol. Perhaps our next visit, which, I am sure will one of many more.

Rich Pawlak

[Rosie]

Thanks, Rich. Is this place new?

[Rich Pawlak]

Thanks, Rich. Is this place new?

It is 4 yrs old, we were told by the staff.

[Kim WB]

Rosie, it was called something else at first, and then had to change its name because it was the same as another Italian place. Sounds like Rich and his group had mostly hits with some misses..but I've always had misses, myself. I am suprised to discover the pasta is homemade...it didn't have that taste or appearance when I was there. Sometimes these little hole in the wall places can be inconsistant.

[Rosie]

Maybe they have a new chef???

[Kim WB]

possibly..they used to be a BYO, and then they got a LL and put together a not too impressive wine list...the dishes I've tried lacked subtlety. But they're often busy, ( I live 3 miles from there) so I suspect that my opinion is the minority! In general, Italian is not my favorite cuisine.