Diner Food That's Worth Working For

by Maria Gallagher, Daily News Restaurant Critic

Posted: September 27, 1991

La Trattoria will never win any beauty contests. The early luncheonette ambiance is very much like that of the "Cheeseburger, cheeseburger, cheeseburger" diner on "Saturday Night Live."

That doesn't deter customers from flocking to this Old City restaurant for well-prepared down-home Italian food at prices that are very low for Center City. Nearly all the pasta dishes are under $6; the most expensive thing on the menu - grilled shrimp in garlic-lemon sauce - is $8.95.

At these prices, you have do some work yourself. Ask for a corkscrew, and it's left on the table so you can open your own wine and pour it into soda glasses. With the salad come bottles of red wine vinegar and quality olive oil to pour over as you see fit. If you order the salad with shrimp - or a dish with shrimp in it - you'll have to peel them.

Pasta and bean soup ($1.65) combined plenty of ridged penne and white beans in a robust broth with big chunks of garlic. The big mixed salad ($2.25) had shredded romaine and radicchio, rounds of radish, lovely ripe tomatoes, cubes of cheese and unpitted black olives. With chicken added, the salad is $3.75; with three just-off-the-griddle jumbo shrimp added, it's $3.95.

Pasta dishes are made with either linguine or penne. The three-mushroom sauce was a chunky marinara to which sauteed button mushrooms, shiitake, and porcini mushrooms were added, over a healthy portion of pasta garnished with a sprig of rosemary ($5.75).

Chicken and shrimp ($7.95) was an odd coupling - the two flavors had nothing in common - but the components were fine. Roasted red peppers, rough- cut garlic chunks, a few fiery red pepper flakes and fresh rosemary rounded out a simple, enjoyable dish.

The white bread and the out-of-its-element pita bread are forgettable. An acoustic guitarist sits in some evenings.

Desserts are made elsewhere. The night we visited, the only choice was a coconut-dusted German chocolate cake. We passed.

La Trattoria, 130 N. 3rd St. No telephone, no credit cards, BYOB. Closed Sunday. Lunch, 11 a.m.-3:30 p.m. Dinner, 4:30-11 p.m.