Long Island Restaurants

A Taberna

Table-side flambéing has become something of a lost art, a throwback to another era. Yet you wouldn't know it at A Taberna, a charming new Portuguese restaurant in Island Park. Order the Portuguese sausage (chouriço à Portuguêsa) as an appetizer and your server will slash the links, douse them with brandy and ignite them, spooning fragrant juices over all. The slices are crisped on the outside, spicy and juicy within.

There are more than just fireworks to recommend this sunny place. Servers are friendly and eager to build a following; the people at the table next to us were bantering with their waiter as though they were already regulars.

I would return again, if only to savor the snails, done with lots of garlic, oregano and white wine, proof that the French aren't the only masters of escargots. A group of us made fast work of a pot of plump clams cooked in red sauce with lots of spicy sliced sausage. But there were only two slices floating in the pleasantly smoky caldo verde, Portuguese kale and sausage soup. I preferred the bracing sopa di marisco, a tomato-based seafood soup with shrimp, squid, clams and mussels.

When a member of our party ordered pork and clams, the waiter beamed. "That's a very authentic Portuguese dish," he said. The surf and turf combination has broad appeal, the tender steamed clams marrying well with the slightly smoky chunks of pork in a piquant tomato-based sauce, the combination offset by pickled vegetables sharing the plate.

A more Spanish-influenced item, paella Valenciana, featured a mixture of seafood, chicken and beef over fluffy saffron rice, each component cooked to its proper state of doneness. Shrimp in green sauce showcased succulent shellfish in a parsley-flecked broth that was garlicky but not overwhelmingly so.

In contrast, a special of whole grilled red snapper got a heavy-handed treatment, the fish overwhelmed by a too-vinegary "Mediterranean" sauce of capers, olives, onions and tomatoes. I would veer from such fussy preparations in favor of the simple fillet of sole with almonds, delicate buttery fish dressed in a crisp cloak of slivered nuts.

Barbecued chicken, a traditional forte of Portuguese restaurants, came burnished to a juicy turn. A grilled T-bone steak arrived rare as ordered and surprisingly tender. Whatever entree you get, though, the house-made potato chips -- thin, crisp, salty and golden brown -- are addictive, a must.

An ideal conclusion is flan, creamy yet light, just the thing after such a sturdy, satisfying meal.

Reviewed by Joan Reminick, 10/1/07.

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