A Night at Puglia
Cheers for Jewish pride, lifting people up in chairs, and singing “Hava Nagila” – these 3 cues can only mean you’re in one place: an Italian restaurant. That’s right - located near diversity’s headquarters, the intersection of China Town and Little Italy, Puglia has it all.
We went to Puglia on Friday for a friend’s birthday (s/o Olivia), and I had no idea what I was heading into. Our party was seated in the back room, the party room, and was assured by the staff that we were in for an evening of entertainment. Seeing that I thought this was a dinner, I was taken aback when I first heard mention of dancing on chairs and a live performance. Alas, I was thrilled at the prospect of penne and partying.
The appetizers came abruptly and in abundance. Before we had even moved past small-talk of the work day, our table’s real estate was covered with an array of mushrooms, potato cakes, and Caesar salad. They even had my personal favorite, straight from the streets of Sicily, cheesy bread. Our table looked like a culinary protest of Celiac Disease.
As we munched on our appetizers, the real show began. I turned around from my gluttonous plate to discover a man and woman ready to perform. It was like I had front row seats to the On The Run Tour, except that our Beyonce and Jay-Z were white, not as glamorous, and had the skin of retirees in Florida that sit in the sun for 12 hours a day. Aside from that, these two resembled the Carters to a T.
The Carbonara Carters (as I will now refer to them) began their show with crowd favorites and got the room going immediately. By the time they got to “New York, New York”, the party room was an absolute ruckus – people were shotgunning marinara sauce and snorting lines of parmesan cheese (neither of these actually happened, but one definitely almost did). We sang “Happy Birthday”, “Hava Nagila”, and a group of strange men vaulted Olivia and her chair into the sky as we celebrated some combination of her birth and her religion. The party room was living up to the hype.
While standing on my chair and waving my napkin to the Carbonara Carters’ hit single, “Get Up, Get Up, Get Up and Wave Your Napkin”, I took notice of a potential rift between our two entertainers. Although the entire room was bonding over karaoke hits and our raised glucose levels, I noticed that the connection between Racially-Ambiguous Johnny Cash and Pasta Abdul (individual stage names of the Carbonara Carters) was lacking. Their harmonies? Not locked in. Their sexual tension? Non-existent. Something was clearly brewing at the home of these Puglia performers (and it wasn’t the marinara sauce, because we suspected that to be from a jar).
My suspicion? While the Carbonara Carters have fallen out of love, they haven’t been able to part ways due to the cash cow that is their Jewish-themed Italian restaurant performance group. The steady paycheck, along with the smile of young professionals with (store-bought) marinara on their faces as they wave their napkins in the air, has been enough to keep these two rockstars together.
After my fifth piece of cheesy bread, I was stunned to see main courses of chicken parmesan and penne placed upon our table. I had been falsely informed that the meal was only appetizers, and was trying to get my money’s worth. It would have been foolish to pass up this opportunity, so I went in for a light helping. Two plates of pasta and three cannoli later, I finally called it quits. The night was capped with an encore performance by the Carbonara Carters – headlined by a “Ring of Fire” mashup as Racially Ambiguous Johnny Cash took it away on the keys.
As I walked to the subway, each step feeling heavier than usual, I reflected on a perfect night. It was one of those nights where I wouldn’t change a thing (except for the 3 seconds when the keyboard unplugged and Racially Ambiguous Johnny Cash was stuck in a panic singing an a cappella version of the Macarena). Well done, Puglia. Well done.
Oh, and I would’ve changed the sauce too. I would’ve gone with homemade sauce.