Tiro A Segno, New York Rifle Club, New York, N.Y.

Ian and I started our New York visit yesterday with a business luncheon. The Chamber of Commerce where Ian volunteers every week was hosting its annual "Safe Cities, Safe Communities" luncheon, giving out "Cop of the Year" awards to NY policemen (and women) from several precincts. They had it at the distinguished and exclusive New York Rifle Club, home of the oldest private Italian dining club in the country, Tiro A Segno. It was interesting being in such a clubby dining room, knowing there was a rifle shooting range in the basement below us!

There was no salad or antipasti course, so they started directly with penne rigate with marinara sauce as a first course. Bowls of grated cheese were on the tables for people to pass.


For the second course, they brought some tender and delicious veal piccata, with roasted new potatoes and some green beans in a garlic sauce. The things with the green beans that look like almond slices in the picture are actually slices of garlic.


Bottles of PoggioPiano Rosso di Beppe Chianti 2005 were on the tables. I thought it was a very pleasant chianti that was both light and full of flavor and complexity. I noticed a couple other tables had wine buckets with white white of some sort; I don't know if white wine was a general option or if those tables paid extra money for those bottles.

Dessert was an interesting adventure. Waiters brought large bowls of fresh fruit and platters of Italian cookies and confections that were there to be passed and shared by the table. The confections included biscotti, something like madeleines dipped in chocolate sprinkles, tri-color slices of cookies, thumbprints filled with apricot preserves, and some interesting puffy cookies coated in pine nuts. The fruit bowl included pears, apples, strawberries, grapes, and what the Sicilians call "Indian figs" but what we Americans know as the fruit of a prickly pear cactus. I had to have a prickly pear. They'd done a good job of getting ripe ones, and it was delicious.

Some nice coffee was served after the desserts. It smelled almost like an espresso.

The service at the club was excellent. There were plenty of waiters, they were all well-trained, friendly, and professional, and they were always patrolling their tables to keep water carafes filled and to replace silverware as required.