Hungry Travels

My first introduction to fra diavolo came from my dad many years ago at a little restaurant in Yorktown.  The name escapes me at the moment, but the building, which looks like a windmill, is still there on Crompond Rd.  My dad would order the shrimp fra diavolo, and while the sauce was a bit too spicy for my kid palate, I remember all of us eagerly sopping up the extra sauce with bread.  It was heavenly: garlicky, hot and infused with flavor from the shrimp.

My dad would love the Mega Mussels Linguini I ate last weekend in Long Beach. Some friends and I were at The Whale’s Tale, one of the many restaurants that dot Beech Ave, the main drag in town.  It doesn’t look like much from the outside — kind of like your typical dive bar.  Looks can be deceiving.

My friend Phoebe’s fiance Steve asked if I liked seafood.

“LOVE seafood,” I answered.

“The mussels linguini are awesome,” he said. “The sauce is spicy, kind of like a fra diavolo.”

Fra diavolo… Ding!  Cue the Pavlov’s Dog reaction.  That was easy  – I had no more use for the menu.

But first, a cup of New England clam chowder. (And yes, it’s the middle of a hellaciously hot summer and I ordered chowder.)

As a snobby New Englander, I tend to look down on New Yorkers’ attempts at making our chowder, but I’ve gotta give props where props are due: this was excellent. It was chunky, the creaminess was spot-on, and the flavor of briny clams unmistakable.

And here’s the Mega Mussels Linguini (a very reasonable $14), which I requested to be “extra spicy.”

You can’t even see the linguini under that mountain of mussels, but it’s there, along with a tomato sauce that had a definite kick to it.  Just right, not too much.  The linguini itself was a hair overcooked; more than made up for though with that great sauce and the generous portion of mussels.

We had a basket of garlic bread on the table, and I used the last few pieces to scoop up the extra sauce.

Never mind that I was sweating now like I’d just run a race.  No matter. If you’ve got to sweat a little for a spicy fra diavolo, then so be it.

The Whale’s Tale
916 W Beech St.
Long Beach, NY
516-432-9587