Family rules

"Can we get two orders of garlic bread to start?" Luis asked the waiter.

"You hafta place the whole order at once," the waiter, Lou, said, only half-apologetically. "Those are the rules."

Before you step foot in Sam's, a no-frills, no-nonsense Italian restaurant in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, you can't say you weren't warned about The Rules. They're posted right there on the windows and the doors.

No Tank Tops.
No Strollers.
No Peddlers.

No fuckin' kiddin'.

Of the five of us, only Jenn had been to Sam's before. For me, it was more like being in being in my Uncle Gus's basement at Christmas, which is not a bad thing. My family thinks a great meal is Pizzeria Uno or Outback, and their idea of spice is salt. When we eat Italian, we usually end up playing What's Under The Cheese? And usually the cheese should stand alone.

It was Number One Steve's birthday, and he was counting on me to think of a real Brooklyn place to go. Sadly, there aren't many left, at least many that have Brooklyn charm and good food. Lundy's in Sheepshead Bay used to be The Place to go for seafood, but its reincarnation is not quite as good. Monte's would have been a good choice, but often you need reservations. I didn't think of Sam's because it looks foreboding from the outside, but I've always been intrigued by the inside. Since Jenn and Steve live two blocks from Sam's and it was raining, it was the perfect place to go.

With its step-down entrance, post-Depression-era cobalt facade, and windows advertising STEAKS, CHOPS, and BRICK OVEN, Sam's looks like the rest of the neighborhood was built around it.

On a rainy night, or any night, really, wood paneling and fluorescent lighting is not the most uplifting decor. The inside, with banquettes, looks like a Knights of Columbus hall. The phone booth near our table has a big taped "X" and a sign warning "NO PHONE." In case you need to call 911.

Clearly I forgot where I was when I asked Lou, a middle-aged Italian guy sporting a medallion, to recommend a red wine.

He thrust one hand up with four fingers pressed together. "Madonn, what kinda wine you think we serve here?" he asked, in a distinctly Brooklyn manner that means both "Ain't Gallo from a jug good enough for you?" and "Fuckin' Yuppie scum, go back to Manhattan."

"OK," I said, in my own Brooklyn manner. "Just bring me whatever you have."

The menu consists of your typical American Italian fare: antipasto, pasta, veal, chicken, seafood. Parmigiana, scarpariello, scallopine, rollatini. Inside the menu is a box that reads, "If your wife can't cook, don't divorce her--eat at Sam's." Oh, and one more thing: No substitutions.

The garlic bread came. Each basket had a whole loaf of Italian bread cut into slices, each slice topped with an entire clove of garlic chopped up. "Youse are all friends, right?" Lou said. We all nodded and tittered like high school kids.

Jenn and Steve's friend Elena had once ordered the garlic bread at Sam's and asked if they could go easy on the garlic.

"Eh," Lou said, knowing he had an entertained audience, "do I come to your fuckin' kitchen and tell you how to fuckin' make your garlic bread?" This is what non-Brooklynites expect from New York Italians, from Tony Soprano to Tony Danza. As Luis pointed out, at some point the line between shtick and reality at Sam's became blurred.

Luis and I each ordered the chicken parmigiana. It was as big as Texas but shaped more like Tennessee, a layer of mozzarella sandwiched between two chicken cutlets that had been pounded into ginormous, ultrathin slices and took up a whole dinner plate. It did look tasty, though.

A while later, Lou came back to the table to check on us. "Eh," he said to Steve, who was the first to finish, "we close at 10:30. Think you can be done by then?" It was 9:00 p.m.

Steve looked at his empty plate, missing the sarcasm. "But I am done."

"I know," said Lou, "you inhaled that. Your friends here, they know how to enjoy their food."

Elena recounted that when she ordered pizza with mushrooms, Lou said, "See that old woman?" He pointed to an old Italian woman sitting on a rocking chair way in the back.

"Yes," Elena said.

"Well, she spent three hours making those mushrooms, so you better like 'em." During another meal, Lou tried to get one of Elena's visiting friends from Louisiana, a gun enthusiast, to buy a firearm from him. "If I bring one more gun into the house my wife is gonna kill me," Lou said.

Even Andrew Dice Clay couldn't script this material.

Halfway through the parm I was full. I hadn't eaten much all day, and the chicken was delicious, but I couldn't eat any more. Lou came by to inspect.

"Youse are all gonna finish that, right?" he said, channeling his Italian mamma.

"Oh, sure, sure, yes," we all mumbled wearily, all so full we couldn't eat any more. I started portioning out my remaining chicken to everyone so Lou wouldn't whack me.

"Eh, Tony," Lou yelled, "make sure there's no doggie bags at this table."

"Sure thing," Tony called from the back, where he was possibly already dealing with someone who had left something on his plate.

"Aww, look," said Jenn, "there's a giant photo of a cat on the wall." The photo was blown up two or three times the size of a normal cat.

Lou heard her as he was walking by. "That's Thomasina. She runs the place."

If Thomasina is as big in real life as she is in the photo, I've no doubt she runs the place.

We didn't stay for coffee and dessert. I have a feeling we would have exploded into one big garlicky mass.

Steve got his birthday wish. Sam's is a true Brooklyn restaurant. It's a neighborhood place with Brooklyn "charm" and decent food. My family would approve. And in Brooklyn, being treated like a member of the family is the highest honor you can attain.