“So where we gonna go?”

Mason looks up from his IPA, stares at the ceiling for a second.

“We could hit Lupa, been a while.”

It has. The place has been my favorite restaurant in the city for as long as I can remember. I’ve probably eaten 10 birthday dinners there, most of them with Mason. It’s been a while cause lives change, He’s got kids and a wife, I got a kid…had a wife…but anyway.

We know what we’re doing when it comes to dining at the Roman restaurant where I’ve taken countless dates, including the 2nd date with my former wife, where she claims that the testa (aka head cheese, but nothing like the freaky looking stuff that hung next to the Oscar Meyer bologna in the supermarkets, we used to point at with looks of disgust and horror on our little food-naive faces) was the catalyst for her falling in love with me. She also instantly put it on her list of the Top Five Best Things She’s Ever Tasted.

As we exit the Blind Tiger onto Bleeker Street and fumble for cigarettes, we instantly begin planning our eating strategy, “We getting the usual?”

“Well, I mean we have to get the ricotta gnocchi, obviously”

“Of course, but what about the saltimbocca?”

“Hmmm, yeah, we kinda have to…and the hazelnut tartufo, of course”

We make our way through the dingy West Village streets, images of the flavors dancing in our heads in anticipation.

As we turn onto Thompson Street, I mention, “You know the testa’s not on the menu anymore.” He drops his diminished American Spirit on the ground and crushes it with a spiral stomp. “Yeah, I know you told me, you don’t remember? You called me horrified. I think you were weeping.”

“Yeah, it was a tough day.”

We arrive to a surprisingly near empty restaurant. There was a time when you didn’t even dream of walking into Lupa without a rez, maybe you could squeeze in at the bar if you’re lucky and it’s like 3pm. We’re seated at a bad table, right on the expressway between the service bar and the kitchen. I start to complain, to insist on a better table but Mason shushes me, he knows how I can get and he’s not drunk enough to absorb the embarrassment.

We peruse the familiar menu, even though we know what we’re getting, the opener used to alway be the meat board, freshly sliced prosciutto and speck, finocchiona, maybe bresaola, lingua, sometimes coppa with of course the testa, that always came on a separate place, warmed so you could wipe the fatty goodness with a practiced, skillfully controlled swipe that ended with a flick of the wrist to keep the stuff on side facing heaven. Oh, the rosemary focaccia…..always warm, served with good olive oil in a little monkey dish on the side. Light, yet rich, always warm and soft. Really, the perfect vehicle for anything, especially the testa. But alas, no more testa, I can only pine.

The focaccia arrives and we both order our respective carafinas of wine. I reach for the bread and am shocked at the touch. It’s cold. And hard. Could this be? Is it like…yesterday’s focaccia? I’m suspicious, what’s going on here? We skip the meat board, cause, I mean the lingua and speck is great, but the whole thing would just be reminding us of how much we miss the testa, it would be depressing…oh testa, why have you left us? We order an escarole salad and the citrus-marinated olives to start. After, we will share an order of the ricotta gnocchi with sausage and fennel, one of my favorite dishes on earth, followed by the saltimbocca with escarole and white wine, a dish that is also up there on that list. We’ll split that one too.

The olives are amazing, meaty, varying in style, big red ones, little green ones, soft and briny brown ones that releases its pit with the the most subtle squeeze between the tongue and roof of the mouth. The escarole salad is fine. I’m just eating it to get to the gnocchi, really.

The gnocchi arrives, on one plate. I look at mason.

“What the fuck? They always split it onto two separate plates, we said we were sharing, right?”

“Yeah”

“Then what the fuck?”

“Dude, let’s just split it up, c’mon, count them.”

I began the survey, making sure we split evenly, I mean c’mon, this is Lupa’s ricotta gnocchi with sausage and fennel we’re talking about here. Did I mention how much I love the light, fluffy, delectable, little pillows of heaven? Glazed with and nestled in that incredible roasted-tomatoey, sausage-fennel puree. I can’t even eat gnocchi anywhere else, never was able to after tasting this. It ruined me. After conducting a stringent inventory and dividing the goods. I cut one in half with the side of my fork, that was when the first sign of trouble struck me. It didn’t feel right. I know “the feel” and this wasn’t it. Even though they are small enough to eat in a single bite, I always cut each one in half, just to double the amount of times that I get to savor that flavor, savor that fluffy, slightly cheesy feel on my tongue. Please, no. Not this. Screw me on the focaccia, I guess I can live with that, but not my gnocchi. It…it felt like one of those dense, doughy little nuggets that most places somehow get away with calling gnocchi.

Mason looked up.

“Dude, is that a tear rolling down your face?”

I sniffled, “No…., why?”

Luckily, the sausage-fennel puree was still tasty, so I got through them. But it was too late, my world was crushed, never to be the same. By the time I got to the last three or so, I didn’t even cut them in half, I just shoved them in. I thought, What’s the use? 

We had been finished for, I don’t know…like 20 minutes when I finally had to ask for our next course. Keep in mind it was early and it was dead, I mean there may have been three other tables in there, so I can’t imagine, unless our server just sucked and neglected to fire our next course and was paying us no mind. The Lupa I remember, as you were finishing a course, just as you were reaching out to nudge the plate that like, half-inch to signify that you want it gone, someone was taking your plate and like magic, behind that person was another with your next course in their hands and a smile on their face. And this was when they were packed, with people milling around outside waiting.

The saltimbocca arrived. That beautiful veal cutlet pounded flat as a pancake, draped with the prosciutto, crispy. It seamlessly becomes part of the veal cutlet, I’ve never been sure how they do it. It’s like they created a new animal, a kind of cutlet-prosciutto hybrid. All perfectly pounded together, nice and flat, slightly larger than a yamaka and smaller than a frisbee with two leaves of sage, somehow embedded into the top, like a cartel’s stamp on a kilo of cocaine, under a dusting of something (flour, maybe?) that allows the whole surface to be delightfully crispy. Hiding underneath is a pile of garlicky escarole to cleanse the palate between salty bites. Thankfully they got it right. I’ve been eating this dish for years, had it countless times and it was just as good as it’s ever been.

We finished up and looked at each other. We didn’t say it right away, but we were both thinking: Things have changed. Lupa had changed, New York has changed, the world has changed, our lives had changed….but damn it, why did the world have to fuck with our ricotta gnocchi with sausage and fennel?? We didn’t even order the hazelnut tartufo. Defeated, we asked for the check.

Outside we lit a joint and walked towards Washington Square Park and considered getting dessert somewhere or another drink, but did neither. It was cold and Mason had to get home to greet his wife and take care of his kids and I had to make my way towards Grand Central. To get back to my new, changed life. As we walked towards our respective subway stations, Mason asked, “Where are we gonna go on your birthday now?”

I didn’t have an immediate answer…I pondered.

“I dunno, at this point I’m just happy to reach another each year.”

“Yeah, I hear ya, man, catch ya later.”

“Yea, brutha, good seeing you”

I went down the stairs at my familiar, old West 4th St. station and pulled my wallet out to fetch my Metrocard as others were simply tapping their phones onto a new screen-thing on the turnstiles for entry. I walked down the long ramp, past that guy who kinda plays the guitar with that little amp, a coffee can on the side with a couple crumpled dollar bills in it and past the guy laying, passed-out in an impossible position on the ground and I get to the platform to wait for the train. Something catches my eye and I look down to the tracks and see a rat struggling to drag a half-eaten slice of pizza alongside the third rail. Well, I thought, I guess not everything changes.