Sal’s, Chestnut St., Dunmore, PA

Sal’s is definitely a neighborhood Italian restaurant in an Italian town – or borough in this case. The walls are plastic-paneled, fake wood. The square tables are covered with table cloths, covered with glass, with paper placemats. It is all perfectly pleasant. The clientele is definitely blue collar, and everyone knows everyone. The single waitress seems like she is 80 years - old and spry – and knows everyone, or you think she does, and she calls everyone ‘honey’.
The spaghetti was pretty firm - what I would call middle of the road - and it was a fair sized portion. In trying to think of a description of the sauce, I kept thinking of ketchup. It had that consistency. Might even win a ketchup race – some watery stuff leaked out the bottom. The taste was – was there a taste? I don’t remember one. It was slightly sweet, and with no signs of meat or any other ingredient.
I got two and a half meatballs. The half fell apart. It was very bready and mushy, and there wasn’t enough firmness to hold itself together. I couldn’t find a taste here either. The next meatball was the same. The third was different. It didn’t have much taste, but it had firmness. It must have come from a different litter.
The side salad had lots of big ingredients – big (hard) piece of tomato, big cucumber slices, big croutons. The croutons I liked. They were, I think, squared bits of Italian bread, dipped quickly into the deep fat fryer – crisp slightly on the outside, but still soft on the inside. The creamy Italian dressing in the paper cup was sweet and syrupy and straight out of a bottle. The bread was Italian, really fresh and soft and sliced thick.
The wine was called Chianti, but the taste made me think it was homemade in someone’s cellar – not really allowed to age, but instead drink it soon.
The price - $9.95 ($7.50 for the entrée) plus tip.
Style/ Ambience **
Food **