Business & Tech

Pasta Con Sarde from Ferdinando's

This dishes flavors were magical.

is so unassuming, it's almost impossible to predict what goes on behind those doors.

Yes, photographs of Martin Scorsese, Leonardo DiCaprio and Sean Penn are in the window, and Italian scenes line the walls inside, but what does that really mean?

And yet, on Union Street near Columbia Street, is one of the greatest restaurants in Brooklyn. Open sice 1904, it's incredible.

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The flavors are so special and the ingredients so fresh, and the menu boasts classics like fried calamari (delicious) and meatball parm, but also interesting and less widely known dishes like tripe, vastedda (spleen) and, the mother of all dishes, pasta con sarde.

A base of spaghetti, tossed with a delightful sauce of sardines, fennel, pignolis, raisins and spices, the pasta con sarde is a masterpiece. It is at once fishy and salty, spicy and rich, woody and earthy. It's not unheard of to taste one flavor, and another, and another, in one bite. This is comfort food at its best.

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