For sports fanatics, Mickey Mantle's is nirvana. Patrons hoist brews and chomp on burgers, buy sports-oriented souvenirs at the gift shop, watch games on the many televisions, and peruse the mini-museum of sports memorabilia that is the core of Mickey Mantle's.In the rear, diners sit in leather booths and at bare tables surrounded by autographed pictures and paintings of the Mick, the Babe, and Joe D. There's also a scale model of Yankee Stadium, game jerseys, cartoons, and even gym shoes. Basketball, boxing, football, and hockey collectibles also abound.
But Mickey Mantle reigns supreme at the place that bears his name. His full-page color photo is on the front of every menu, and his number "7" adorns the back of waiter's shirts and the chairs.
That menu is just what you'd expect from a restaurant named for a Yankee icon who was a good ol' boy from down Oklahoma way. Hearty, blunt, bountiful portions of stick-to-your-ribs vittles are appropriately the order of the day, and the dishes to order. Diners sit beside a wall-size panoramic photo of Yankee Stadium while devouring the likes of Buffalo chicken wings, pigs-in-a-blanket, southern fried chicken fingers, chili, chicken-fried steak, blackened cowboy steak, and southern pecan pie.
A quartet of lead-off batters went four-for-four: guacamole and snappy salsa fresca came with a pile of crisp, multi-colored chips; a hefty chicken quesadilla was packed with caramelized onions, olives, sour cream, and Monterey Jack cheese; the fried calamari was airy-light; and best of all were Hebrew National pigs-in-a-blanket. Why more restaurants haven't made these all-time cocktail-party favorites regular appetizers is beyond me.
Plump, meaty Texas barbecue and hickory-smoked ribs (and plenty of them), along with jalapeño baked beans, corn on the cob, and a buttermilk biscuit, were the heavy hitters at entrée time, while a faithful rendition of chicken-fried steak with mashed potatoes and some down-home creamy gravy ran a close second. A generous sliced New York strip steak was both tasty and tender, and a toasted New England lobster club sandwich held substantial chunks of lobster meat.
When the sweets arrived, a super-bowl sundae -- with three protruding brownies, beaucoup whipped cream, fruit, and ice cream-lived up to its name. So, too, did a towering New York cheese cake, properly dubbed "classic," a better-than-ordinary apple crisp, and a spectacular "I love chocolate cake" complete with chocolate chips and a rich, fudgy frosting.
42 Central Park South (59th St. btw. Fifth & Sixth Aves.), 212-688-7777; www.mickeymantles.com
Richard Jay Scholem was a restaurant critic for the New York Times Long Island Section for 14 years. His A La Carte Column appeared from 1990 to 2004. For more "Taste of the Town" reviews, click here.
