Library Journal

Rao's is a New York City institution, a tiny, family-owned Italian restaurant in East Harlem that has attracted national attention and a celebrity clientele. But most of its ten tables (they added two tables to the original eight after the restaurant had been in business for 99 years) are reserved, in perpetuity, for regulars, many of whom have been eating there once a week for decades-so a jar of Rao's Homemade Tomato Sauce is the closest most people will ever come to the restaurant's fare. But here are the simple, classic recipes that 80-year-old "Auntie" Annie and the other cooks make every weekday: Seafood Salad, Baked Clams Oreganate, Pappardelle with Hot Sausage Sauce. Scattered throughout are quotes from devoted fans -- some famous, some "from the neighborhood"and lots of photographs. For area libraries and other larger collections.