Special of the day: nightlife
The Centre Deli in Dedham is a homegrown Cinderella story. By day, it's your ordinary delicatessen, serving up sandwiches and salads to those on the run. By night -- at least Wednesday through Saturday -- it is transformed into Deli After Dark. Those glass cases with sodas and juices are covered with a black curtain; a bartender appears; new menus materialize; three flat-screen TVs come alive with sports; and couples and families linger at tables over appetizers, entrees, and desserts.
The change is seamless; if you went in at night, you'd scarcely realize that Deli After Dark is a plainer Jane during the day. But the spot, which has been in the Caruso family since 1959, has undergone many transformations over the years, according to Ernie Caruso, 52, whose parents bought it nearly 50 years ago. It started out as a meat market and grocery store; Ernie, his siblings, and "all the nieces and nephews" have worked here over the years. He and brothers Anthony and Carl and nephew Matthew Cawley now run things, with a young niece at the cash register. Some of the dishes are named after family, too.
Memorial Day weekend, the entire family got together and renovated the place, putting in new floors, adding the bar and TVs, and painting the walls a warm coral, with small white lights twinkling along the wainscoting. There are several high-top tables and some longer ones over which ceiling fans rotate lazily. The result is a dining room that resembles the casual bar area of a restaurant.
"Family is cheap labor," says Ernie, who grinds and cuts the specialty meats himself, a skill he learned long ago from his father.
Whatever he and the others are doing in the kitchen, it works. It's clear they know the restaurant business, from the menu to cooking and serving. When you sit down, the waiter brings out garlicky, buttery pita chips served in a colorful ceramic flower pot.
Start with Kimmie's shrimp skewers ($7.95), eight fresh, plump shrimp grilled with a tad of ranch/Dijon sauce that has a sweet-and-sour tang to it. The chicken wings ($7.95) come three ways: We ordered honey mustard. They came nicely glazed and piping hot, with a chunky blue cheese dressing on the side. For dinner, we tried PaPa's Pesto Ravioli ($9.95), which consisted of several large orbs nicely stuffed with ricotta and drizzled with a pesto sauce. Though the pasta was cooked to just the right tenderness, the ricotta cheese was bland, and we could have used more sauce with added oomph -- but maybe PaPa was more health conscious than we are.
A better choice is Kat's butternut-squash ravioli ($10.95), with a light Alfredo sauce that carried a hint of nutmeg and lots of toasted walnuts. The Asian-noodle chicken salad ($9.95) was a colorful and flavorful dish: grilled chicken served over cold noodles with a sweetish sauce and bits of diced peppers and carrots.
The flatbread pizzas are popular here, and for good reason: They're wicked good. The crust is almost cracker-thin, and the one we got -- Carney's Meat Mop ($7.95) -- was really loaded with pepperoni, sausage, and hamburger, with onions and mushrooms to assuage the guilt. The Buffalo Willie Pizza ($7.95) is fun and tasty, with buffalo chicken, red onion, and cheddar and blue cheeses.
The service here is like the restaurant itself: friendly and casual. When a slice of our pizza slid off the tray in the kitchen, our waiter brought us the pizza minus the piece, and soon brought out another half pizza for us.
Deli After Dark hasn't forgotten its daytime identity: It also offers sandwiches and salads. There are only two desserts on the menu: chocolate tornado cake and cheesecake (both $4.95). But both times we dined there, they were out. We'll be back for dessert, and for NaNa's Sunday Classic ($8.95), the Caruso matriarch's meatballs and sauce. We're anxious to see how it stacks up against PaPa's Pesto Ravioli. 