Portofino — Restaurant in Town of Huntington

A decent pizza and hero place but be warned: stay away from the Fettuccini Alfredo (read: they do not know how to make it and, if it is offered on the menu it should be removed immediately). NOTE: If you are looking for only pizza, walk the 2.2 minutes north on NY Ave to the corner at 25A and eat at Little Vincent's Pizza. All they serve is pizza - and it is good.

Back to the "fettuccini alfredo"... What was in the plastic take-out dish last night was basically this: fettuccini and a truck load of butter, and, I think, another fatty substance - possibly margarine (??) that, once cooled, congealed into large school-bus yellow clumps that cemented the pasta together in a large gnarled mess. No flavoring, not even so much as a sprinkling of dried or real parsley for color. It was completely gross. Why I did not march back in and say something: Saturday night during holiday season, parking and traffic are both a bear to wrangle. The 10 minute drive home and 10 minutes back, plus 20 to find another parking spot were not worth the time and effort. I was disappointed enough and knew better than to waste time which likely would have resulted in further frustrations.

Either the chef is a total fake who was never properly vetted during his interview process or the owner/management never checks to see if items are being prepared properly.

Fettuccine alfredo is one of those dishes that is so easy it was stunning how completely awful their version is! Of course, when the ingredients are primarily butter, cream, cheese, and pasta, it's extremely hard to go wrong - but they did. Gross doesn't begin to cover it. Those yellow congealed lumps of whatever-that-was were the last thing I saw before throwing the entire order into the kitchen garbage.

No creamy, pale cheese sauce made of cream, cheese and butter clinging to the pasta. The pasta was, although cooked to al dente perfection, swimming in butter/margarine/lard. And that's it. No salt, pepper, no garlic, no nothing.

So, if they actually read these reviews to pat themselves on the back or use as a means of improving their business, here is an excellent, easy, recipe for Fettuccini Alfredo. (Let's hope they use it.)

Fettuccine Alfredo Serves 4-6 as a main course

1 pound fettuccine 8 tablespoons (4 oz/1 stick) unsalted butter 1 cup heavy cream 2 cups (6 oz) shredded Parmesan cheese Salt Black pepper

Bring a large pot of water to boil. Add a tablespoon of salt and cook the fettuccine until al dente, 6-8 minutes. Scoop out one cup of the starchy pasta cooking water and set it aside.

While the pasta is cooking, get your sauce situation in order. Cut the butter into several big pieces and combine it with the cream in a small saucepan. Warm it over medium heat just until the butter has melted and the cream is hot to the touch, 3-5 minutes. Sprinkle about half of the Parmesan cheese in the bottom of your serving dish.

Pour the pasta, just drained and still warm, into the serving dish with the cheese. Pour the warm cream-and-butter mixture over the top and begin tossing the pasta with tongs. (And, if your dish is not big enough, transfer the pasta back into the cooking pot to toss it with the sauce.) Sprinkle the remaining cheese over the top and continue tossing until all the cheese is melted and the pasta is uniformly coated with sauce. Taste and add salt and pepper as desired.

If the sauce seems very thick, add 1/4 - 1/2 cup of pasta cooking water to loosen it up. You can also add a little of the pasta cooking water to revive the pasta if it's been standing for too long and has started looking grainy.

Serve immediately. Have a pepper mill on hand for freshly cracked pepper.

Leftovers will keep for about a week. The sauce will separate on reheating; stirring a little more cream into the re-warmed noodles will help bring it together...

I’m going to start off by sayingThis place was so awful. I would give it zero stars, but it doesn’t let me. The customer service was absolutely atrocious. They catered strictly to their catering orders and left the people who had month-long reservations stranded with no food sitting in the dining room for multiple hours. Me and my family came to this destination to enjoy a nice Christmas Eve dinner but instead we waited two hours for nothing we kept on being reassured that our food would be out soon but after two hours, we had to get up and leave because we were so done. I have a very diverse family with senior citizens and young children and when I tell you, nobody was happy we were all miserable. The waiters were extremely rude and did not consider the guests on the premises. I don’t understand why everything took so long because there were not even that many people in the restaurant cause so many people had got up and walked out. After two hours, the foods for the kids and our family were delivered, but after 2 1/2 hours, no foods for the adult had come to the table and we were getting extremely antsy and had the urge to exit the premises. My daughter‘s food was cold and my other daughter‘s spaghetti was as hard as a rock. Now my family does not have food on Christmas Eve after looking forward to a nice dinner that we had reserved for months. The restaurant also was very hot and I felt like I was getting sick due to the poor environment. We saw workers fighting with each other and it was stressing everybody out because we all just wanted to relax and have a nice dinner. The head chef exited the premises through the back exit, and everybody was concerned and mad because we are all waiting for our food. If you think about trying this place think again because it’s not like you will even be able to try it due to the long waiting. This is the worst restaurant experience I’ve had in my whole...

Omg- horrible-we go out to dinner often - this was our second time here, both times recommended by these same friends.first time just ok- remember the wine not being good-same friends recommend the muscles so we went back with friends.big mistake - the host was also our waiter- he was to say the least preoccupied. The busboy might not speak English but just smiled and shook his head yes to everything.-The muscles were the most disgusting thing I have ever and I mean ever put into my mouth. And when we told the waiter , his response was yeah- the big muscles aren’t good!!!! What!!!!???? Ok so maybe don’t offer them!!!!!!???? The bottle of wine we ordered was taken off the bill by our waiter as a courtesy but he never told us he was doing that to make things better ,which I find odd. The busboy was removing our plates as we were still eating our other entrees and extending his arm across our plates .I do not blame the staff-but I do blame the owner for poor management. I will NEVER, EVER ,EVER go back here again not even for a slice of pizza- the only thing I can think of is that maybe they changed ownership ??? Also- our tip did not reflect in the bad food or poor service - somethings are out of the control of the waitstaff . Shame on the owners here - you lost a customer and countless others that I talk to that...