Profile

The restaurant on the second floor of a gargantuan Off Track Betting venue is as close as midtown gets to vintage Las Vegas, right down to the frumpy shrimp cocktails, bad carpeting, and scrappy old-timers trying to stretch their social security checks. In lieu of slot machines, televisions at almost every table broadcast track and harness racing from Aqueduct to Australia—and basic cable, too. Excepting the occasional episode of homestretch Tourette’s or the Triple Crown mobs, the dreary teal-toned space, barely brightened by some flowers and watercolors of stable scenes, is a respite from the miasma downstairs. The smattering of regulars shun well-intending but bland grub such as a buttery appetizer of Portobello mushroom and sautéed spinach, heaping pasta plates, and a combo that pairs shrimp drowned in garlic and lemon with a broiled sirloin steak that tastes like liverwurst. Instead they pour over programs at the modest bar or shuffle from booth to betting machine, grumbling or wise-cracking about what might have been and what might yet be. — Daniel Maurer

There is a $5 admission for the restaurant with a $15 minimum at the tables/bar. But unlike the downstairs OTB which imposes a surcharge, the upstairs has betting prices akin to those at the track.

Chicken fettuccine, $16.95