What do you do when you have a hankering for North End red sauce Italian but don't want to deal with North End parking, prices and hit-or-miss quality? Our secret is to go to East Somerville on Broadway near Sullivan Square. You need to know the key, which is that an ordinary-looking Italian deli is also a front for a great Italian restaurant called Vinny's at Night.

And when we say front, we mean front. You actually enter through the deli with its glass display refrigerators and service counters and bright lighting.

In the evenings -- the "at Night" part -- a rear room is the sit-down place for fine pasta, red sauce and other delights. The room is cozy and the servers do well snaking between the tables and seats. It is wise to make a reservation or be prepared to wait in the deli area.

You can start your meal with a plate from their antipasti buffet table, which is an extra $10 with a meal and well worth it. The table has 10 to 15 items, which vary, but you will likely find dry salami, cheeses, olives, marinated mushrooms, arancini, cod cakes, grilled eggplant and stuffed pepper slices.

All are made in house and are very tasty. We usually order a salad to share, and they are meant to be shared. A house mesclun salad could be split with three to four people easily.

It has greens, sliced carrots, tomatoes, olives and hot peppers. It is unusual for a mesclun salad to have so many other ingredients. It comes with a nice balsamic vinaigrette. Unfortunately, they are a bit heavy handed in dressing the salad. We recommend that you ask for it on the side.

When it comes to the entrees and pastas, be warned -- you will be taking home some for lunch the next day. Very few finish the generous portions and the staff is well equipped and experienced in packing up leftovers to go.

There are a variety of pasta styles you can order, including a house made fresh fusilli. There are the usual popular dishes, such as chicken/veal parmesan, pasta with meatballs, sausage or shrimp, etc. -- pretty much what you expect from a red sauce place. The lasagna is very good and the size of a brick (we said the portions are large!).

The menu is extensive, including sautéed dishes, chicken, seafood and veal sections. Beef Braciole is a thin slice of beef stuffed with prosciutto and cheese and rolled up and, of course, served over pasta.

There are plenty of choices without pasta, including a delicious lamb osso buco -- a lamb shank braised with celery, onions, carrots and potatoes and served over risotto. Linda thought it was outstanding. There are also dishes with rabbit, ostrich as well as rack of lamb. To whet your appetite, check out the menu online to see the wide range of dishes.

The dessert menu is short and includes the ubiquitous tiramisu and cannoli. Desserts are individual sized and a good value.

We enjoyed the Tartufo which is a ball of dark chocolate ice cream, rolled in cocoa and chopped nuts. It was flavorful and excellent.

Uri has tried a peach ripieno, which is a frozen peach shell filled with peach sorbet. It was good, but we prefer Uri's homemade peach ices. Also available are orange and lemon ripieno.

There is street parking on Broadway, but you may need to park a block or two away to find a spot.

Call them for wait times or to make a reservation.

They have made a name change to Vinny's Ristorante, but it will always be known as Vinny's at Night to us. We give it three (out of four) stars.

Check out Groupon, LivingSocial, etc., for specials.

 Pricing $$ (on scale of 1 to 4 dollar signs)

 Monday - Saturday: lunch,  11 a.m.-3 p.m.; dinner,  4:30 - 10:30 p.m. Sunday open for dinner, 3 - 9 p.m. Deli open seven days,  6 a.m. - 8 p.m. Vinny's Ristorante, 76 Broadway, Somerville, MA 02145 || 617-628-1921

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Fusion Taste is a Chinese/Japanese restaurant conveniently located in Arlington Center at Broadway Plaza. Fourteen of us went there for the October Arlington List dinner, giving us a chance to try a wide range of dishes. Dinners at area restaurants by members of the email list have been a tradition since 1999.

The ambiance of the restaurant is welcoming, with several seating areas to accommodate larger parties. It has a full bar and, in general, the serving staff was friendly and provided good service to our party.

Uri started with hot-and-sour soup, which had a good balance of sour and heat, but was not remarkable. Linda ordered spring rolls, expecting the fresh style, but they were fried. Overcoming her disappointment, she tried some, but found them to be pretty ordinary.

Other members of our party ordered Crab Rangoon, egg drop soup and other appetizers. The general feeling was that everything was satisfactory, but nothing was really outstanding.

For main courses, most people ordered Chinese with one couple ordering sushi. They were very pleased with the quality of the sushi and the variety of the pieces.

Uri ordered Shredded Beef in Chili Sauce and found it to be under spiced. He requested chili oil, which brought up the heat level to his liking.

Linda ordered Sesame Chicken, which she liked, but, again, it was not up to her usual standards for Chinese fare. It was crispy and had an abundance of sesame seeds, but the sauce lacked flavor.

One woman ordered a salmon special with vegetables, whose sauce was overly sweet. Another man ordered a shrimp dish and commented that he found the shrimp to be mushy.

We felt the prices were average for Arlington; however, the overall value, given the fair quality of the food, was not good. Several people in our party agreed with our view that the food was just OK but not memorable.

Pricing $$ (on scale of 1 to 4 dollar signs)

Monday-Thursday, 11 a.m. - 10 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 11 a.m. - 11 p.m., Sunday, noon - 10 p.m. Fusion Taste Restaurant, 303 Broadway, Arlington, MA 02474; 781-641-2388

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My husband, Uri, and I had been planning a jaunt to il Casale in Belmont Center for some time. So it was with great excitement that we finally made it there last month. We had admired its sidewalk trattoria many times when walking by, but it was full, so we dined indoors. The ambiance is at once homey, vibrant and a little romantic.

The fresh potato bread was crusty on the outside, light on the inside. We ordered four Sfizi (little tastes). The semplice salad of mixed greens, gorgonzola fig jam and almonds was light and delightful.

The traditional meatballs with tomato ragu were tender and the ragu called for mopping with the potato bread. Calamaretti were perfectly fried calamari. One special was a seasonal caprese salad of tomatoes with mozzarella and basil. You couldn't get fresher summer flavors than that. For the main course, Linda had pan roasted trout that was infused with a citrus sauce. Uri ordered Spaghetti alla Carbonara, which consisted of a rich and flavorful sauce of egg yolk, guanciale and pecorino romano over al dente pasta.

He rarely orders it but would order it again here. We finished off the meal with a light peach cake that had a dense peach crust.

This was indeed a five-star dining experience. We agreed that each mouthful of whatever we were eating was among the finest Italian cuisine we've ever enjoyed. Il Casale is on the pricy side but the quality, flavor and value are worth it. Service was attentive but not overbearing.

Dante de Magistris is the chef and co-owner of il Casale, well as Restaurant dante in Cambridge. In April 2009 il Casale opened in an former firehouse in Belmont Center. Il Casale is a joint affair of Dante and his brothers Damian and Filippo. It combines their expertise in food, wine and stellar service. The brothers were raised in Belmont, and as an interesting twist of fate when they were children, firefighters from this very location responded to a blaze in their home.

Il Casale's menu is a blend of the de Magistris ancestral family recipes highlighting modern techniques and the finest ingredients for an amazing result.

You can order Sfizi (small tastes), Primi (appetizers), Secondi (entrees), Contorni (sides) and Dolce (dessert), allowing one to create the perfect meal. We found that it enabled us to have small tastes of many different offerings. We look forward to going back with a larger group so we can try a broader selection of the menu. In this way, one can recreate the family dining experience that the brothers learned from their grandmother.

Pricing $$$ (on scale of 1 to 4 dollar signs)

Monday through Saturday, 4:30-11 p.m.; Sunday, 4:30-10 p.m. Sfizi menu available at bar after 9:30 p.m. 617-209-4942; il Casale, 50 Leonard St., Belmont, MA 02478 Website