Miracle Mile's Little Pleasure

With a great sense of anticipation, we dug into our dinner salads Friday night at Nick & Pedro's restaurant on Northern Boulevard in Manhasset.

Since it had been a long year between visits, we went hoping that the salads were as good as always. Bingo.

While Nick & Pedro's has a full Italian menu, with the requisite grilled calamari and linguini with clam sauce, it is about the only place within miles around that serves more than a dozen dinner salads, most in the $20 range. This one was called the Mediterranean, and was loaded with fabulous grilled shrimp, hearts of palm, artichoke hearts, roast peppers, peas, tomatoes, cucumber, olives and avocado. I squeezed lemon over it and a little olive oil and my weekend was off to a running start. My husband's salad was also piled high with vegetables and topped with a thin layer of grilled salmon, crispy in all the right places.

The next two days were spent eating low-end catering food at a family affair in New Jersey, so I was wistful for N&P through Sunday night.

Nick & Pedro's is at 1496 Northern Blvd., Manhasset, 516-365-6930.