Noodles first came to prominence in the Italian navy, where they were used as rations, rigging, and whips for punishing mild infractions such as correcting the captain's pronunciation of "foliage." Eschew the wet-noodle floggings with today’s Groupon: for $10, you get $20 worth of dinner and drinks at Seventh Street Cafe, located in the heart of Garden City’s Seventh Street shopping area.

Seventh Street Cafe’s dinner menu boasts a bountiful array of Northern Italian cuisine in shades of chicken, veal, seafood, and pasta. Feasting pregamers can start cold with lemon-laden poached jumbo shrimp paired with a spicy cocktail sauce ($10) or warm with the portabella trifolato, a grilled portobello mushroom garnished with caramelized sweet onion and asparagus, then dressed in a dignified balsamic reduction ($10). For the main feature, the pollo valdostana tells the story of prosciutto and mozzarella rooming together inside a lightly breaded boneless chicken breast, and how a flood of wild-mushroom sauce helps them overcome their differences ($21). Vegetarians, however, can abide by their uneasy cease-fire with cows with a heaping plate of rigatoni campagnola dotted with eggplant, zucchini, and fresh ricotta cheese ($13).

Within Seventh Street Cafe's dining areas, decorative fireplaces pair with ivory walls and marble pillars for an elegant Old World atmosphere. On sun-drenched days, the café's outdoor patio gives old friends and comically mismatched buddy cops a bright meeting space where they can do a little postprandial people watching.