Over the past 13 years, the midtown restaurant Moxie and I have had a love-hate relationship.

Almost without exception, dinner at Moxie has left me conflicted. Granted, my overall impression has been more positive than negative, but I've often left the restaurant with a nagging sense that with a bit more effort it could be so much better.

For the first time in four years, I returned recently to see if I could resolve my warring feelings once and for all.

Moxie could be easy to ignore, or at least overlook. It's small. It doesn't generate buzz. It's on a section of the midtown grid that doesn't get much pedestrian traffic.

If not for the brashness of its entertaining owners, I wonder if it would be anywhere near as popular as it is.

They're part of the love. Adam Chaccour and Bill Curren took their chances on what basically is a side-street boxcar and turned it into the kind of bistro that tourists in Paris love to stumble across when they give up trying to follow their guidebook to some temple of three-star gastronomy.

The street is dark. A yoga studio is on one side, contemporary in-fill housing on the other. Moxie's windows are foggy, the door discreet.

But when you pull it open and step inside, you're not so much in Paris as New York, in particular an aspiring neighborhood restaurant favored by men of uncertain means. Whenever I walk into Moxie, I can't help but flash back to the moment in "The Godfather" when Michael Corleone coolly plugs police Capt. Mark McCluskey right in his corrupt noggin.

What a great scene, and while Chaccour and Curren haven't pulled off any acts that dramatic, they do have a shtick to rivet the attention of diners.

And diners whose attention drifts when either Chaccour or Curren appears tableside run the risk of delaying if not losing one of the evening's more crucial plot developments.

In outlining to guests the evening's specials – and they are more numerous than the dishes on the set menu – Chaccour and Curren stubbornly refuse to go the route of other restaurants by printing a fresh sheet.

Instead, they launch a long and fast soliloquy about each dish, its ingredients and preparation, and price. If you remember the first dish after hearing of the last, you've been taking enough of that herb meant to improve your memory.

There are a few other quibbles I have with Moxie. The place can be stuffy. Red wines are served too warm. And a musty smell sometimes greets diners.

On the upbeat side, you know you are in for a good time the moment you walk in. The gregarious hosts have something to do with that, but so does the collection of vintage photos. They run to moody portraits of rebels, or at least icons of individuality – the Rolling Stones, Marilyn Monroe, Marlon Brando, Johnny Depp and Frank Sinatra, among others.

The photos, coupled with 1940s and 1950s music that ranges from the operatic to the jazzy, reminds you that Chaccour and Curren named the place Moxie out of admiration both for writer Damon Runyon's use of the term to describe a cocky New Yorker and for an old-time soft drink touted as a cure for everything from indigestion to insomnia.

Against this swashbuckling backdrop, executive chef Joe Kogel turns out a voluptuous and assertive style of Mediterranean and American cooking more traditional than modern.

Kogel, who grew up on the Micronesian island of Yap, came by his culinary training on the job. He's been with Moxie since it opened, starting as a dishwasher and working his way up to executive chef.

His simple one-page menu doesn't get the mouth salivating, unless you already are a fan of the meatloaf and mashed potatoes ($14), or the eggplant pomodoro ($19). There's also sauteed calf's liver with bacon and onions ($17), chicken parmesan ($22) and jambalaya ($22).

All we ordered from the menu were fatty and rich short ribs with an intensely fruity glaze ($10), and fat slices of grilled eggplant sensuously sweet, smoky and creamy, accented judiciously with feta cheese, onions and capers ($10).