Tonight, I was supposed to make grilled flank steak stuffed with basil and Prosciutto with a red wine reduction, but I forgot to marinade the steak, so we had to figure out what to do for dinner. I was enticed to Little Italy because of the picture of their hand tossed Margherita pizza on the home page of their website, shown here:
I should have just hung up the phone when I had to explain to the girl what a Margherita pizza is. For those of you who don't know, it has a very thin crust, light sauce, thick slices of Mozzarella, a few tomato slices and whole fresh basil leaves. My husband and I both spent some time in Naples, Italy (where pizza originated) and we basically lived off Margherita pizza. So here is what we ordered and prices:
*Eggplant Parmesan - $9.50* The eggplant parmesan was ok, but way too small of a portion. I prefer my eggplant to be sliced very thin, and baked rather than fried. I also only got one small slice of eggplant. It was about 3 inches in diameter and an inch thick. The sauce was no doubt a canned variety that you could buy at Costco. What really upset me about the dish is that instead of some nice, gooey, melty Mozzarella cheese, they put one slice of Provolone sandwich cheese! The cheese was not even melted.
*Chicken Parmesan - $9.50* The chicken parmesan was just plain BAD, and again too small of a portion. The chicken was just a chicken patty that was fried. It was essentially like eating one large and over cooked chicken nugget, covered in marinara. The patty was about 3 inches in diameter and about 1/4 inch thick. My husband actually had to use a steak knife to cut his chicken. It also had the same canned sauce and unmelted sandwich cheese.
*House Salad - included with both dinners* It was the same cheap, bagged salad that you would buy at the grocery store. It had iceburg lettuce, red cabbage, carrots, fresh tomato slices and croutons. Iceburg lettuce has absolutely no nutritional value or flavor. Romaine lettuce should always be used in salads. Also, the salad looked like it was probably close to its expiration date, because I had to pick some pieces of slimy, wilted lettuce out of my bowl.
*1/2 Margherita Pizza* Now that you know what ingredients are on REAL Margherita pizza, I will tell you about the one that they made me. First of all, it was so greasy that you could see through the box before I even got the pizza home. On the pizza was huge, thick slices of tomatoes, completely covering the whole pizza. There was no tomato sauce on it at all. There was barely any cheese on it. Instead of fresh basil, they sprinkled dry basil all over the top. In my opinion, dry basil should never be in anyone's kitchen! When I saw this pizza I lost my appetite! My little girl, who loves pizza and tomatoes, wouldn't even eat it! Here is a picture of the pizza we got.
*1/2 Greek Pizza - $10.99* This pizza had black olives, feta cheese, red onions, and artichoke hearts on it. This pizza wasn't too bad. I think feta and mozzarella taste kind of sour. With other vinegar preserved toppings such as the olives and artichokes, it was just too sour/salty for me to enjoy.
Review Summary:
*Taste of the food - Not great.
*Appearance of the food - The food was actually depressing to look at! You just knew it was going to be bad as soon as you saw it. When I saw the pizza, I lost my appetite.
*Service - I called in for take out, so I really did not experience much service. However, on the phone I was told that my order total was $20, and when I got there she charged me $30.
*Price - Cheap, but you get what you pay for. They have some pretty inexpensive internet specials.
*Atmosphere - There is no atmosphere. There are at most 5 booths in the whole place. The only thing remotely Italian in the decor were a few computer print outs of cartoon "Italian looking" chefs.
*Whether or not to take your kids - For the whole restaurant, there is one highchair. I would not recommend taking your kids unless they can sit and eat in a booth.
All in all, the food is edible, but you won't catch me eating there again!
Thanks for reading!
Molly
Gross. I have never eaten there but when it comes to pizza I always opt to make it instead of going out.
ReplyDeleteYeah, us too! We make homemade pizza every Wednesday night as a family. The pizza on their website reminded me so much of the pizza that I would eat in Italy, so I thought I would give it a try. There was a great pizza place in San Diego that we used to eat at all the time called ZPizza. SO yummy! They mostly had "different" flavor combinations. The had a pear gorgonzola pizza that was to die for!!! So far, since being here, I have not found a good pizza other than my homemade ones.
ReplyDeleteI walked in here once and had to leave. It was just a "sick" smell. Like someone had become sick inside and no clean up was done. I am excited to try the new pizza place in JT. Everyone is saying amazing things about it!
ReplyDeleteWhat is the new pizza place called?
ReplyDelete