Tuesday, April 7, 2009

La Bella

So we keep going to the same places over and over again (namely Cogan's and Green Onion because they're so awesome) but we finally went somewhere new. La Bella is an Italian restaurant in Ghent on 22nd Street, set in an unsuspecting strip mall next to The Market. The inside is nicely decorated, with the entrance being a little Italian store. They had lots of desserts and pastas for sale, but it also appeared you could order a sandwich to go there and the sandwiches sounded wonderful.

Dinner: To start we had a calamari appetizer ($9). I'm always skeptical about ordering this, but there's was a good size plate (enough to share) and was quite tasty. For an entree I had the Penne All Ortolana ($15) which was penne with eggplant, tomato, basil, garlic and topped with ricotta. It was a really heart pasta dish but the ricotta on top gave a nice light touch to it. It was a big portion and I actually took half home. My husband had the Vitello Ai Tre Scallini ($20) which is veal topped with pancetta and provolone topped with mushrooms and sundried tomatoes in a brandy sauce. It was delicious. Seriously, I don't usually eat veal and this was awesome. It came with a side of penne with sauce (marinara or bolognese). I would definitely recommend this dish to anyone.

Drinks: I would say the one disappointment is that there wasn't a huge selection of wine. They did have a nice glad of red that I really enjoyed, but I can't recall the name and the don't have it listed online unfortunately. I remember it was a deep red with hints of blackberry and is one of the owner's favorites. I think it was about $8/glass. They also had a full bar and several different bottled beers.

They had sort of pre fixe menu that was $25 for 4 courses. It included a Caesar Salad and then a smaller portion each for an appetizer, entree and ddessert. 

Overall I would recommend La Bella. I feel like it's hard to find a decent Italian place sometimes, so I was happy to go here and have a decent Italian meal. 
Price: $$
Food: 1.5 forks up
Drinks: 3 drinks (out of 5)
Atmosphere: 3.5 stars (out of 5)

La Bella in Ghent on Urbanspoon

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

What a small world for two reasons. 1) I recently went to La Bella has a lovely wine similar to the one you mentioned, no idea what it was called and 2)My friends and I recently started a food blog of our own just because we love food and trying new places. Thanks for sharing.

Revonna, Norfolk