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| Luna Bella's pizza -- with parmesan topper |
Luna Bella is a long-established Columbia restaurant, and I figured that Lil' Chow and I could slip inside on a weeknight. Luna Bella does a full Italian menu from salads to fish, pastas to chicken parm, but I've always gone for pizza. That was the choice that I gave Lil' Chow as we stepped from the parking lot into the Hickory Ridge village center -- "Chicken or pizza?"
He went pizza, so I'll see next time if he'll explore yucca fries and Peruvian chicken.
Lil' Chow got his own kid's-size pie. I went with a vegetable stromboli. I wanted the bite of provolone instead of mozzarella, and I wanted veggies over meatballs because I lack the discipline to eat only half.
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| Stromboli |
Our crusts had the crispness that you get from a wood-fired oven. I think it's a step above most pizza around Howard County, even if it isn't a match for the charred crust and specialized ingredients on a Facci pie. I saw several salads that looked delicious, and folks next to us had a calamari appetizer that made me wonder if I could get Lil's Chow to eat fried squid.
My stroboli came stuffed with squash, mushrooms and onions. I dipped up the entire side of marinara. Lil' Chow's pizza worked for me, but he felt that it didn't have enough cheese. By which I mean, that he removed the mozzarella and replaced it with shredded Parmesan. Two deliveries.
That was when the woman at the next table asked if I wrote the blog. She said she had suspected, but become convinced when she saw Lil' Chow's love of cheese. The recent Facci post had discussed Lil' Chow's all-you-can-eat love for Parmesan. Plus, we're a matching pair of middle-aged white guy and two-year-old Korean immigrant. I laughed and fessed up.
Next time, I'm going to sit outside and try Luna Bella's meats. They put sausage and pepperoni right at the front of the list of ingredients you can add to a calzone. I'll promise myself to save half for lunch, and I'll go full glutton with sausage, pepperoni and caramelized onions. But then, there are also meatballs . . . . .
Has anyone had Luna Bella's sandwiches? I hadn't realized that they did sandwiches, but their menu on-line talks about some heavy-duty options like a meatball hoagie, a chicken parm sub, and a chicken cheese steak. I love them all. But I only want exceptional because a bad chicken parm sub would be a softball in your stomach. I'm included to try Luna Bella's sandwiches one day for lunch.
