Last Night's Dinner: La Villa / Aunt Suzie's

Last night's dinner was another Aunt Villa combo take-out dinner. We've stopped ordering in from La Villa, because in addition to their outrageous prices on certain items ($11 house salad anyone?), they also charge $1.50 or $2 for delivery. Coupling that with a tip for the delivery guy (like he sees any of that delivery fee,) makes for quite a large surcharge on an already expensive bill. But one can't deny that their pizzas and pastas are fantastic and better than Aunt Suzie's a few storefronts north. So what we've been doing lately is getting a house salad from Aunt Suzie's and then an entree from La Villa. Both Dan and I love the house salad, which is built upon a bed of chopped romaine and shredded red cabbage. On top you have a lovely three-bean mix (red, white and garbanzo), a couple of carrot coins, a tomato wedge or two, a duo of cubed provolone and kalamata olives and a slice of salami cut in half. On the side is a house-made italian dressing, with bits of shallot and flecks of parmensan. We also both love the house salad frm La Villa, but it's totally overwhelming if you just want a nice side of greens to accompany your meal. One day I'll go into detail about it, but not today!

At La Villa, I picked up a lasagna bolognese order that Dan had called in. Honestly, I don't think I ever tried lasagna until I started reading Garfield comic books. And once I tried it, I became obsessed. If I could, I would bathe myself in it as Garfield often did. It's still one of my favorite foods. When I was a wee 'un my mom and I would often get it from a pizza joint called Jerry's. She didn't drive in those days, so we'd walk over, usually after school. We would go there often, usually sitting at the counter, sometimes eating lasagna, sometimes eating drippy slices and sipping fountain soda. The original Jerry's burned down some time ago (I want to say 20 years ago), but they rebuilt and Linda and I were able to continue to get the lasagna and a chef's salad. We could have gotten lasagna from Aunt Suzie's, but they only offer a cheese or vegetable and I for one was definitely in a meat sauce mood. The best part about La Villa though is the house-baked focaccia bread. It makes the meal for us. They make two kinds - one with an herb mixture on top, the other with thinly slices red onion (or maybe shallots, I've never really thought about it). We always make sure to get an order with our take-out meal.