Cucina Bella

This past Saturday, we decided to go to dinner at a place we have not been to in quite a while (2+ years, I think): Cucina Bella in Bridgeville. As SP says, it's a "fancy pizza" place. One thing that has changed: they now have valet parking. I'm not sure why; they have a decent size lot although I do remember it filling up and overflow parking being on the street. Another thing: it seems they now take reservations, at least for large groups. When we arrived around 5:30 pm, we were seated right away but noticed 2 large tables set up with a reserved sign and a couple smaller tables with reserved signs.

They still do not offer fresh brewed iced tea and we didn't BYOB so we stuck with the bottle of water on the table. To start we shared the Della Casa Salad: greens, tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, balsamic dressing. It was a little different than I remember but I cannot exactly pinpoint the difference. It's still a tasty salad.

SP chose a white pizza, Pizza Del Re, with fresh mozzarella, baby portobella, prosciutto, parmesan, basil, truffle oil. It didn't have a white garlic sauce, or any garlic, but there was a lot of truffle oil. I didn't try his pizza. He said it was delicious. He loves truffle flavor. I was bothered by the truffle smell because while I like truffle, I only like it in very small doses.

My pizza came out a bit after his. A red pizza, Ortolana, with San Marzano tomato, fresh mozzarella, portobella, artichokes, parmesan, basil, olive oil. I added prosciutto for $3 extra. It was piping hot, still steaming when it arrived, so I had to wait a bit to try it. It was good, but the tomato and/or olive oil or something made puddles of liquid:

That was disappointing, and it made it difficult to eat the pizza. Even folding a slice in half, I had to lean way over my plate so I wouldn't drip on myself. As it cooled, the liquid firmed up and it was better. The next day, eaten cold, it was fine.

Puddles of liquid aside, we enjoyed our salad & pizza. We've always have good service and the valet was very friendly and helpful with the wheelchair. It's still a little too noisy for me inside. Once the reserved tables were filled with people enjoying food and BYOB it got loud and I had a hard time hearing SP. Also, it still can get quite sunny and warm. The setting sun shines right in the front windows. Yes, believe it or not, there was actually sunshine the evening we went!