Date Night - Week 14 - DeLallo's and The Pie Place

I hadn’t been to since high school when a group of my friends and I went before one of the school dances, so Jeremy and I decided to pay it a visit, sans flowered wrist corsage and boutonniere.

DeLallo’s, for the unfamiliar, is the green (teal?  turquoise?), barn-shaped building on Fort Couch Road just down from Village Drive. Inside, it’s a cozy, quiet sit-down with soft lighting and tasteful décor.

We were guided to a cozy corner booth behind one of the half-walls separating the reception area from the dining room and felt like we had the place to ourselves. Our waitress was really helpful, suggesting her favorite dishes and not-so-surreptitiously offering her opinions on our orders.

She asked Jeremy, “Do you want the ok mushroom tomato sauce, or the really, really good tomato basil cream sauce?” 

We ordered the Roma Tomato Bruschetta with Fresh Basil and Garlic ($4.95) as an appetizer and the Tomato Mozzarella salad ($5.95) to share.

Our waitress' response to the bruschetta, “You’re gonna love this – it’s one of my favorites.” 

She was right — it was delicious: moist, fresh tomatoes, crispy Bruschetta toast and just enough basil and garlic.  The Tomato Mozzarella salad was successfully simple – just slices of tomato and mozzarella with a little oil, garlic, and basil presented on a lettuce leaf.  

Again, the waitress' comment, “Good choice!  The mozzarella’s great!”

She was right.

Jeremy ordered the Homemade Seafood Ravioli, filled with shrimp, crab and scallops and unsurprisingly, went with the “really, really good tomato basil cream sauce” over the mushroom tomato ($16.95). He enjoyed the unique combination of ravioli fillings and raved over the homemade, warm bread that accompanied the dish.

My Crepe Manicotti ($12.95) — an Italian crepe filled with ricotta cheese and topped with provolone and spaghetti sauce — was another unique and pleasant dish, though the heaviness of the cheeses (and my rapid consumption of the delicious bruschetta) made it impossible to finish, so I took the rest home for the next day’s lunch. 

We were too full for dessert at DeLallo’s so we wandered up to the that’s going out of business to peek around, and Jeremy was thrilled that I found two new books to add to my bookshelf — ok, shelves — plural. He doesn’t get why in my tiny apartment I need a bookshelf on every wall; I’m horrified by his suggestion to box up — or heaven forbid, give away — any of them, so we’ve simply agreed to disagree. And if we ever end up living under the same roof, he'll be sacrificing a man-cave for my library! 

Regardless, we’d made room for sweets by the time we checked out so we stopped next door to . I’d only been there once before, when I told my aunt I’d “make” a pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving, but the sweet scent enveloping the doorway was enough to pull us in on the way to the car. 

Jeremy noticed the Hershey’s Ice Cream case first and quickly made up his mind on some orange chilly treat. In my opinion, if ice cream doesn’t contain chocolate, it’s really not worth eating. My chocolate chip cookie dough selection is proof of that, though Jeremy accused me of eating juvenile ice cream. I don’t see the issue.

I ordered a hot chocolate and a few truffles that were calling to me from the display case — chocolate, peanut butter, and French vanilla — and we sat at one of the cute tables by the door to eat. On our way out, we ogled the pies in the glass case and promised to remember them for the next gathering where we offer to “bake.”