Villa Bella, Burke - Good Neighborhood Pizza in Burke Centre Owned by The Amato Family

[DonRocks]

No doubt about it, there was a wonderful surprise today when Matt and I had a late lunch at Villa Bella, in the same shopping center as Wal-Mart (hence, Old Cairo, etc.) - it's tucked off a bit, so you have to look for it.

Lunch hour had wound down. Matt had eaten there once before, and he mentioned they had a "sort-of" wood-burning overn. Indeed, they did: there was a cylindrical hole in the middle with burning logs, around it, as if that were a donut hole, was a spinning metal cooking torus. Behind that, but only in one location, was a gas flame, heating up any portion of the torus that slowly spun into its path. This is an extremely complex system, but it IS wood-burning, supplemented by gas - I saw the smoke flowing over the pizzas spinning around on the torus.

We got a pretty good pizza, but not before we got some good bread. A little mini-loaf of sourdough-based (warm from the oven), and three pieces of focaccia (also warm), served with a dipping mix of green oil, with 3-4 other ingredients sitting in the bottom of the dipping bowl: garlic, maybe parsley, etc. The important thing was that it was bland by itself, so I took the liberty of salt-shakes, pepper-shakes, and parmesan-shakes, and it woke up and came to life, like a good olive-oil pesto. All of a sudden, that bread was rocking in that sauce.

The pizza arrived: a Large, 19-Inch Pizza Villa Bella ($19.50), and oh what a topping combination it was: tomato sauce, mozzarella, crumbled sausage, and proscuitto. The end crust was decent and only barely worth eating alone (which is more than you can say for most crusts) - it could have used some more fermentation time. Nevertheless, this pizza surpassed our expectations of Villa Bella by a long shot. it was a good neighborhood pizza which Matt will finish for breakfast tomorrow, while I'll polish off the bread with some homemade preserves I purchased at a farmers' market a couple weeks ago.

I'm not urging you to go here; merely saying that if you do, I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Cheers,
Rocks

[jparrott]

What Don said. An excellent alternative to Papa Domino Hut, nice people, a half-decent beer while you wait for your takeout order.

[Kibbee Nayee]

Great....! Now when I go to Old Cairo for my koshary fix, I'll be forced to get a pizza at Villa Bella too....my New Year's resolution thanks you a lot!