Mia Bella

So I wasn't able to convince Turk to go to Washington Place last night and by the time we were getting ready to go out, it was too late to go to yoga.  Instead we went down the street to Mia Bella.
Mia Bella is a mediterranean-italian restaurant that opened last year in Little Italy.   We'd been there once before and loved the food and the adorable atmosphere.  This time, I was less impressed.  The restaurant is owned by the sweetest lady and her son is the chef.  Turk and I both ordered the same things that we did the last time we were there and this time the food wasn't as good.  Maybe it was because they were less busy? 

I ordered the Pasta Verde which is penne pasta tossed with spinach in a pesto sauce.  Turk had the Gnocchi Alla Romano which was gnocchi with vegetables in a oil based sauce.  We split an eggplant parmesan appetizer.

Eggplant Parmesan Appetizer

The appetizer was amazing.  Probably one of the best eggplant parms I've ever had (Trattoria's tops my list!).  It had a nice amount of mozzerella cheese with the actual eggplant slices and then sweet ricotta cheese on top.  The sauce was flavorful and tangy and a really nice fried eggplant flavor came through.  

Pasta Verde

The Pasta Verde was good, but I've had better pesto sauces (off the top of my head, I would say that La Dolce Vita has a better pesto sauce).  I am extremely picky with pastas though...I like my noodles al dente.  The first time I ordered this, the pasta was perfect.  This time, for some reason, the noodles were soft and limp.  Not at all to my liking.  The sauce also was not as flavorful.  I would definitely try it again because I loved it the first time I ordered it.

Gnocchi Alla Romano

Turk ordered the Gnocchi which was a very good gnocchi.  The pasta was tender and had a nice bite to it.  The tomato sauce was flavorful and it had plenty of vegetables and yummy kalamata olives in it.

On a side note, I picked up this week Scene when I noticed the cover headline was "The 25 Restaurants Cleveland Can't Live Without" by Douglas Trattner.  Definitely an interesting read and now I have 25 restaurants to visit and review!  The 25 restaurants are (with the ones I've been to in red):
1. Flying Fig
2. Tommy's Restaurant
3. Bar Cento
4. Crop Bistro
5. Lolita
6. Lucky's Cafe
7. Melt Bar and Grilled
8. Michaelangelo's
9. Superior Pho

10. Sokolowski's University Inn
11. Amp 150

12. Parkview Nite Club

13. Dante

14. Dim and Den Sum

15. Fire Food and Drink

16. L'Albatros Brasserie

17. Moxie

18. Slyman's Deli

19. Great Lakes Brewing Co.

20. Farenheit

21. Li Wah

22. Nighttown

23. Sergio's in University Circle

24. Greenhouse Tavern

25. Momocho

Be sure to look for this week's Scene to read more about each restaurant.  I definitely look forward to returning to all the fantastic restaurants that I've been to and to going to all the restaurants I haven't been to!  Thanks Cleveland for having such a wonderful restaurant scene!