A taste of Italy is just around the corner for Mooresville residents.
The Italy Café on East Plaza Drive is now open under new management and is more than worth trying. Housed in the same shopping center as Big Lots and Blockbuster, the restaurant is small but welcoming.
Inside is a large, colorful mural of an Italian city sidewalk and cozy wooden tables and booths.
The restaurant's focus is on familiar, home-style Italian dishes. I didn't order an appetizer, but the options were plentiful. Starters include bruschetta, mozzarella sticks, stuffed mushrooms and fried clams for $3 to $7.
For lighter options, the café has soups such as lentil, minestrone and pasta fagioli for about $4 and Caesar or Greek salads for $4-$8, depending on whether you get the small or large version. Chicken or shrimp can also be added to the salad for an additional price.
If you're in the mood for a sandwich, you can order a chicken or eggplant and mozzarella panini for $7 to $8, or subs with sausage and peppers or even shrimp for $6-8. I picked the meatball sub for $6.
The bread was crispy and four extremely large meatballs were distributed over the foot-long sub, with a generous dollop of sauce across the bread. I ended up cutting the meatballs because it was hard to eat them as they were, but the taste was worth the struggle. The meatballs were flavorful and seasoned well, and the portion was enough to fill me up with plenty left over.
Pasta is another classic served at the café, with seafood, chicken, eggplant and veal options. I dined with a friend who ordered the chicken parmigiana, which came with a large chicken breast, surrounded by a heaping portion of spaghetti noodles and red sauce. The meal is accompanied by a salad with your choice of dressing. She said she enjoyed the juicy chicken and it was cooked perfectly, and that next time she would split it with someone, due to its generous size. It's definitely enough to feed another person, or to take home and have dinner later. Pasta dishes range from $11-$15.
Pizza by the slice can be bought for $2 or whole pies for $16, with every topping imaginable, from pepperoni and sausage to anchovies and artichokes.
Calzones and strombolis are available for $6.
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