Date: Mon, 7 Oct 2013 11:20:51 -0400
From: leela ellis
Subject: Date Night or Light Bite
There is a very special place we go for “date night”. If you absolutely adore relio trulio Italian tastes — this is the place. There is the scent and flavor of genuine olive oil, and the cabonara is not something that comes out of a jar.
Donna makes it from scratch with realio truleo local eggs, just like cabonara is supposed to be made. And the pasta!!!! It is hand fashioned in the kitchen by Donna and her excellent kitchen staff. Saturday one of us ordered the pasta ribbons with italian sausage. It was soooooo beautiful I wish I’d brought my camera. But the taste and texture was even better than beautiful!!!! It was eaten sooo fast there was no time for it to get cold. And oh yes. Someone else ordered the spinach pasta. Homemade, house made, and awesome!
Oh! And the Tuscan Chicken. Now mind you, your palate must include appreciation for something beyond sweet & salty. The chicken is crispy with cheese and then drizzled with slightly tart and savory lemon ailioli (I know I didn’t spell that right). My husband said I was “eating like a pirate” because I licked the serrated knife each time I cut into the cutlet. But it was soooooo good — I didn’t want that sauce dripping anywhere superfluous except onto my taste buds.
But oh-my-gosh — the deserts are every bit as good, and as homemade, as the main dishes. Twice now, we have ordered the Key Lime Pie. It is served generous enough to share, and you are so satisfied that you won’t even fight over the final bite.
Now this is not the kind of pie that is trucked in to a restaurant from “some purveyor somewhere”. No. It is the most delicious, hand-fashioned, homemade key lime pie I have ever tasted. Like, soooooo good that I would share it with my Mom and Dad. And that’s saying something, because my Mom’s Lemon Merrangue was something that made the mouth water just thinking about it. This Key Lime Pie is SOMETHING TO LIVE FOR. It is made by Pastry Chef Amy Buckner, and it is awesome. We’ve been told that the other pies she makes are just as good or better, but we just got back from Emerald Isle — we had bribed ourselves to come back by promising ourselves a trip to Bella Donna’s Italian Restaurant and Key Lime Pie.
But don’t feel like you have to be on a date night or a bribe night — you can go for just a lite bite too. At dinnertime you will see Moms feeding slices of pizza to their little ones. You can order soup and salad. Or you can go there for lunch. There is an awesome lunch menu. Or Sunday bruch menu too — where you can order a single egg or lasagna or a waffle or a sweet roll. So don’t worry that there won’t be something you’ll like. You’ll have the opposite problem. You might want to try everything.
So where is this wonderful place? All you have to do is find the Circle Courthouse in Pittsboro and then head east on 64. It’s also called East Street. Keep your eyes peeled for the Piggly — and then just beyond the Pig you will see a very beautiful little place — it is Bella Donna Restaurant. It is one of the prettiest places to eat!!! When we drive by there going to elsewhere, I say to my husband, “just slow down so I can look! It is soooo pretty. Like Italy.”
So. For our money, it is THE BEST DATE NIGHT. And it is also a realio trulio fine Italian Restaurant, whether you just want a salad or pizza — or whether you want to have a date night. It is Bella Donna Italian Restaurant.