This past weekend, the in-laws were in town, and we celebrated my son’s birthday, my niece’s birthday, Mother’s Day x 3, and my MIL’s birthday together. Mostly the last one.
My SIL had been to a restaurant near-ish to our house, and honestly, I’ve never even heard of it. It’s in a small strip mall with a Beer Store, martial arts training, and another restaurant (a burger joint, The Works, part of a franchise). A few other stores here and there. Nothing huge. There used to be a Legion in the plaza, and I didn’t even notice if it was still there.
The Italian restaurant is called Porta a Casa, i.e., Bring it home. I don’t know if it originally started as a take-out place, although that sounds vaguely familiar, that there was a take-out place in that area, that opened around 2022 or so. Nothing I checked out, though, nor ever noticed.
It’s not a huge place, only about 6 tables of 4 or so, call it a seating capacity of 25 or so, and we were 8 of them. They did a good take-out business while we were there, too. I was feeling both hungry and a little adventurous, and since I don’t do Italian very often (I’ll return to this at the end), I went all in.
I started with an order of garlic bread, called Anika Crostini. It’s described as “Garlic bread baked in the oven with tomato sauce, prosciutto & bocconcini cheese, topped with arugula, shaved parmigiano reggiano & olive oil”. OMG. It melted in your mouth. Very high on the oil content, but not greasy, just oily, and it disappeared quick. Not too heavy, just perfect.
I followed up with “Tortellini e Brodo” soup, one of my favourites. It is listed as “Cheese tortellini, spinach, & Parmigiano cheese in a light chicken broth,” and I confess I was a bit disappointed. Don’t get me wrong—it was good, but I’ve had better. They also offer a very popular minestrone, but for some reason, it wasn’t available right then. I would have still ordered the Tortellini, though.
I debated a salad option, and they had four good options, but I chose a simple Caesar. You would think there is little to say about a Caesar salad, right? WRONG. I chatted with the waitress afterwards, trying to nail down what was different. My wife had already speculated it was extra anchovies, which the server confirmed. Plus, they make their own croutons, the salad itself was also super fresh, and the overall dressing? With the extra anchovies and a decent cream, it’s not very heavy…light on coating, heavy on taste. They don’t sell it separately, alas, but she said when she gets it, sometimes she gets extra on the side to take home. It sounds weird to say, but I swear, it is the best Caesar salad I’ve ever had in my life. Like it is worth it to go there JUST for the salad. And I’m not usually a salad guy.
Okay, time for the main event, but before I get to my choice, I want to talk about options for a moment:
- Out of fifteen appetizers available, our table ordered five of them, and they were all first-rate. About half are seafood-related;
- I mentioned already there are 2 soups usually and 4 salads, and I would easily order either soup and 3/4 salads…in fact, I think I would order one every time, even if I wasn’t super hungry, they’re that good;
- There are 8 pizzas on the list, but none of us were wimping out for pizza;
- There are 13 regular pastas on the list, and I would willingly try any of 9 of them, with a couple of the 4 being eliminated just as they have extra spice in them;
- Add in another 7 stuffed pastas, all of which sounded amazing, and we had 3 orders for the night for other members of our party, all excellent again;
- For entrees, there are 11 options, with veal appearing prominently as 5 of them, leaving me probably about 6 overall that I would eat (one veal, and 5 others); and,
- Under House Specialties, there are 8 listed on the website’s menu, but I think there were two more on the menu that night.
Why am I mentioning the other options? Because I could eat there another 25-30 times before having to repeat a choice. And I’m WILLING to try.
For my main meal, I went with bacon-wrapped pork medallions. They don’t appear on the website menu, and I don’t know about the take-out menu.
Mind-blowingly good. The medallions were cooked perfectly, melt-in-your-mouth perfect; they fell apart as you ate. They had a really nice dark sauce on them, and I went with fettuccine alfredo as the side. I never made it to the fettuccine (we brought it home). There was so much meat, the whole time was like little explosions of flavour on my tongue. I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed a meal even close to this much.
There were only two negative parts to the meal, as all of us enjoyed everything we had. First, as I said, the tortellini e brodo was good but not life-changing (a pretty high bar, I know). Second, my son had fettuccine alfredo as his main, with large shrimp, and as amazing as it was for all of us, he actually likes East Side Mario’s fettuccine better. I informed him that I would miss him; I disowned him immediately for such blasphemy.
I mentioned above that we don’t do Italian very often when we go out. Jacob loves Italian, or more accurately, he loves fettuccine. And most pastas in general, I would say. I like it too, but I would normally prefer something Asian if we’re going out. But one of the reasons I avoid Italian is that I find it hard to find a good Italian restaurant outside of Little Italy that has both decent authentic Italian AND parking. Little Italy isn’t horrendous for parking, if you go at the right time (a bit earlier), but it’s a crapshoot sometimes. In the summer? On a warm night? Fugeddaboutit.
This place? Not too far from our house, with a full parking lot. It also has a really strong take-out option, which is a plus; the place is small enough that reservations are almost a must, and to be honest, we rarely decide that far in advance, so take-out might be my main option. I feel almost like I’m willing to go monthly. Now, how do I convince my wife and son that it is worth the time investment and such a heavy spot in our rotation?
