Rosa's Pizza & Pasta

I've blogged about my insatiable desire for tomato mozzarella salads, especifically from Mountain State. But I recently saw that Rosa's Pizza & Pasta had a tomato mozzarella salad on their menu - yum! And I could get it delivered? This must be heaven! Of course, I couldn't just order a tomato mozzarella salad - I wanted a taste of Italy.

Rosa's menu is killer - tons of stuff! Pizza, calzone, stromboli (anybody know the difference here?), baked pastas, appetizers, salads, etc. They're located downtown on Walnut Street, but they're open late and deliver. That sounded perfect to me. I added to my cart: a tomato mozzarella salad, a spinach mushroom ricotta provolone stromboli, and cheese shells. It was like a smorgasbord of heaven (and lasted me a couple days). I also got a two-liter of pop, which all totaled a scary thirtysomething pricetag. Yikes.

Delivery was quick, and I was anxious to open my bag of goodies. Of course, the first thing I opened was the caprese salad. I was beyond disappointed. Their description said, "Tomatoes, fresh mozzarella & basil drizzled with a balsamic vinaigrette." First of all - this is a giant heap of tomatoes with some pesto soaking in balsamic. Oh, and the mozzarella? You see those small, thin squares? Yeah, that's apparently their "fresh mozzarella" - cut up slices from the grocery store. Literally cut up squares from those packaged slices. Not. Okay. Especially not for $8. Yes, the tomatoes were fine. But the whole draw of this salad is the delicious, fresh mozzarella. I couldn't get over this. This needs remedied, ASAP.

The stromboli was killer. It was delicious, piping hot, cheesy and fresh. In between bites, I sobbed over my caprese salad. And when I got around to the stuffed shells, they were pretty fantastic too. The mixture inside was yummy ricotta and full of flavor. The sauce is more orange, not like the marinara I'm used to. But it was less acidic and tasty. It also came with bread, but who cares when you just spent $8 on a "salad" that was beyond disappointing? Both of the entrees were pretty tasty, but I felt cheated in the salad that I couldn't even fully enjoy them. Seems like sneaky marketing to me. Not sure I'll be back. Might want to take their descriptions with a grain of salt.

Grade: C