FOODIE

La Focaccia: More Than Just Pizza
By Alessandra, Terri and Frank / foodie@longislandernews.com

For a home-cooked meal without actually cooking it yourself, add La Focaccia in Melville to your list of places to go.

Located next to a dry cleaner’s and a Starbucks, this take-out and delivery goldmine is the perfect way to start your lunch break or end your day for dinner. And with a menu as large and bountiful as theirs, you may not know where to start.

We started with a rice ball ($4.25) and complimentary salads that come with each entrée. The rice ball was cooked to the perfect temperature, breaded perfectly with a center filled with meat, sauce and peas. A side of sauce came with the meal, which was great for dunking a forkful of the rice ball. The salads were fresh, topped with tomatoes, red peppers, olives and more. It definitely left us ready to start the main meals.

Other appetizers include stuffed mushrooms ($6.95) and mussels, in your choice of marinara or white wine sauce ($9.75).

For our main course, we had a pasta, a chicken entrée and a seafood entrée – and all left us satisfied. The Broccoli, Garlic and Oil Pasta ($14.25) was cooked well. For each pasta dish, you can choose among spaghetti, penne, rigatoni, linguini, angel hair, ziti, bowties and cheese tortellini. We chose the good old-fashioned rigatoni. Other specialty pastas they have include Putanesca ($13.95), which comes in a plum tomato sauce sautéed with capers, artichokes and green and black olives. They also have creamy mushroom, which is based in a classic Alfredo sauce.

We tried the Chicken Sorrentino ($16.25), which is sautéed chicken with eggplant, prosciutto and mozzarella cheese in a marsala wine demi glaze. It was phenomenal and mouth-watering. The chicken was tender, the sauce was delicious and the eggplant and prosciutto were the perfect way to kick it off for a dynamite bite. Other meals on the menu include Veal Rollatini ($17.50), which is veal scaloppini rolled with prosciutto and mozzarella in mushroom marsala demi glaze.

For the seafood, we tried the Jumbo Shrimp Fra Diavolo ($17.95), which includes six shrimp sautéed in a hot, spicy marinara sauce. It was pleasantly spicy, but not so much so that we couldn’t enjoy it. The sauce was so flavorful and perfect for dipping with homemade garlic bread sticks. The shrimp were so good that we wish there was an option to order a larger platter. Other seafood meals on the menu include La Focaccia Zuppe De Pesce, which is six jumbo shrimp, calamari, scunguilli, mussels, and clams served in a zuppe de pesce homemade marinara sauce ($25.50).

Of course, considering it’s a pizzeria, we had to have a classic regular slice ($2.40). No wonder the restaurant revolves around the gourmet pizza. If you’re looking for something a little bit different, there’s the Buffalo Pizza Slice ($3.95), Classic Grandma Slice ($2.85) and a Tomato Pesto Slice ($3.95).

There aren’t that many places to sit, and the parking could be a problem sometimes because of the busy entrance/exit off of Route 110, but La Focaccia is definitely worth the trip. And luckily, they deliver.

La Focaccia
64 Broadhollow Road
Melville
631-385-5000
Cuisine: Italian, pizzeria
Atmosphere: Small,
family-friendly
Hours: 11 a.m.- 9 p.m.
Monday-Thursday;
11 a.m.-10 p.m.
Friday-Saturday;
12-9 p.m. Sunday