[Didsbury, Manchester] Bella Vita

During the first lockdown, we swapped our weekly night out at a restaurant for a home delivery meal from a restaurant on Deliveroo or Just Eat. It made for a bit of a change in the week. It was great to get back to visiting restaurants when restrictions were lifted during the summer. But, with rising infection rates, we decided it just wasn’t safe to visit anymore, so we’d started home delivery again even before the second lockdown started.

We hadn’t come across Bella Vita before, either on Deliveroo or in real life so it was sort of like visiting a new restaurant for the first time. Not really, of course – home delivery is not a restaurant experience, so you have to make allowances. But dinner from Bella Vita was fine – no complaints of significance.

Lasagne was quite tasty and a good consistency. Spaghetti carbonara is a dish I always enjoy but rarely eat in a restaurant – I am all but guaranteed to end up with sauce from long pasta down my shirt. Here, as expected, it’s rich, creamy and nicely seasoned. We also had some focaccia, a rocket and parmesan salad and a portion of zucchini fritti. The latter presumably had a crisp coating when it left the kitchen but had gone a bit soggy by the time it had travelled a couple of miles. Still tasted OK.

Only one of us wanted dessert. Tiramisu is a favourite Italian dessert. I am always going to order it in a new restaurant, to see if it is going to topple my “best ever” versions. So I ordered it here. This was a pleasant enough plate of sweet creaminess but with no real kick from coffee or booze, my top two have nothing to worry about.

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Morning John
Don’t drink coffee so never ate tiramisu until a couple of years back. Had it in a tiny pizza place in Tenerife late night ( long story ) and loved it. of course, its never quite the same after the first time, so where are your top Tiramisu tips in the north west…?
Cheers
Emlyn

Oh yes, zucchini fritti is best when served crisp & hot, right off the fryer.

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@Harters

Sounds like you had a winner delivered.

All our best wishes during these complicated times.

Emlyn - best ever tiramisu, anywhere - San Carlo Fiorentina (at the Marriott near Manc airport)

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We had another home delivery from here last night. What a disappointment.

Lasagne – Very sloppy. No sign of béchamel and topped with an unpleasant hard plascticky cheese. You’d get better as a supermarket ready meal.

Spaghetti & meatballs – no sauce on the spag so very dry. Meatballs had a good flavour but were very dense in texture (and few and far between). Couldn’t be arsed finishing it.

Foccacia – simply wasn’t. Pizza dough.

Zucchini fritte – no seasoning and soggy (was there any batter on them?)

Rocket and Parmesan salad – at least they couldn’t fuck this up.

Profiteroles for dessert – soggy, indifferent chocolate sauce, squirty cream.

Well, that’s them off the list!

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You mean dense? Because good pizza dough can be quite fluffy too.

I wonder if it’s the same people cooking as it was 2 years ago, maybe there is owner change.

No. It just wasnt foccacia - something my partner makes from time to time. They had simply rolled out and baked a chunk of the dough they would use for pizza.

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