La Mezzaluna in Princeton, NJ

We spent this past Saturday in downtown Princeton.  To my surprise, for dinner hubby wanted Italian food.

This is a groundbreaking experience for me.  I always want Italian food and usually I'm bringing hubby along kicking and screaming.  (Okay, not literally, but it's not his first choice.  Ever.)

Of the few choices available, we went with La Mezzaluna.

(P.S. Sorry about the quality of these photos.  This is what happens when you only have your phone to take pictures with).

It's not too much to look at on the outside, but I'm of the philosophy to never judge a book by its cover.

We started with mozzarella sticks.  The cheese was the perfect texture.  It was thick and not too stringy to bite into.  The sauce was sweet and didn't overpower, but paired well with the mozzarella.  

Hubby ordered the gnocchi.  It came with asparagus, sun dried tomatoes, caramelized onions, and garlic olive oil sauce.  I wonder if their gnocchi takes a long to make as mine did.  Theirs was delicious.  The sauce was outrageous although I had my apprehensions.  Sun dried tomatoes can be a good choice to add extra flavor to a dish so long as they are not over dried.  These sun dried tomatoes were flavorful and definitely not at all overly dried out.  

I ordered one of the daily specials.  It made me feel complete.

I'll admit it.  I feel bad when a waitress goes through a list of specials and I have no interest in any of them.

This one sounded like everything I wanted in life and I'll tell you why: four cheese sauce.  I didn't care about anything else, all I heard was four cheese sauce.

However, I got even more than I bargained for.  I'd never ordered a risotto dish before, and while I had an idea of what I was getting, I was more than thrilled with the overall meal.  Aside from the four cheese sauce that the chicken risotto (made with perfectly moist chicken) was coated in, it also came with asparagus.

I first fell in love with asparagus, wow, over 15 years ago on my first ever visit to Princeton with my mom.  Therefore it's very nostalgic for me to get something with asparagus when in Princeton.

I wish we could have stayed for dessert, but bellies were overly full and plans had already been made to go to the House of Cupcakes.

I would have loved to try their ricotta cheesecake or tiramisu.  Next time...for sure.