Sapore Woodfire Pizza and Restaurant

As we did last year, we got to celebrate Steve’s birthday with his brother and sister-in-law. This year they took us to Sapore Woodfire Pizza and Restaurant in Ventnor, NJ for a fabulous Italian dinner.

Sapore has such a huge menu that you could spend an hour reading it from cover to cover! They have a wonderful wood burning oven so, though we didn’t have any, I’m sure the pizza is awesome. There are about 30 to choose from, and you can even get gluten-free crust.

Appetizers include Calamari Fritti, Grilled Octopus, Mussels in red or white sauce, Meatballs with Ricotta, Eggplant Rollatini and a few more.

If you want to start your meal with a salad, other than the  Garden Salad that comes with the dinners, your choices are the gorgeous Antipasto Salad with its rosettes of genoa and provolone, traditional Caesar, Spinach Salad or the Bocconcini Salad with prosciutto, fresh mozzarella, marinated eggplant and romaine lettuce dressed with extra-virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar. And there’s also the Spring Mix Salad with with grilled portobello mushrooms, grilled eggplant, roasted pepper salad, cucumbers and reduced balsamic dressing.

Plus there are intriguing salads that can be your meal. I know I’d be happy to did in to a Buffalo Chicken Salad, Caesar with Blackened Chicken or Salmon, Caesar with Grilled Shrimp or Chicken or with Fried Chicken Tenders or any of the other 13 salad variations!

But wait. There’s more. There are Wings, Strombolis, Calzones, Hot and Cold Sandwiches, Panini’s, Hot and Cold Subs, Burgers, Gyros, Steak Sandwiches and Wraps. All of these are before you even get to the pages of dinner entrées!!!

Marcy and Hal cautioned us that the portions were huge. So we decided to forego an appetizer and start with the ultra fresh Garden Salad that came with our dinners along with hot bread fresh from that wood fired oven.

After sifting through the myriad of pastas, chicken, veal, steaks and seafood dishes we finally settled of what we wanted for dinner. Steve and Hal, no surprise here, both ordered the Veal Parmesan which came with a side of pasta. Marcy and I ordered the Veal Picante, which also came with a side of pasta.

It was a good thing that we were forewarned because the portions really were enormous but thoroughly delicious.

The veal was tender and topped with a very flavorful marinara sauce and plenty of melted cheese goodness.

The Veal Picante was fabulous. It had plenty of tender veal scallops with lots of sautéed mushrooms, artichoke quarters and a luscious lemon, wine sauce which was fabulous over my bed of fettuccine.

All four of us were only able to eat half of our entrées and brought the rest home for dinner the next night. The bonus of that was that we had just enough room to split two mouthwatering desserts. Since it was Steve’s birthday, he got to choose the ones he wanted. He made perfect choices.

The first was totally chocolate. It was a giant slice of very dark bittersweet chocolate cake with an airy light crumb and intense chocolate flavor.

His second choice was Tiramisu. This was a traditional Italian dessert of delicious Ladyfingers dipped in coffee that are then layered with a whipped mixture of eggs, sugar and Mascarpone cheese, flavored with cocoa. It was moist and wonderful.

Even the desserts were huge! Large enough that we all had what we wanted at the restaurant, and Steve and I took the rest home to finish off with our replay dinner the next night for a cozy dinner at home in Ladybug.

Can’t wait until summer to return to the shore for a few more meals at Sapore Woodfire Pizza and Restaurant!