Restaurant Challenge #003: Lucia's

Veggie-Bacon Restaurant Challenge #003

Lucia's

Herndon, VA (www.restaurant.com/LuciasRest)

Lucia's is one of those small family-owned neighborhood Italian restaurants that are so common in places like New York, but so rare in Northern Virginia. In fact, it's rare pretty rare to find any restaurants at all in Northern Virginia that aren't boring chains. For this reason (and other reasons), we think that Lucia's is a find. They have great pizza and sandwiches, as well as some really good traditional Italian entrees. One of my favorite things to order at Lucia's in their Linguine con Pesto...basic but fabulous.

As we've said before, Italian restaurants are easy places to go as a vegetarian, because they almost always offer a wide selection of vegetarian dishes. Lucia's is no exception. For meatless entrees, they offer:

Pasta with marinara sauce

Pasta ala Norma (with fried eggplant)

Penne al Arriabiata (with spicy marinara sauce)

Cheese Tortellini

Fettucine Alfred0

Penne con Funghi (with mushrooms)

Linguini con Pesto

Gnocchi

Baked Ziti

Cheese Ravioli

Manicotti

Spinach Lasagna (which is wonderful, and available on Monday nights for half price)

They also offer a Cheese (provolone and swiss), Caprese (fresh mozzarella, tomatoes, and pesto), Agrigento (grilled peppers, fresh mozzarella, olive spread), primavera (roasted peppers, eggplant, fresh mozzarella, olive spread), Giardina (grilled vegetables and melted cheese), and Eggplant Parmigiana Sandwich. For lunch, you can get any sandwich with fries and a drink for $7. I think this is a great deal.

Last time we went to Lucia's, Katie and I split a Large Mediterranean Salad and a Unique Veggie pizza. We also ordered Whole Wheat Penne with Pesto. The penne never came, but that didn't matter, because we had a ton of food with the pizza and the salad. We also split a carafe of their house chianti, which wasn't all that cheap, but was very good. We love the Mediterranean Salad at Lucia's, which comes with olives, feta cheese, and giardinera (Italian pickled vegetables). I often order a mediterranean salad and their homemade minestrone for lunch. The pizza was great too. It comes with roasted peppers, spinach, artichokes, and tomatoes. It could have used a bit more spinach, but the vegetables all tasted great, the cheese was good, and the crust was chewy (in a good way!) and tasty.

Despite forgetting the penne, the staff was very helpful and friendly. Our waiter actually gave us a discount on our pizza - we like to think it's because we're cute, but sadly that probably had nothing to do with it :)

Veggie-Bacon verdict: Lucia's is a great find, and we find ourselves going there again and again. The staff is friendly, the food is good, and there are a lot of options for both vegetarians and carnivores.