Giardino's - Burke, VA

This restaurant is the sister joint of Villa Bella, owned and operated by the same family. Because of this, I expected the calzone faire to be quite similar to the one I had eaten over at the other place. In fact, the menus are almost identical.

This calzone was full of crumbled italian sausage, onions, prosciutto, and mozzarella cheese. I would describe it as a large calzone with a top-cut in the bread for convection. It was served with a small cup of a very tomato heavy marinara sauce. Overall, it was quite a satisfying dish, if not very salty due to the heavily cured sausage and the prosciutto which is normally quite salty. The breading was perfect, not thick, and the top layer was crispy from the baking process.

The view from the restaurant was pleasant, and the weather was cool. It was the perfect setting for this calzone, as I watched the girl scouts sell their cookies in front of the supermarket that shares a wall. Overall, I would rate this calzone a B- because it was slightly on the expensive side at $13.00 and the overly salty meats that were used. However, it was still good enough that I would happily purchase again.