One of our very favorite places to enjoy a date night is Carrabba’s Italian Grill. I’m sure a lot of you can relate when I say that we just don’t get away for enough date nights. So when we do get out as a couple, it’s important to go to a place that we both love. Carrabba’s has great food and ambiance, which makes it our go-to dinner date restaurant. Recently Carrabba’s revamped their menu and they invited us to come and enjoy a nice evening out to give everything a try. You can bet I booked a babysitter lickety split!

The most exciting of the new additions are the small plates. They added 6 small plate options which are just the perfect size to get a taste of the dish.

Small Plates

Here are the new small plate menu items:

• Bruschette Siciliani – Oven–baked ciabatta bread served with diced tomatoes, fresh basil, oregano, red onions and kalamata olives marinated in olive oil and red wine vinegar then topped with ricotta salata.
• Grilled Asparagus with Prosciutto– Wood-grilled asparagus wrapped in prosciutto and fontina, drizzled with balsamic glaze.
• Three-Cheese & Sausage Stuffed Mushrooms – Stuffed with sausage, spinach, ricotta, romano, mozzarella and Italian breadcrumbs served with our tomato cream sauce.
• Mozzarella Rustica – Crispy bites of mozzarella and ricotta with Italian herbs and panko breadcrumbs served with our marinara sauce.
• Meatballs & Ricotta – Simmered in our pomodoro sauce with ricotta and romano cheese.
• Italian Lettuce Wraps – Wood-grilled chicken tossed with vegetables and ricotta salata in our Mediterranean lemon vinaigrette. Served with romaine lettuce, drizzled with a port wine reduction.

We tried the grilled asparagus with Prosciutto, Mozzarella Rustica, and Meatballs & Ricotta. We loved them all! Asparagus is one of my favorite vegetables and wrapping it in Prosciutto made it just heavenly. Mozzarella Rustica reminded me a bit of a cheese stick, except for way better. You truly can taste the high quality of the ingredients. The meatballs and ricotta were excellent too. The creamy ricotta was so delicious with the meatball. The small plate serving comes with two meatballs. I would have definitely been happy to have another order! Next time we go I really want to try the Italian Lettuce Wraps, those sound delicious too.

Here’s a great tip our server, Zack, told us about. Every Tuesday is Tasting Tuesday where you can get 3 small plates for $12. It would be great to go in on a Tuesday and try all six small plates at once.

Speaking of our server, Zack was amazing. He was super attentive and full of great tips and food knowledge to help us have the best experience possible. He let us know that everything is made from scratch so you can really customize your food to your tastes. We are pretty much stick-to-the-menu types so he was even making suggestions of things we might like. He even told us the best way to eat the Prosciutto Arugula pizza without all the toppings falling off. Fold your slice in half New York style and you can take a bite without making a mess.

 

Main Dish

For our main dishes we tried:

Tuscan Strawberry Salad – Wood-grilled chicken or shrimp served with mixed greens, fresh strawberries, toasted pine nuts, red onion, tomatoes and crumbled Gorgonzola in a strawberry vinaigrette.
Linguine Positano – Wood-grilled chicken, crushed tomatoes, garlic, olive oil and basil.
Tuscan-Grilled Sirloin & Prosciutto-Wrapped Shrimp – 6oz Tuscan-Grilled Sirloin topped with your choice of Spicy Sicilian Butter or Gorgonzola Sauce. Paired with a Prosciutto-Wrapped Shrimp skewer topped with lemon butter.

The salad was so light and fresh. I really loved that the strawberries were ripe and sweet. The strawberry vinaigrette was awesome too! My husband really enjoyed the Linguine Positano. I enjoyed it the next day for leftovers too! My grilled sirloin was delicious. Just be advised that the spicy Sicilian butter, really is spicy!

Dessert

Our meal was amazing from start to finish, so it’s really hard to pick a favorite. I might just have to be cliche and go with dessert. The gelato was outstanding. My husband was going to just try the raspberry when Zack told him he could mix and match the flavors. My husband loved the vanilla and raspberry but my favorite was the chocolate hazelnut.

I feel like I need to stop and have a moment of silence for the Brûlée  Ricotta Cheesecake. Oh, my word! It was sweet but not too sweet. The texture was so light and heavenly. It was brûléed so it had a bit of that crunchy sugar on top. HEA.VEN.LY!

We’ve enjoyed Carrabba’s before so we stuck to just the new menu items. Like I told you before, though, our server Zack was a keeper. He brought us out a piece of Sogno Di Cioccolata “Chocolate Dream.” He said we just couldn’t finish our night without it. It’s one of Carrabba’s most popular desserts and it’s mouthwatering too!

We had the most amazing date night getting to enjoy each other’s company and the wonderful food. It’s amazing what you have time to discuss when you can focus on each other and not the kids.

Get to a Carrabba’s and try out the new menu for yourself. There are 20 new menu items to try. If you don’t have time for a full meal, stop in for some small plates or desserts. You won’t be sorry!

Allergies

I just wanted to make one note about food allergies. Carrabba’s takes food allergies very seriously. They have clearly marked Gluten Free items on the menu. This is just one more benefit of making everything from scratch. They can control exactly what is in your food. Make sure and speak to your food server and I’m sure they would be happy to help you with anything you need. I happened to mention food allergies to the managing partner at our location and he totally got it. His own child suffers many allergies, so I would feel super comfortable bringing anyone with food allergies into Carrabba’s.

Disclaimer: This post and our date night out was sponsored by Carrabba’s Italian Grill. All opinions and superlatives are my own!