Last night a friend and I went on a bit of adventure. We rented the Zipcar Mini and drove out to Langley to the Drive-In. It was a repeat of a thwarted summer adventure and turned out to be a spectacularly awesome evening, but you can’t have a proper adventure without snacks and that’s where La Grotta comes in.
An Italian deli, La Grotta del Formaggio is a central point on the Drive for all kinds of olives, pastas, spreads, imported dry goods and (of course) cheese, but possibly their best kept secret is that they also make kick-ass sandwiches.
The sandwiches are fully customizeable and can come Meat or Veggie, with your choice of bread: full foccacia (huge), half foccacia, Portuguese bun or baguette. The meat selection ranges from salami to turkey to prosciutto (for $1 extra) and cheeses vary but popular options are provolone, havarti and cheddar. Then you have to decide on the condiments, and this isn’t Subway, ok? The condiments are the best part. Hot pickled eggplant, marinated red bell peppers, artichokes, green olives, banana peppers, fresh onion, lettuce and tomato.
I don’t really like warm lettuce and tomato, so a typical sandwich for me is half-foccacia on white with prosciutto and provolone cheese, all the fixings minus the lettuce and tomato, and then grilled. It’s delicious. This one pictured here is a turkey and swiss cheese sandwich and I did actually get fresh tomatoes on it, just to try something different. Still delicious.
So after having decided in the late afternoon that we were planning a road trip to Langley, I rushed to La Grotta, hoping that they were still open and breathlessly ordered 2 sandwiches. In fact I still had half an hour before they closed (at 6 PM), but the staff is always so genial and friendly that I’m sure I would have still had dinner for the road even if I’d been later.
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La Grotta del Formaggio
1791 Commercial Drive, Vancouver
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Hi Degan,
I was there last week and it is exactly as you mention. This place rocks! However, I am curious about something, since you mentioned you went for snacks, did you go to Fratelli Bakery (right next to La Grotta)?
I love Fratelli! Actually I love that whole stretch…Calabria, etc.
That place sounds great and I’ll have to check it out. It’s funny that you wrote about the drive-in- I tried to go there last weekend (in a Mini too, coincidentally) but they saw our food and wouldn’t let us in unless we chucked it. Since the movie was already starting and I refused to wolf the food down in the parking lot, we skipped it. Not very impressed with them.
I saw the “no food” sign just as we were driving up and dumped all of our snacks onto the floor. Sucks to go all the way out there only to be thwarted though. This was our second attempt (worth it though, you should try again – and take sandwiches!).
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Nice blog you got going.
Paid a visit here with Gyromite (VancouverSlop).
Ordered a tomato bocconcini sandwich on foccacia bread (toasted). I’ll be posting my review soon at:
http://ilovefoodblog.blogspot.com/
I absolutely adore La Grotta del Formaggio
We totally should hit it sometime!