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Mamma Mia! La Mesa's got your Gabagool
New Market & Sicilian Deli offers beer, wine, Italian subs and more
The torpedo sub made by Mamma Mia Market & Sicilian Deli
Video:
FEAST!: Mamma Mia! La Mesa's got your Gabagool
We have known each other many years, but this is the first time I have come to you making mafia movie references while writing about an Italian eatery.
However, the sign for Mamma Mia Market & Sicilian Deli mimics the title cards of The Godfather films, with a marionette control bar and strings over the name of the place. So before I even pass under the shop's red, white, and green awning, I'm asking myself, "Will they make me a sandwich I can't refuse?"
A market of wine, beer, Italian imports, fresh pastas and more
Turns out, there's Godfather imagery inside too, but it's overshadowed by much older cultural references—the ceiling has been covered in faux ceiling frescoes. Familiar renaissance paintings by the likes of Raphael and Michaelangelo loom large over rows of market shelves stocked with wines, olive oils, and other Italian imports. In a cooler on one side are cold drinks; on the other Mamma Mia provides house-made pasta sauces, pizza dough, and fresh pasta made by Little Italy mainstay Assenti's. At the back, a walk-in beer cooler is loaded with domestic and craft beers, if you're not into Peroni.
But I'm more interested in the deli counter to the right as you walk in, where among the meats, cheeses, and sandwiches, I find an edible nod to the Italian-American mafia in pop culture: gabagool.
The deli counter at Mamma Mia
Otherwise called coppa, or capicola, gabagool may be best known the deli meat that triggered Tony Soprano's blackouts in The Sopranos TV series. In the spectrum of Italian cured meats, you could think of it as more tender than prosciutto, or less spicy than soppressata. To me, it's a little like black forest ham without the smoke.
In other words, gabagool is not extraordinary, but it's sure fun to say. Gabagool.
A slice of gabagool, a.k.a. capicola
It only turns up on one of Mamma Mia's signature $13 subs—with spicy soppressata and mortadella on the Spicy Italian—but you can buy it for $12/lb alongside other deli meats ranging from salami to roast turkey breast.
You can't go wrong ordering a sub, though. Served on toasty, house-baked rolls of Italian bread, the subs are loaded with shredded lettuce, onions, tomatoes, Italian dressing, and provolone cheese. I grabbed a torpedo (mortadella, salami, and ham) and it was everything you want a torpedo to be. Which explains why I'm already finding lunchtime lines just a few weeks after the deli opened its doors.
A Tuscan style panini, with mortadella, pistachios, stracciatalla cheese on schiacciata bread
I'm less enthusiastic about the shop's second, $15 Specialty Sandwich menu, including the Mamma Mia Signature, the sort of pistachio and mortadella panini I've been mildly obsessed with this year. Though it's made true to form with spreadable stracciatalla cheese, on schiacciata (Tuscany's crispier answer to focaccia bread), the sandwiches on this menu veer sweeter than I prefer. One features fig jam, another balsamic glaze. The Signature is spread with what tastes like a honey sweetened pistachio cream.
I'm partial to the salt and pepper direction taken by the subs. Then again, if Don Vito Corleone himself were to comment, he might say, "A food critic should always underestimate your virtues and overestimate your faults."
Here's something you might be interested in.
Mamma Mia! La Mesa's got your Gabagool
New Market & Sicilian Deli offers beer, wine, Italian subs and more
Mamma Mia! La Mesa's got your Gabagool
New Market & Sicilian Deli offers beer, wine, Italian subs and more
The torpedo sub made by Mamma Mia Market & Sicilian Deli
Video:
FEAST!: Mamma Mia! La Mesa's got your Gabagool
We have known each other many years, but this is the first time I have come to you making mafia movie references while writing about an Italian eatery.
However, the sign for Mamma Mia Market & Sicilian Deli mimics the title cards of The Godfather films, with a marionette control bar and strings over the name of the place. So before I even pass under the shop's red, white, and green awning, I'm asking myself, "Will they make me a sandwich I can't refuse?"
A market of wine, beer, Italian imports, fresh pastas and more
Turns out, there's Godfather imagery inside too, but it's overshadowed by much older cultural references—the ceiling has been covered in faux ceiling frescoes. Familiar renaissance paintings by the likes of Raphael and Michaelangelo loom large over rows of market shelves stocked with wines, olive oils, and other Italian imports. In a cooler on one side are cold drinks; on the other Mamma Mia provides house-made pasta sauces, pizza dough, and fresh pasta made by Little Italy mainstay Assenti's. At the back, a walk-in beer cooler is loaded with domestic and craft beers, if you're not into Peroni.
But I'm more interested in the deli counter to the right as you walk in, where among the meats, cheeses, and sandwiches, I find an edible nod to the Italian-American mafia in pop culture: gabagool.
The deli counter at Mamma Mia
Otherwise called coppa, or capicola, gabagool may be best known the deli meat that triggered Tony Soprano's blackouts in The Sopranos TV series. In the spectrum of Italian cured meats, you could think of it as more tender than prosciutto, or less spicy than soppressata. To me, it's a little like black forest ham without the smoke.
In other words, gabagool is not extraordinary, but it's sure fun to say. Gabagool.
A slice of gabagool, a.k.a. capicola
It only turns up on one of Mamma Mia's signature $13 subs—with spicy soppressata and mortadella on the Spicy Italian—but you can buy it for $12/lb alongside other deli meats ranging from salami to roast turkey breast.
You can't go wrong ordering a sub, though. Served on toasty, house-baked rolls of Italian bread, the subs are loaded with shredded lettuce, onions, tomatoes, Italian dressing, and provolone cheese. I grabbed a torpedo (mortadella, salami, and ham) and it was everything you want a torpedo to be. Which explains why I'm already finding lunchtime lines just a few weeks after the deli opened its doors.
A Tuscan style panini, with mortadella, pistachios, stracciatalla cheese on schiacciata bread
I'm less enthusiastic about the shop's second, $15 Specialty Sandwich menu, including the Mamma Mia Signature, the sort of pistachio and mortadella panini I've been mildly obsessed with this year. Though it's made true to form with spreadable stracciatalla cheese, on schiacciata (Tuscany's crispier answer to focaccia bread), the sandwiches on this menu veer sweeter than I prefer. One features fig jam, another balsamic glaze. The Signature is spread with what tastes like a honey sweetened pistachio cream.
I'm partial to the salt and pepper direction taken by the subs. Then again, if Don Vito Corleone himself were to comment, he might say, "A food critic should always underestimate your virtues and overestimate your faults."