There is an extensive menu besides the pizza, and these dinners come with free Cheese Bread or Garlic Bread (the bread is also available in to-go orders).

Garlic bread served with meals

Garlic Bread is served free with meals, and I found it to be quite fresh with a good flavor. Like everything here, it seemed to be made in house.

Greek salad

I thought the Greek Salad had good greens and feta cheese, and I particularly liked the olives. The dressing was a little bland, though. The Antipasto Salad was equally good, and had a better dressing, but the large amount of ham made it pretty much of a meat dish.

The House Salad was smaller, and mainly relied on the cheese sprinkled over the top for flavor (but the vinaigrette dressing was pretty good).

None of the salads seemed like standouts to me, but except for the house salad, I thought they were better than at most competing restaurants.

Spinach pizza

A Spinach Pizza was a build-your-own ingredient pizza that I tried on my first visit, and it was enough to make me a huge fan of the food here. The crust was thin, crispy, and fresh. The sauce was excellent, and the tomatoes and spinach added on top were garden fresh. It was a pretty standard pizza done to near perfection. I don't know their secret, but whatever it is does not make this a more expesive pizza than is served other places, and in fact it is quite reasonably priced.

Margharita pizza

Margharita Pizza was not on the menu, but I found that when I requested it they were happy to prepare it. Like the spinach pizza, I found this to be and example of the true reason to come to Italia Express, and it was one of the best pizzas I have had in a long time. Just as the spinach was a notable feature of the first pizza I tried, the basil on this one was outstanding. It is more expensive than the pizzas ordered directly from the menu, though.

A large variety of pizzas are available, and I think one thing that makes them so popular is that you can get just about any toppings you want. One thing I have found, though, is that the quality of the basic ingredients (crust, sauce, cheese, and toppings) will always be good when you come here.

Spinach and tomato calzone

I tried a Calzone to sample some of the other food available, but it was not only less satisfying than the pizza as a meal, I also did not think it matched it in flavor. The calzone can be heated in a short period of time, though, and is really ideal for a quick meal. Both a vegetarian and meat version (with pepperoni & sausage) are available. I have not yet tried the meat version, so my asessment of it may be different than the one I tried with spinach, tomato, and ricotta cheese.

Chicken fettuccini alfredo

Chicken Fettuccini Alfredo is one of the more substantial dinners available (or you can get it without chicken), and in fact is one of several typical Italian dishes served. I thought the dish was heavy on the sauce, and was not a very complex or well flavored meal. The individual ingredients were good quality, though.

Eggplant parmesan

Eggplant Parmesan was one of the better dinners I have had, but I prefer the cooking style used at Papa Dio's and some other restaurants. For the money, though, the one at Italia Express is hard to beat, and it would have been very good if it had not tasted so much like eggplant (one of my least favorite vegetables).

Ziti basilic

Ziti Basilic was one of the "Light and Healthy" items from a special menu (ziti with marinara sauce is available on the regular menu). At first this was my favorite dinner item from the restaurant until later when I had an apparent MSG reaction, so this is no longer something that I order. It did have an excellent flavor, though, and reminded me of the pasta dishes I used to get at Souper Salad (which also gave me MSG reactions). So far the marinara sauce has not given me the same MSG reaction as the basilic sauce, and I have been safe in ordering pizza with red sauce.