North Liberty, IA: Johnson County

Oh, BABY, are we glad we stopped into this place! Let’s think the holidays for a moment. You have family in town and you know that you’re going to be cooking all day long for the big day. You’ll want to take a couple breaks between cooking baking, cocoa pouring, big ole’ bird basting, and your annoying uncle coming in and picking at the fruit cake before you’ve had a chance serve it. You put in all that culinary effort and all everyone talks about is the presents under the tree. Typical. Let’s make the executive decision and go out one of these days before or after the 25th and have the Mirabito family cook some meals out to your gaggle for a night. We did!

The pizza debate will be waged for generations in the Corridor. We all have our favorites, and now there’s going to be a lot of locals putting Mirabito’s in the category of one of the best place to get a spicy pie. I know I am, after smashing their Brooklyn’s Best pizza piled with pepperoni, cappicola, prosciutto, Italian sausage, whole milk mozzarella, and their house-made pizza sauce. Monie ordered the Cannel-looooooooo-ni. (Said like Homer Simpson) A crepe filled with beef, pork, spinach, onions, garlic, and cheese. They bake it topped with marinara and Alfredo sauces and served very hot. We huddled around it like a campfire and warmed our hands.

Leah and Charlie went with Spaghetti Marinara with giant homemade meatballs. Our server experienced Team Goodvin’s official pasta eating machines on this night and saw that the kids weren’t interested in taking leftovers home. They devoured this classic taking no prisoners. Those meatballs had it coming if you ask me.

We’d like to thank everyone at Mirabito’s from the serving staff, the kitchen crew, and especially George who made all think about our impending New Year’s resolution. Along with the constant envy we had as we watched the constant stream beautiful plates being served to the other customers. Terri, the owner, wouldn’t let me sample the Chicken Marsala on its way out to another table. Not even a little mushroom. That just means the Mirabito’s will just have to put up with us again. Well played, Terri. Well played indeed.

Be sure to take a look at more of our travels through East Central Iowa and beyond. Thank for reading -Team Goodvin