Thursday, I ate a lot of pizza; Or College Park is awful

On Thursday, I ate a lot of pizza. 4 slices--2 for lunch, 2 for dinner--to be precise.

I forgot my lunch and had to run out at noon for something to eat. I weighed my options...chipotle? Jimmy Johns? Taco Bell? I was pretty burned out on the College Park options...but then I remembered that there was Vito's Pizza at the end of the "revolving door" strip mall (I call it this because nothing in that strip lasts more than a few months...). A few months before, it had been Tony's pizza. Before that...something, I can't remember. The location has housed at least 4 different places since I moved to the area. Anyhow, I'd not tried Vito's pizza, and I figured I should. It's one of the few pizza (or pizzaesque) joints I'd not yet tried in College Park.

Their student special was 2 slices of plain cheese and a can of pop for 5 dollars. I suppose that's decent.

The pizza wasn't though. I was pretty hungry, but couldn't finish both slices. Not because they were too generous--they were average sized slices, and quite thin--but because they had just an overwhelming amount of crappy cheese on them.

I know, I know, I tend to say that the cheese is the least important part, because how can cheese be bad? But...I guess Vito wanted to prove me wrong. It was just a really cheap white cheese blend, and laid on really thick, and not fully melted, and gummy and gross.

The sauce was fine--a bright sauce, which is nice (and needed to combat that cheese), and the crust was thin and floppy. It was, overall, very greasy and heavy and I needed large amounts of red pepper to choke down a slice and a half. I'm pretty sure by the end I was wishing I'd just spent my 5 bucks at Jimmy John's again.

Later that evening I went to the Barrelhouse present's Big Lucks reading at Wonderland, and because I'd been running around all day, I didn't get a chance to eat dinner beforehand. This seems to happen to me every time I go to Wonderland for a reading, and I'm really sick of their menu, to be honest. It's fine every now and again, but you don't want to go there when you're actually hungry. So...I decided to forgo eating, while hoping that my tummy wouldn't growl too loudly during the reading.

The one thing I didn't take into account though when making this decision was that they had Two Hearted on tap, and it was happy hour. Uh...so I drank 2 of those, and was drunk (I'm pathetic.) And so...a bit later, once the reading was done, I needed food for real if I was going to make it home. I went to Pete's and managed to get 2 far superior slices of pizza for the same price I'd paid at lunch. Ugh. Go Pete's, and fuck College Park.

Back to the reading real quick--you know, Wonderland host's the Mock Turtle, and I always figured that the reason Wonderland was so crappy during our readings is because it was a Friday night and they really didn't want us there/felt like they were doing us some huge favor. But what's typical of Mock Turtle's? Oh, the bar isn't ready. Oh, the sound system isn't working. Oh, the chair's aren't set up. Oh, our bartender called in. They're just never prepared or happy to have us there.

I thought it was just us. But clearly, it's not. Barrelhouse was doing a Thursday reading (and I would imagine they'd be more hospitable to a Thursday event than a Friday one...) and they were told, upon arrival, that they had the date wrong, that the bar wouldn't be open for the event (seems like a great way to lose money, Wonderland...) , there was no sound system at all (cos everyone loves listening poetry and fiction when it's shouted from a stage), and no AC.

They pulled off a decent reading in spite of this. Good job guys.

pizzaesque

Last night, I went out to Mosaic Cafe in College Park to share a Mezze with a very nice gentleman named Ross. I tried Manakish with Za'atar for the first time, which was tasty and somewhat pizzaesque, at least in shape. It was a bit greasy, but I think that had more to do with the restaurant than the dish...it's certainly a dish I would eat again. It had a strong thyme flavor, and I adore thyme. But let's be honest---I'm SO spoiled on middle eastern cuisine. Both times I've eaten at Mosaic, I just wasn't impressed. Their falafel was over seasoned and a bit mushy, and while many things we tried on our Mezze were pleasantly spicy, none of it was all that great. The real problem was the bread though--just a plain somewhat dry pita. Too thick. Everything would have tasted much better with a fresh, thin, chewy and warm blanket of lavash. I can at least look forward to going to Shawarma King in a few weeks when I'm back in Michigan.

Anyhow. It was worth noting though that I was in good company, and I ate something tasty and somewhat pizza-like.

Dreams do come true!

By way of slice, an admittedly far superior pizza blog ...

There is an upcoming pizza event that combines two of my favorite things into a single afternoon of delights: the nyc pizza run!

Participants must run 2.25 miles, while stopping at three checkpoints along the way to consume slices of pizza.


It takes place Sept. 19th. Who's with me? I say we start training now with daily pizza jogs.

best concept(s) ever

So, two things worth noting here.

First, I heard of this magical sounding place in Petworth that serves both really good wood-oven pizza AND authentic Salvadorean food, which means I could have pizza and pupusas together.

Second, I recently had my photo taken for my office door sign, and Mike, the AV dude, took it in front of a green screen. It's pretty much my fave pic taken of me in years. He then sent me the version that I can put in front of any background I want. I'm trying to figure this out, and then put together something funny and pizza related for this blog. It's hard to tell whether I want to try to make this thing look more "professional" or not--clearly, it was hastily laid out, and it is generally lazily produced. I could do more with it, for sure. But...we'll see. Maybe some stylized pizza banner including this smiling mug here:What do you think? Maybe I can snagit in a little speech bubble that says "I judge people who say 'za'." Hah.

midyear roundup

So, I'm now more than halfway into this year of pizza eating adventures. It's time to reflect on the good, the bad, and the uh, maybe I should try that again...

The Good

Best DC pizza:

Red Rocks in Columbia Heights. I want to return for their brunch pizza, cos egg on a pizza is one of my favorite things.

runners up:

Comet Ping Pong I would go to Comet all the time if it wasn't so out of the way--good pizza, good beer, and ping pong. What more can a girl ask for? Plus, they offer fresh jalepeno peppers as a topping.

Pete's Apizza in Columbia Heights. Good beer list, Boylan's fountain, and pizza meant for sharing. I like it. I just wish the crust was a touch crisper.


While the Fire and Smoke pizza at Matchbox was very good, Matchbox doesn't make the good list for DC in general cos it's just too soggy to be worth the wait and prices.

Best Baltimore pizza:

Iggies, easily. Pear pizza. Oh sweet Jesus. Look at how happy we all are after eating there for Noah's birthday! Well...happy and or so stuffed we're in agony (see Adam P at the back of the table...)

Best Jumbo Slice:

Who cares? I'm drunk and I need my pizza flavored bedsheet.

Best Chain/Takeout/Delivery:
Mamma Lucia's Actually, this pizza could be better than Pete's Apizza, but Pete's wins in the atmosphere department.

Best NY Slice in the Village: Joe's Pizza. Especially at 11am, just after they've opened, or at 2am, just before catching the PATH to Jersey.

Runner Up:

Pizza Box. But only if I eat it with my brother.

Best Frozen Pizza: Trader Joe's Quattro Formagi
Best "I'm drunk and want frozen pizza but I spent all my money at the bar" pizza: Tony's crispy crust.
Best "Pizzaesque" food: Totino's pizza rolls. I had these for the first time in years the other day. They were surprisingly great. I'm shocked.

BEST PIZZA EVER: Totonno's, Coney Island. They've reopened after the fire, finally. I hope it's still as good as I remember...going back soon.


The Bad

Truly bad pizza is few and far between. But it exists, and I've found it.

Ella's--I was so pissed off by this pizza visit. Was it the worst pizza I've ever had? No. But the experience overall was just awful.

Franklin's--dudes, get yo shizz together.

Domino's--even if the campaign is true and your pizza technically tastes better than it used to, it couldn't have been to difficult to improve on the old stuff, the pizza you delivered looked like it had fallen out of the box onto the floor and put back into the box, and it took like, an hour to get to me, despite your online pizza tracker's claims that my pizza had been successfully delivered.

Runner Up:

What does it mean to be a runner up in the bad pizza category? It means your Ledo pizza. I only ever eat this at workplace quarterly staff meetings. And I eat like, 30 little square pieces of it in a single sitting. But it's not good. Not good at all.

Deserving of a Second Chance?

People keep telling me that my bad pizza experience at Pizzeria Paradiso wasn't typical. Maybe I'll try again and go to the Georgetown location this time. But if that sauce is all nasty and tinny again, you all are officially crazy for loving this place.


Still Need to Visit


In DC, there are several places I've not been to yet.

1: 2Amy's. Guys, I really do want to go, I swear. It's just so far away though. Let's go, k? Just someone else drive.

2: I'm fairly strongly predisposed towards hating We, the Pizza for many reasons, not least of them being their grammatically mind boggling "manifesto" (We is making your head hurts).

3: Radius. I actually may have eaten this pizza already--see the early post about watching "Jennifer's Body" and eating mystery pizza. I'm not sure though. Memories of that evening are very...uh...hazy.

4: That Italian market place out somewhere (maybe suburban?) that supposedly has awesome pizza. Considering I know SOOO much about the place, accomplishing this one might be tricky. (Thanks to Google, I'm thinking it's Vace or the Italian Store)

5: Places you tell me to eat. Isn't there some new joint over on U street?