83. Pete’s Apizza
Tonight I went out for a casual dinner with a friend at Pete’s Apizza, a pizza restaurant (obvs) in Columbia Heights (not so obvs). I’ve been hearing about this place for a while, so I’m glad I finally made my way over there. I have to first start with the fact that this place has the most ridiculous name. When I first saw it, I thought the name was actually genius because it was playing off that whole Little Caesars “PIZZA PIZZA” thing with the little gnome guy. But now that I think about it, that’s probably not such a great media campaign to copy off of since I haven’t seen a Little Caesars in like ten years. Anyways, I guess the name of this restaurant is actually pronounced “Pete’s a-BEEZ”. I have no idea what that is. I hope there’s a story behind it somewhere, because otherwise it’s just weird. That’s like all the sudden saying that instead of Ashley, my name should be pronounced “Ash-laugh”. But I digress…
Luckily that is really the only bad thing I have to say about Pete’s a-whatever. The restaurant is located right on top of one of the busier Metro stops and right between a Five Guys and a Potbellys, but once you’re inside it feels hip and cool and like a hidden gem. The majority of the diners were families (hip and cool families!) out for Friday night pizza night, and mid-twenties couples on the way home from work. They seemed to be doing the bulk of their business as carryout, which was fine by me because it was hard enough to get a seat anyway. There is a bar at the front window (which I didn’t see how you could physically eat a pizza on since it was about 10 inches wide), a few small tables, and four or five communal tables in the middle. Communal tables are usually not my thing, but luckily the aforementioned hip and cool young family at the other end was just as unfriendly as I am and was not interested in making our dinners communal.
We ordered three pieces of pizza and a house salad between the two of us. The next time I go (and I will), I’m going to make sure to order the mixed antipasto dish. Tonight it looked like focaccia and marinated mushrooms and a big hunk of cheese (a girl can dream it was goat cheese), but we couldn’t possibly order one other thing. At least not while strangers were watching. I ordered the Washingtonian-sanctioned New Haven Pizza, which was white-clam and delicious. I don’t recommend ordering this one on a date—there was enough garlic on there to take down a whole family of vampires. It was so good that even my Midwestern-raised, peanut butter and jelly eating buddy thought it was great. We also had the pepperoni (spicy and classic), and the fennel sausage and pepper (sweet and tasty and I wish they sold this sausage in bulk). The house salad was also really delicious, mixed greens with lots of gorgonzola and walnuts in a balsamic vinaigrette. A very tasty way for us to convince ourselves we had a well-rounded dinner. There were tons of specialty pizzas on the menu that are made to order as whole pies, and if I had some very hungry friends one night I would order them in a second. There were options with soppressata, white anchovies, caper berries and even friend eggplant slices. But at 18 inches, I didn’t think the two of us could take down a whole pizza when not equipped with stretchy pants. I also need to make sure to try the Sorbillo’s Original, which appears to be a pizza-shaped Hot Pocket filled with meat and cheese. It looks a lot like the weird double decker pizza at Sbarros, but the ends were sealed up so you didn’t run in to that nasty problem of all the grease running down your hand when you were shoving 2,000 calories in your face at once.
Unfortunately we couldn’t force ourselves to try the desserts but they looked great. I was especially interested in something that looked like pudding (I’m a girl with simple tastes) in an espresso cup, but the Italian pastries looked pretty awesome as well. See you soon, cream-filled surprises. You too, Peroni on draft…
