Lost Dog Cafe & Gourmet Pizza Deli, Arlington

Liza wants a dog. She wants a little Pomeranian that can hop around and cuddle with her. Unfortunately, we have signed a lease that does not allow pets on the premises.

Liza is sad about this, so of course she turns to comfort food...Pizza!

Lazing on a Sunday afternoon, we decided to head out for a pie. Liza wanted to check out the Lost Dog Cafe & Gourmet Pizza Deli in Arlington. Woof!

Now the Lost Dog Cafe is part of a charming strip mall--is that an oxymoron?--that also includes a restaurant called the Stray Cat Cafe. Same owner? Based on the restaurants' web sites, I would say Ruff Ruff!

We walk in through the deli entrance and must wait 10 minutes for a table. Grrr...

As we wait, I check out the impressive beer inventory on hand. There are the regulars, of course. And there's Dogfish Head India Brown Ale and Flying Dog Tire Bite Golden Ale. And there's a great selection from overseas, including Ireland, Germany, England, Belgium and Italy. Woof!

Finally seated, we take note of the decor while our waitress--freshman year in college is my guess--takes the order from a twosome who were seated after us. We see artwork of--what else?--dogs all over the wall. It's appropriate, of course. But nowhere did I see the classic "Dogs Playing Poker." What's up with that? Howwwwl!

We perused the menu and liked the variety of pizzas available as well as the clever names. There's the Popeye Pie (with spinach), the Big Red Pie (with lots of sauce), the Pitbull Pie (with pastrami, salami, pepperoni and red onions) and the Cattle Dog Pie (with beef barbecue). Arf!

Time to order. I order a Sierra Nevada pale ale and Liza settles on a Merlot. We each get a salad as an appetizer. Then we opt to split a Rin Tin Tin Pie. This has marinara sauce with sliced portabella mushrooms, spinach, red onions, red peppers topped with fresh mozzarella and basil on a wheat pizza crust. Woof Woof!

The pizza arrives in due time, a 12-incher separated in six slices. Nice job on the presentation and the toppings appear spread evenly throughout the pie. Ruff!

But I could tell right away slices were going to droop. I had to eat the first 2-3 bites of the slice with my knife and fork. (Pizza is meant to be eaten by hand, people!) I understand this can happen when there's marinara sauce and multiple toppings, but I expect pizza chefs to shrug that off and cook it well enough to minimize the droop. (We saw some other pies at adjacent tables that didn't have the dreaded droop, but they were mostly cheese pizzas.) Growl!

How about the flavor? The "homemade sauce" was tasty but not anything to bark about. Lots of mozzarella piled on--that's fine, but it may have added to the droopiness factor. I liked the spinach and mushroom flavor, but couldn't really taste the red peppers. Grr...

Bonus points go to Lost Dog Cafe for helping with pet rescue and linking to pet adoption services on their web site. Ruff Ruff!

In the end, we decided this pizza is better than eating a dog bone but not quite worth the wag of a tail.

Gary's rating: 2.5 Stars
Liza's rating: 2.5 Stars

Pizzeria Paradiso-- Georgetown

We’re back. After an unintended hiatus, your favorite pizza bloggers are here with a new review. Feels like forever since we consumed some 'za. Let's eat!

Sunday afternoon, Liza and I made our way to Georgetown for lunch and a movie. Saw “Slumdog Millionaire.” We liked it well enough. Feeling generous, I’d give it three stars.

Afterwards, we walked a couple blocks to Pizzeria Paradiso on M Street.

Pizzeria Paradiso has a rep as one of the best pizza joints in D.C., so we were expecting the best. This is Neapolitan pizza.

This restaurant has a very cozy feel, kind of like sitting at the kitchen table at home. The wood-burning, domed stone oven is right there in the middle of the restaurant.

The tables are a little too close together, which is okay if you like to eavesdrop on conversations.

The wait staff wears shirts with "Eat Your Pizza" on the back. Okay. Will do. (Guess I'm a sucker for not-so-subliminal advertising.)

This is a bustling place, but we were quickly seated on this late Sunday afternoon.

Pizzeria Paradiso has an impressive beer menu. You had to sit and study the beer menu for 10 minutes before deciding. Liza went with some kind of apple beer that was a little too sweet and fruity for her taste. I had a dark Russian stout that was actually brewed in California. Hmmm...

We ordered a mixed green salad and followed that up with a Bosco Pizza.

The Bosco has tomatoes, mushrooms, spinach, red onions and mozzarella cheese. Good mix of stuff.

The fine chefs at Pizzeria Paradiso say they put a lot of emphasis on their crust, and it shows. This was perfect crust--not too hard, not too soft. The toppings were generous, but not so much that the pizza drooped.

Liza enjoyed the crust so much that she poured a little olive oil on her plate and finished off her slices with a dip.

The pizza's flavor was excellent. You could taste the tomatoes in one bite, the spinach and red onions in another bite, the mushrooms in another bite.

I thought the tomatoes tasted great, but Liza thought they were a little bland.

Minor complaint, though. Said Liza: Pizzeria Paradiso is “consistently good,” and perhaps best of all, it “re-warms well.” (Liza had a leftover slice after we got home.)

This was a satisfying pizza.

Folks, believe the hype. If not the best pizza in D.C., then it’s among the best. Paradise!

Liza’s rating: 3.5 stars
Gary’s rating: 4 stars

Buddy's Pizza -- Metro Detroit, Michigan

Gary and I went to my beloved Buddy's Pizza over the holidays. Doesn't that look like a little piece of heaven?

Matchbox-- Barrack's Row / Capitol Hill

The long-awaited Matchbox opened last week on 8th Street in Barrack's Row. Gary and I tried to go there the night it opened, but the wait was an hour and a half (?!?) so we went somewhere else. Gary was out of town this weekend, and I was REALLY craving some pizza, so I decided to check it out myself.

We previously reviewed Matchbox in Chinatown about a year ago, and I thought the pizza was a-ight... not my favorite. One thing I do like about Matchbox pizza, though, is the spicy tomato sauce. Tonight I ordered a tomato, basil and mozzarella pizza, and the sauce did not disappoint. Although the pizza was a little cold when I got it-- I think they are still working out some service kinks-- overall I thought this pizza was better than the one I had in Chinatown. The crust was nice and crispy, and the toppings were tasty.

I'm looking forward to going back soon with Gary.

Liza's rating: 3.0 stars

Obama's Favorite Pizza?

So what is the favorite pizza of DC's newest resident?

Apparently it is Italian Fiesta Pizza in Hyde Park.

The Ritz in Washington D.C. is paying to fly the pizzeria's owners to the nation's capitol for the inauguration expo to be held there next week to serve their pizza there. A month before the election, owner Patti Harris-Tubbs got a phone call from the Ritz-Carlton in Washington, D.C., asking if she would be willing to come to the nation's capital to make her pizza if Obama won. She thought it was a joke, Harris-Tubbs when Obama won, the hotel e-mailed back, offering to fly her and her husband out to serve their pizza next week at the Presidential Inauguration Expo, which is an event designed to preview the food that will be served at inauguration time in January.

Capitol Lounge-- Capitol Hill

Another Sunday, another Lions loss.

Today started as a nice, lazy Sunday... since the Redskins play on Monday Night Football, we were able to sleep in (extra hour for daylight savings-- woot woot!), go out for breakfast, and generally hang out all day. I was listening to the Lions on the radio online, and at halftime, the Lions were actually WINNING! So we thought-- hey, let's go watch the rest of the game!

We ventured out to Capitol Lounge on the Hill and staked out a seat at the bar. Not surprisingly, the Lions weren't on any TVs, but the nice bartender lady switched the game on for us. Also not surprisingly, the Lions had one of their usual epic 4th quarter collapses. Sigh.

But, on to more important matters. If we're watching football, we gotta get some beer and pizza. We ordered a pie with mushrooms and onions, and Gary got a Capitol Amber beer.

This pizza was huge-- eight large slices, and we only ate half and were stuffed. The crust was a little floppy, which is a pet peeve of Gary's. The cheese was a tad on the rubbery side. And there was a good helping of grease on the pizza, making napkins a necessity after every bite. The toppings were pretty tasty, though.

As for the Amber... Gary says, "it was okay... it was beer." Not something to write home about, apparently.

As a football watching venue, Capitol Lounge was a little... strange. There were a lot of TVs, but several of them were teeny tiny. For some reason they attracted the most uninspired fans I have ever seen. We sat next to two Titans fans who were watching the thrilling ending of their game against the Packers, and all these guys could muster was, "Hmmm, well, they really need to get into position so Bironas can kick a field goal." And after the winning field goal was kicked? "Cool man, we're 8 and 0." Come on people, where's the passion?!?! I was getting more fired up about my 0-8 team, geeeeeeeeeez!

Liza and Gary's rating: 1.5 stars

Uno's at Union Station-- Capitol Hill

The economy's tanking, folks, so Liza and Gary's weekly date night is getting scaled down. This means that this week, we went for dinner and a movie at Union Station. At least we didn't get take out pizza at the food court-- we went upstairs to Uno for a sit-down meal. But, we did forgo the alcohol. You know that these are tough economic times when I pass up a chance for a nice adult beverage with a pizza pie!

I used to adore Uno's, and I was all excited last year when Top Chef did a "create a deep dish pizza" challenge at the restaurant. But, the pizza there is getting more and more disappointing. We split a deep dish pie, and it was okay, but pretty much flavorless. It made me wish I was back in Maui at BJ's. (Well, there's lots of reasons I'd rather be in Maui, but that's just one of them.)

Uno's is phoning it in.

Liza and Gary's rating: 2.0 stars