Cava-- Barrack's Row / Capitol Hill

A weekend ago, I traveled to Las Vegas for a Bachelor's Weekend for my friend Neil, while Liza helped host a Bachelorette's Weekend near Charlottesville, Va., for Neil's bride-to-be Steph.

Crazy fun times for the both of us. Details? As you know, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas (including my money). And what happens in Charlottesville...well, who cares, I was in Vegas!

As an aside...big shout out to Sirrico's Pizza at the New York New York Las Vegas Hotel & Casino for the late-night pizza offerings. Good stuff.

Liza and I spent four days apart for the first time since before our wedding. Back together this weekend, we decided to try a relatively new Greek restaurant called Cava on 8th Street on Capitol Hill.

Cava used to be Marty's, a modest bar and restaurant with traditional American fare. Marty's is most notable as the place where Liza and Gary first met and hatched our plans for pizza blog-dom!

Of course, we were sad to see Marty's go out of business. If only they had offered pizza on the menu...Sigh.

Now Marty's is Cava. The restaurant does not take reservations, so on weekend nights you can expect to wait for a table. They offer their food mezze style--small plates of food similar to tapas, but slightly larger so that it can be shared. As Liza knows, this can be a little discombobulating for me because you have to order multiple plates and they usually come at you fast and furious.

We ordered a village salad, saganaki (No "Opa!"?) and spanakopita. All very good, especially the saganaki. So kudos to Cava.

And then there was the pizza.

One of Cava's menu options was arto tyri, or Greek style pizza. It comes on a grilled flatbread with Greek cheeses.

It arrived cut and separated into eight small slices, which was fine considering the three other plates we had ordered. It was kind of like fingerfood.

This pizza--if you could even call it that--was as basic as it comes. It was grilled bread with a garlicky cheese cooked on it. Gobs of feta cheese were added on in an attempt to give it a Greek flavor. And that's it. Oh yeah, there was an arugala salad on the side.

The pizza was very bland and unremarkable, and lacked a distinctive taste that would suggest it was Greek. What about some olives? Spinach? Tomatoes?

Said Liza: "Bread and cheese does not a pizza make." (Liza suggests that if one wants some great Greek pizza, visit Niki's in Greektown, in Detroit. Now THAT'S some good eatin'.)

Gary's Rating: 0.5 Stars
Liza's Rating: 0.5 Stars

Cava's other dishes were very good, though. And they had a good wine list (although no draft beer at the bar, which was odd). So Liza and I both agree it's not fair to evaluate Cava on its pizza dish. We would both go back to Cava for dinner--we just would not order the Greek style pizza.