the pizza of venice. we set up shop at one of the four-seaters in the patio, arranging a six-pack of mothership wit and five bottles of goose strategically to allow room for a lot of venetian-style pizza. at first we weren't sure if our waitress was taking a siesta break or what, since we sat there drinking beer for about 40 minutes before i went in to tell her we were ready to order. (she only truly snapped out of it when maria poked her in the butt to ask for some water.) but it was a buona sera and perfect for sidewalk sitting, so we patiently awaited the gondola that will take us through the tunnel of love to the piazza of pizza pizzazz.
beth ordered the papate rosmarino (thinly sliced potatoes seasoned with rosemary) and you must be thinking, potatoes on pizza? where is dr. atkins? but beth took one bite and sighed, "that's amore," and thank god for polygamy when it comes to pizza, because we all stole one bite of it as well and also muttered sweet nothings in the same breath. i ordered the quattro stagioni (tomatoes, artichoke, mushrooms and ham), which means four seasons.
and for the evening's "when the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie" moment, maria's tutta pizza (sausage, pepperoni, mushroom, onion, black olives and blue cheese) -- or garbage pizza. the thing was a honking slab of everything that could make a pizza taste good; it looked like a pile of compost, but my mom always said to never judge a pizza by its toppings.
grease. it's the word. these pizzas were tasty, and i don't believe i've ever had pizza where the crust tasted like a cross between fillo pastry, biscuit and baked dough. it was crispy, but it almost tasted fried because it was so buttery (being a crust fan, i'm that person who grabs all the end pieces for the crisp). the pizzas were also cheesy, resembling the american method of pizza prep, but not over-indulgent, so other toppings such as artichoke, mushrooms, ham, black olives, potatoes and rosemary still hogged the spotlight. so i must say, a little over the top for me, but i can't really complain about the investment in the good stuff, since the overall taste was not compromised. although my caloric intake for the day was. here's a good way of looking at it: if i was eating a garbage pizza from giordano's, i would be throwing up in the trash after two slices.
since we'd already gone too far, there was no meeting halfway when it came to dessert. we ordered the tiramisu (an italian must, a pizza rustica bust), the panna cotta (looked like a slab of undercooked tofu, tasted like paradiso), and the special, a cake layered with marmalade and topped off with chocolate (orange you full already?).