Crust Pizzeriza Napoletana – Vienna, VA

I came here on another recommendation from my Italian co-worker. She recommended I try the Pizza Fritta, which turns out to be a Fried Calzone, so that’s exactly what I did. I went a few hours after lunchtime, so the place was pretty dead. The atmosphere of the venue was open and modern with a little Italian flair adorning the walls here and there. I could see a wood-fire oven in the corner behind the cash register. Once I ordered, I sat down and waited for about ten minutes for the calzone to arrive and, when it did, I have to say that I had never seen a calzone like this one. It was clearly fried, as the dough resembled a funnel cake of some kind. It wasn’t topped with anything, but sprinkled green with chopped basil or parsley. Yes, this calzone was “doughy” but being fried dough was quite flavorful by itself. The calzone contained ricotta cheese, a thin authentic-style Italian sauce, and thick sliced and diced cuts of what appeared to be ham but the website calls it “Salami di Napoli”. The ham/salami was cured and gave a salty flavor to the dish. The interesting thing about the frying process was that it created a “stew” out of the inside of the calzone so that all of the individual ingredients were mixed together into a soupy pinkish mess inside the pocket. There were also what appeared to be whole bay leaves cooked inside with the other ingredients, and their flavor permeated everything about the calzone. Despite the unappealing look of the inside, this calzone was quite good. I would say that this calzone was medium-big, it wasn’t as big as the biggest I’ve had so far, but it certainly was larger than average. It was not served with any marinara sauce. I give this calzone a B- because the bay leaves were very powerful, it was just slightly too much dough, and the cost of this meal was $15. I would have maybe charged $10 or $11 for it and still thought that was generous.