Pie-tanza – Arlington, VA

After finding this place online, I knew that it might be slightly more upscale than what I have generally been used to. The price on the internet, and even the menu, wasn’t at all as it is in the store. Online, it appeared that there were a few “pre-built” options for a Calzone, which I generally choose. Many restaurants will allow you to “build your own” calzone, or at least add ingredients for an extra fee. However, Pie-tanza’s whole angle on Calzones is to build your own. Upon looking at the menu, there didn’t appear to be any pre-built options but, for $12.79, I was allowed to choose up to three fillings from the very large array of ingredients they had. The dough and the mozzarella are standard, so I chose domestic mushrooms, Italian sausage, and ricotta cheese. It didn’t take them long to make it. There was a giant wood-fire oven in the center of the restaurant, but it didn’t appear that they used this to make my calzone. They may have, and I was just not paying attention. The calzone was in the medium-large range as far as size goes, and it was served with a small carafe of marinara sauce that was delicious. I could describe the marinara as “earthy”. It had a lot of basil flavor and chunks of tomato in it. Suffice to say it went pretty quickly. As I am learning, a standard difference between Calzones and Strombolis are that a Calzone tends to have more dough. This was definitely the case here. The calzone had a “rolled” edge in a classic fashion, which made a lot of bread to eat around in order to get to the pocket. The dough was literally perfect. I may have had dough that I liked more because of its sweetness or texture, but this dough was, technically speaking, perfect in every way. It was not overly sweet or unsweet. It was cooked to perfection all the way through, it was both thin and crispy but had enough volume that it maintained a level of softness. The ricotta used in the pocket was a creamy high-quality cheese. The mushrooms tasted like canned ones that had been cooked (to be expected), the mozzarella seemed to not be a low-moisture kind. There was a lot of moisture in the pocket. I didn’t seem to get a whole lot of the Italian sausage that I asked for, and it was “wet” inside the middle. The wetness of the sausage and the mozzarella was not overbearing, but it did leave the bottom of the dough ever-so-slightly soggy, as described about other Calzones on this blog. All in all, this was a very good Calzone. I would score this one a B+, although it’s probably due for an A- as far as flavor goes, but the high price of almost $13 brings the score down because of the bready-ness of it and the wetness of the fillings.

Casa D’ Mama Pizzeria – Annandale, VA

Another Google maps based on vicinity find. But boy am I sure glad I found this place. It’s located in a shopping center right off of a major road, but one would kind of describe it more like a strip-mall. It’s kind of a sad affair to venture here, the area looks as if it might be closed and bought out by a developer sometime in the near future and the businesses may be struggling. This is confirmed by the signage presented (jokingly) by the establishment that reads “Please stop in so that we can both eat”. Inside of the place, it’s decorated in a vintage 80’s Italian art-deco style but in a building that looks like it was built in the 60’s or 70’s. It was easy to order and find the calzones, to which they have a plentiful selection along with strombolis. I was very tempted, based off of interview reviews, to order the Steak and Cheese stromboli but, with my last experience at Tony’s in Manassas, I decided that I should always stick with the calzone first and foremost. I chose the “Calzone”, or regular as I was informed by the cashier, for $8.99. I got my diet coke and waited for about 15 minutes for it to arrive, a normal time. I was the only patron who had ordered food at that particular moment and I could smell my calzone baking. Oh it smelled delicious! When it came, I saw that overall, in size, I would describe it as “medium” but it was so plump that I have to raise this observation to “medium large”. Upon first cut I noticed that the dough was thin and flaky on the outside, browned to a hardened shell. The filling went all the way to the edges of the dough, which is always a wonderful thing. The marinara sauce provided was especially good, flavored with strong Italian seasoning. After tasting the dough, I would almost describe it as being “pretzeled”. If there were salt on it, I would have sworn it was a pretzel. This added a truly interesting dynamic to the meal. There was also a healthy amount of ricotta in it, which is always welcome by my palate, and a goodly amount of mozzarella. The mozzarella was not congealed all the way and, at the bottom of the pocket, could still be seen in its shredded form. Surprisingly, this did not diminish from the delicious flavor and only made it taste better! The pocket was crammed full of ham. Some restaurants only sprinkle in slices of chopped up ham, but this place was very liberal with it. The ham had a wonderful smoky and sweet flavor. It was a very wet-ham which caused the bottom of the calzone to be moist with meat juice. This took away from the dough a little bit, because it was slightly soggy on the bottom, running across my plate. The combination of this flavored ham, the ricotta, the uncongealed mozzarella, and the awesome dough dipped in the heavily seasoned marinara sauce made it clear that this was one unique calzone. I loved it! The size, the price, and the uniqueness of this calzone make me give it the most solid B+ I have given to date. I will definitely be stopping back in again in the future to try that steak and cheese stromboli though.

Tony’s Pizzeria – Manassas, VA

I went here on a recommendation from a friend’s wife’s coworker. The webpage of the establishment makes it look like a five star restaurant. Upon arrival, I realized that it was in a strip-mall in the middle of a busy city. Now, looks don’t usually have any correlation with the taste, because good taste can come from anywhere. Upon entering, the restaurant’s fare was displayed wonderfully for all to see in multi-level glass casing. This turned out to be an awesome answer to my question. The menu board showed that Tony’s offered both calzones and strombolis. I asked the clerk what the difference was, and he said that calzone’s were more “doughy” and contained ricotta in them as well as mozzarella, whereas the strombolis had more filling and less dough and only mozzarella. I saw a chicken and broccoli stromboli and, counting both a calzone and a stromboli as the same, I went ahead and ordered it. The price came out to only $5.75 for this stromboli, and I would classify it as a medium size, maybe even slightly larger! When it arrived, I dug in and the first thing I noticed was that it was watery. They did not drain the water from the chicken or the steamed broccoli so there was a “soup” going on inside of the dough. There was very little mozzarella, only enough to bind the broccoli and chicken together. The chicken and the broccoli were not seasoned with anything, just cooked in their own juices. The dish was largely without flavor and strange to eat because the dough was very nicely done (and beautifully done in a braiding pattern) on the outside, but mushy on the inside. This was one time I fully regretted not getting the ham and pepperoni calzone. Suffice to say, I did not enjoy my food at Tony’s and, due to the distance, I probably won’t be back again. But it’s hard to argue with that price and the pizza and bruschetta looked good, so there’s a very high chance that I ordered the one thing that they couldn’t make very well. I give this dish a D+ because it was not very good, but it was soooo cheap.

Vinny’s Italian Grill and Pizzeria – Lorton, VA

I would describe this place as having an old country charm, except everything in it is Italian. I’m not sure quite how they pulled this off. Perhaps it was the two tables of “good ol’ boys” laughing and joking around in one corner, the table with the elderly couple in the other corner, a family with kids at yet a different table. The checkerboard tablecloths with cans of marinara sauce on racks for artistic effect. Maybe the biggest factor was the drive out to the restaurant from the rest of northern Virginia, one that is tree-lined and lonely, making a person feel as if they are on a country back road. Anyways, I knew that I was coming for their calzone and I chose their “Bellybuster”. This one carries a $9.99 price tag, but it is what I would call “medium-large”. Not as big as some of the other ones I’ve had but still more than enough for the average person to finish in one sitting. In this case, the price really justified the size of what you were getting. It didn’t take too long, and when the calzone arrived, it was a rectangle! Only Ledo’s was ever bold enough to make a square calzone before. Not that this means anything in particular, but it’s just interesting to look at. This calzone’s crust was both fluffy and crispy, it was brushed in butter which gave the outside a nice bubbled crust. The dough was sweet, but not too sweet. The guts of the dish contained sautéed mushrooms, mozzarella, green peppers, ground chuck, pepperoni, and onions. The vegetables were undercooked so that they were crispy and retained a lot of their aromatic properties. The mushrooms were sautéed perfectly. The pepperoni used was average, and had a decent amount of flavor. The ground chuck was important here because some other restaurants that included hamburger meat inside of their calzone didn’t pull it off quite right. This meat was actually seasoned, and you could pick out this flavor from the other flavors. It did not have a gamey taste to it. The dish was served with a nice wide bowl of marinara sauce, which tasted good but like it was a store bought sauce.  The waitress was a nice Korean lady which added to the oddness of my Floridian country experience, stepping into a restaurant that had all of the feel of a place I might have experienced back home but with a few different twists. If you look close enough, things at Vinny’s seem one way, but slightly twisted. I like it, and I will definitely be stopping in again if I’m ever out that way. I give this calzone an A- because it was done technically perfect, but lacked just an ever so slight amount of that quality that you would get from a high-end gourmet restaurant. With the first bite, you could tell it was cooked by a pizza place. Whether you mind that, or not, is all a matter of preference.