Potomac Pizza.

Here are some of my favorite places to get pizza. It is not an exhaustive list, but it does include places I’ve enjoyed recently.

Pupatella is amazing and very very Italian. Can’t seem to order wrong here.  I’ve known Anastasia since her food stand days. I’ve tried the classico,the tomato artichoke  and the sausage pizza–all were amazing. Great crust, sauce and cheese. Try the arancini (fried balls of rice) too. They carry Dolci Gelato, including my favorite, the almond. This is probably my current favorite pizza joint, but it does tend to get busy.

The Italian Store has good NY style pizza and you can get whatever they happen to have around by the slice. The people at the pizza counter tend to not have the best people skills here, which is odd, because the people making hoagies are personable. This is a good place for the thin crust, charred bottom style of pizza, but I rarely order pizza here because there Philly hoagies are amazing. Even the vegetarian hoagie is great. This place does not really have seating; there are a few tables outside.

Pete’s Apizza is currently my go to place for sit down by-the-slice pizza. They even have large enough holes in the red pepper shaker that the red part of the pepper actually gets on the pizza.  And, they have a white clam pie, which can’t touch the one at Lombardi’s in NYC, but is still good. Pete’s has outdoor seating, and tends to be busy inside. I’m not sure why their lasagna has both red and white sauces (bechamel is not Italian) but it is good enough. Let’s see if the new Bronx pizzaria two blocks from them in Clarendon gives them a run for their money…if it ever opens.

Potomac  Pizza does have a good red sauce. If I worked around there, I could see getting their pizza (including the white pizza) for lunch on a regular basis, especially since it is in a different neighborhood than the other pizza joints I frequent. Their veal parm and chicken parm subs are good, as are the cheese fries. I stopped by for lunch (chicken parm sub) a couple of days ago; they NEED lunch specials, but I hear that they are launching lunch specials around November 1st.

Rustico and Fireworks are good if you like “gastropub” type places, but I haven’t eaten at either in the last 6 months.  Both have a variety of standard and nonstandard (gourmet) sauces and toppings, and are good places for beer drinkers.

-JAY