Comet Ping Pong

Posted by Edmund in Featured Articles, Pizza, Restaurants, Washington, DC | 3 comments

Oct 06, 10

Cuisine: Pizza.
Location: 5037 Connecticut Avenue Northwest, Washington, DC 20008-2024.
Price: $11 to $16 for a pizza.

I’ve traveled through all of DC looking for a truly unique, memorable pizza, but that search has up till now proved futile. While the District may boast some of the best food in the country, pizza is surprisingly underrepresented, with only a few big-name artisanal pizzerias compared to some of the other cities on the East Coast. DC and pizza just don’t seem to match up.

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Comet Ping Pong tries to change that notion, not only by producing an all-around solid pizza pie, but also by using a style all its own to come up with a unique, truly DC pizza. That innovative pizza-making spirit hasn’t gone unnoticed, either, as Comet Ping Pong is constantly recommended and actually filled quite frequently, even though it’s in a horrible location far detached from the center of the city. In fact, Washingtonian has gone so far as to recommend the white clam pizza as one of the top 25 dishes in the whole city—quite the honor for a low-key pizzeria up against some of the most expensive restaurants in the country.

I thus had to see if that clam pizza really could compete with the best the city has to offer, so I headed over to Comet Ping Pong with my friends Ralph and Joseph. As I entered, I started to understand the quaint (for lack of a better word) charm of Comet Ping Pong, which combines a hole-in-the-wall look with a casual air, a very spacious dining area, and a few curiosities, like a movie projector. The walls just scream grunge, as they’re deliberately covered with different patches of grays and whites. The restaurant doesn’t look tacky, though, because even though it’s chaotic, the colors are cleanly done, so you really are left chuckling a bit at the imitation grunginess of the place. The tables themselves are equally “run-down”—they’re just wooden benches more or less. They’re not too uncomfortable or overdone, though. It helps, too, that Comet Ping Pong feel very young, since the servers all look like college kids, so the décor seems to fit with the vibe.

Moreover, for all the chaos of the scenery, the restaurant is crowded with families and young children. That’s the part that really struck me as odd. For a place that emphasizes “grunge,” the restaurant is located in perhaps one of the most boring residential areas I’ve seen in the District, meaning its clientele is very much the normal American. The grunginess, then, never really comes off as serious—just a little parody that really works to make the restaurant feel unique, especially compared to most of the tacky, overdone, touristy pizza joints.

As for the service, it was fantastic, especially for a place that gets so much traffic. There was no rush whatsoever, and they placed us at a huge table that was fit more for 6 than for 3. Our server was a young college kid, but she was amiable and extremely prompt. For example, my friend Joseph arrived very late, yet as he sat down, he received a glass of water almost immediately. Moreover, since he took so long getting to the restaurant, Ralph and I decided it’d be better if we went next door and got a quick treat from the local bakery. When we asked the waitress if we could leave for just a few minutes and return, she not only had no problems, but she even told us to just leave everything at our huge table so that no waiter would accidentally place another group there. I was fine with just being reseated, but she didn’t even mind leaving a whole table there unoccupied.

The meal only culminated with a final act of fantastic service. We had taken quite a long time to finish our meal—2 hours almost—and we had just received the check. We, however, wanted to grab a couple more cookies before leaving. The restaurant needed the 6-person table that it had given us for a big party, but it didn’t try to force us out at all. Instead, the waitress offered to throw in the 2 cookies that we had ordered for free so that we could leave earlier instead of having to pay an additional check. In short, we received absolutely fantastic service for about 2 hours and probably one of the best I’ve ever had at a pizza parlor.

Most importantly, though, Comet Ping Pong delivers on the pizza, which stands out not so much for the ingredients as for the dough. The pizza is almost paper thin—thinner than even most thin crust pizzas—yet it’s incredibly chewy, like a very soft pita bread or even a baguette. The crust gets even better, as it’s just a little bit bigger at the edges. It’s big enough to tear it apart like the two sides of a pita bread, and only when you do that do you realize just how fluffy it is—enough, in fact, to make a sandwich with it. Really, it’s delicious, and I could probably eat it without any toppings at all.

While the dough was impressive, though, there were a couple of areas where they failed. The first would really be in the quantity and distribution of toppings. This isn’t to say that you have to smother a pizza with toppings to make it taste good. On the contrary, the dough and the general sauce and cheese should speak for themselves. Here, though, there were whole slices that just had key ingredients missing. On my whole “Smoky” pie, in fact, about half the slices were missing the bacon.

My second big complaint is in the oiliness and the resulting monotonousness of the pies. Regardless of the toppings, the pies really do have the same type of feel—make a nice crust, slather on tons of oil, add a few toppings (which really aren’t enough), and you have more or less the same pie. On the positive side, though, the menu items do offer a lot of variety in terms of toppings and even key ingredients, with some using tomato sauce, others just melted onions, and almost every signature pie having a different kind of cheese.

The problem, then, isn’t that the pies aren’t specialized. It’s just that the taste relies heavily on flooding the pie with olive oil, to the point that the pies can become so greasy that they’re cloying after a while. So much oil was used, in fact, that the pieces of paper underneath the pies were practically leaking through. It’s not too much of a complaint if you eat here only once in a while, but you probably won’t want to come here frequently, even if the pies are great. To be fair, though, because it’s just olive oil, because so many herbs are used, and because there are so few toppings, the pie is still never really all that heavy.

Overall, Comet Ping Pong is a breath of fresh air in the pizza-starved DC culinary scene. The pizzas may not be unforgettable, but they are still some of the best in the District.

What I Tasted

1. Yalie (Fresh Garlic, Clams, Melted Onions, Parsley, & Thyme): This is the supposedly phenomenal pizza that I’ve been hearing so much about over at the Washingtonian, and upon biting into it I can see why. It has one of the most unique tastes of any pizza that I’ve ever had. The pie is incredibly aromatic, zesty, herby, and oily, with ingredients that are all very bold. The best part, of course, is the crust, as I’ve noted above. But the flavors really work well here. While the oil can be offsetting, here I find it to be very flavorful, largely because so many herbs have been integrated into the pie. It reminds me of a light butter, garlic sauce that would go really well with seafood in general. That garlic really does come through, too. The pie even incorporates huge chunks of garlic right onto the top. Surprisingly, though, it’s never overwhelming, largely because that garlic is counterbalanced by some of the heavier flavors, like the oil and the onions. There’s the other standout of the dish—the onions. I’ve never had melted onions before, but the taste is reminiscent of lightly caramelized onions, with a nice slight sweetness. Moreover, since they’re melted down they give a really nice smoothness on the top. Added to all this flavor is the clam, which doesn’t add too much except for some salt to the whole pie (which was overwhelming for my friends) and a nice chewiness to go along with the crust. My big complaints are really in the lack of cheese, which is just sprinkled on lightly and which would help to balance out some of the oiliness, and a general lack of toppings. This is supposed to be a clam pizza, but I really can’t taste much of the clam at all. 4.0/5.0. Very unique, but it can be over the top and a bit gimmicky. Still, excellent.
2. The Smoky (Smoky Mushrooms, Smoky Gouda, Smoky Bacon, Melted Onions & Garlic): This is Comet’s most popular pie, and for a good reason. As soon as it hit the table, I could tell it was going to be good. Without even bending down, I could smell the smoky aroma just wafting through the air, tempting me to take a bite. And on the first bite, I realized just how smoky it is. Practically every topping, especially the cheese, exudes that smoke. That cheese is, by far, the big star of this dish. It’s literally covering every single piece of the pie, so that you get a mouthful in every bite. Gouda is a very moderate flavor, too, so it really works well to show off the strong smoky flavor. It’s a double-edged sword, though. Since the pies are slathered in oil and greasy onions, the cheese only makes that problem worse, adding another layer of heaviness. Moreover, because there’s no sauce, it can get a bit monotonous, as the fatty, gooey taste just sticks out and dominates everything. Still, the onions add a nice slight sweetness that I find refreshing, and the garlic again adds a great zest. While I don’t get too much mushroom and bacon, my mouth just goes wild with their flavors when I do get them into a bite, as they are succulent, extremely well-cooked, and even smokier than the cheese. I really would have liked to see more of a role for these ingredients, as I feel they are overpowered by the cheese in general, but they are great regardless. Honestly, though, this pizza feels very much like the last pie I ate, except for the cheese, the extra smoke, and a more savory flavor. 4.0/5.0
3. Chocolate Ginger Cookie: I really wasn’t planning on getting this “homemade” cookie. In fact, I’d almost never trust a pizza parlor to make a decent cookie. However, when Joseph kept on talking about how “legendary” this cookie had been, I just couldn’t resist. And I was not in any way disappointed either. It’s a very simple cookie, but it really does everything well, from the crust, to the texture, to the sweetness and the balance of flavors. First, the chocolate is an intense dark, but it doesn’t come off as overwhelming, largely because a small amount of sweetness and a nice, slight ginger zest have been added to balance out some of the intense chocolate. You really will taste the chocolate, though, because this cookie is overflowing with it. There’s the buttery, moist interior, the slightly crunchier crust, the hard chocolate chip chunks, and the gooey fudge lava oozing throughout the cookie. It’s really a combination of all of the best textures—the flaky, crunchy, cakey, and gooey.  The ginger works surprisingly well, too. It’s just enough for you to notice it without it interfering with the richness of the chocolate. I would have preferred more pronounced flavors, but for what it is—a cookie from a pizza parlor—this really is a very impressive chocolate cookie. 4.2/5.0

Scores

Ambience: 3.3/5.0
Taste: 4.0 /5.0
Service: 4.4/5.0
Value: 3.7/5.0
Verdict: 3.9/5.0