Staff Infection

There are times when the food and ambience are secondary and tertiary in a restaurant experience. And our dinner at Comet Ping Pong was exactly one of those times. Though we enjoyed the pizza and the ambience was funky enough to be interesting, the staff was out of The Twilight Zone.

The erratic behavior, total lack of decorum, and excess of hipster attitude and aesthetic, was profoundly unbecoming. But the weirdness was so pervasive and unwavering, it became amusing in a "Tony and Tina's Wedding" sort of way, like we were about to be dragged into some interactive theater nonsense where misanthropic hipsters attack the general public with their powers of rudeness and insanity.

We actually began to believe that what we saw as shortcomings might have actually been part and parcel of Comet's mission—to alienate and confuse patrons, which would be entirely consistent with owner Carole Greenwood's well-documented abuse of patrons at her other restaurant, Buck's Fishing and Camping. So to illustrate what we believe to be intrinsically bizarro about Comet Ping Pong, we have created a Staff Manual/Code of Conduct that accurately represents what we experienced this past weekend at Comet Ping Pong.

I. Hostess Behavior

A. Arriving Guests

1. Under no circumstances will you greet patrons politely. "Hello, how are you this evening," for example, is unacceptable. Hostesses must ensure all diners feel alien in their environment from the moment they walk in until the moment they leave the establishment.

2. If a patron is waiting on other members of his/her party, take pains to make sure he/she does not take up valuable space in the booth for more than 30 seconds. If he/she is still waiting after 30 seconds, get up in patron's grill and ask several probing and inappropriate questions until said patron feels awkward and uncomfortable. [Our friend, KC, was asked "are your friends really coming?" Check in with KC's blog for her forthcoming relation of the experience.]

If patron seems unfazed by the onslaught, ignore said patron and glare in his/her direction occasionally. If and when the remainder of the party shows up, be sure to treat them like second-class citizens. [Our hostess greeted us not by saying, "Good evening," but rather "Oh, she's been waiting for you for a while." Editor's note: KC was there for eight minutes, and she was early, a fact that she shared with the hostess.]

B. Leaving Guests

1. Servers, the guests are leaving! Under no circumstances will you say "thank you" or "have a good evening" or anything else that suggests that you would like them to return. [Apparently making eye contact with the hostess on your way out doesn't garner you a "thank you" of any sort.]

II. Server Behavior

A. Describing the Menu

1. The average person cannot read a menu, especially one as painfully simple as ours, therefore you must read it to them. But do not rehearse or memorize the menu; your delivery should be slow, dim-witted, and should reflect exactly what the patrons see in front of them. ["We also have salads, two salads, one's a house salad, and one's a Caesar salad."]

2.  Add detail about the pizzas at your peril. The only detail you are authorized to share with diners is that the pizzas are "rich in flavor." We are nothing if not a pizzeria that delivers small, asymmetrical pizzas that are rich in flavor. RICH IN FLAVOR. [Our server's ad libbing included an apologetic monologue about how the pizzas are "not that filling" but that "we have a lot of pizzas, and they're all rich in flavor."]

B. Periodically Checking in on Diners

1. Do not do this.

III. Food & Beverage Preparation and Price

A. All pizzas should be small and delivered on large cookie sheets to underscore their "smallness."

B. Prices of pizzas and salads should far exceed their worth.

C. Wine glasses should actually be small orange juice glasses. Charge at least $3 per fluid ounce for fair to middling wine. [It's also worth noting that the year and vineyard of the wine is presented on the menu in 3-point type, rendering the text almost completely unreadable].

Stay tuned for AC's evaluation of the actual food and ambience.

—AK

When High Art Begets Base Impulses

In the opening scene of Neil LaBute’s play Fat Pig, the titular character is contentedly eating a large slice of cheese pizza at a luncheonette. Perhaps LaBute intended for the audience to be horrified that this supremely ample woman is unrepentantly enjoying super fattening food in public, instead of pretending to enjoy a salad topped with grilled chicken at lunch, and then later secretly grubbing on a shameful shoebox stash of Zagnut and Clark Bars.

After the play, however, we realized that this scene, rather than causing any feelings of disgust, actually inspired a powerful hankering for pizza. The actress manages to eat the whole slice of pizza as the scene unfolds, so our animal brains couldn’t help but respond with sympathetic hunger.

So, AK, myself, and our pal KCS decided to make our inaugural visit to Dupont Circle’s Sette Osteria, the cheaper eats offspring of Cafe Milano.

We started off with the Carciofi e Sedano Insalate, a salad comprised of “shaved fennel, celery hearts, and fresh artichoke with a lemon vinaigrette.” While the salad was pleasing enough, $11 is a bit aggressive for salad pricing. Still, there was almost enough for three people to enjoy without getting into a nasty fork fight. I love fennel, but am always disappointed whenever it’s deployed in a salad. It’s anise-like flavor is just barely present in its raw form. The celery made up for this flavor deficiency, as did the two small sheets of parmesan that we broke up over the salad. And anyway, if you’re going to have pizza, it’s always important to start off with a salad. You need to feel just a little bit virtuous after the appetizers to earn the excess of the pizza entrees.

We opted to share three pizzas. Unfortunately, the pizzas were initially presented to us without having been sliced. I was so famished, that my weakened brain convinced me that I could slice all of our pizzas at the table on my own. But my table companions’ good sense prevailed over my futile display of chivalry, and we hailed our waiter to make it happen for us. He actually seemed surprised at our request.

One of my all-time favorite pizza topping combos is the pairing of sausage and broccoli rabe. The bitterness of the broccoli rabe is a wonderful complement to the typically sweet and spicy crumble of Italian Sausage. Sette’s rendition of this classic, however, while appealing to the eye, is ultimately a disappointment. The broccoli rabe barely had any bitterness, tasting more like standard steamed greens. In fact, AK and KCS posited that the broccoli rabe in question might actually have been broccolini. The pork sausage was also surprisingly mild, the sprinkling of calabrese chili peppers likely intended to pick up the slack.

For our second choice, we wanted something toppings intensive, so we chose the Quattro Stagioni, which included tomato, mushrooms, artichokes, and porchetta ham. While we liked the idea in concept, I couldn’t help but feel that the cloud-like bundles of porchetta were a little too mild for my liking. Not exactly having a mastery of hams, I had assumed that porchetta would be a variation on the smoky and salty prosciutto. I guess I require that meat toppings on pizza exhibit some sort of dramatic spicing or curing to merit their presence. It must be the influence of all that pepperoni pizza that I scarfed at Shakey’s as a wee one.

I’m usually dismissive of the Quattro Formaggi pizza at other establishments. I’m not even willing to give it a chance because I always want tomato sauce and at least two toppings. But Sette’s version of this classic is far more complex than I imagined. At first, you experience the saltiness and nuttiness of the blend of grana and pecorino, and then you hit a sweet patch of the gorgonzola. And because you can’t quite determine which section of each slice features the gorgonzola, you’re constantly in a state of surprise as the flavors tilt between salty and sweet.

While Sette Osteria was somewhat underwhelming, I could see us occasionally popping in to share a Quattro Formaggi over a couple of beers. -AC