On a rainy summer Friday evening, Sara was counting down the minutes to pizza and still bouncing off the walls full of excitement after the afternoon’s somewhat unexpected low pass of Air Force One over her patio. In such an optimistic state, it was finally time to conquer our fears of Capitol Hill parking and taste pizza on the mysterious other side of I-5. Somewhere we had recently read about a place called Dino’s Tomato Pie (by the same team behind Delancey) that had opened in March, so it made it an obvious choice for our inaugural Cap Hill Pizza Meeting. Plus, Kerri squeals with delight when she checks their website.
Dino’s says its pizzas and restaurant are “New Jersey style” and you can get your pizzas either pan baked in a square (Sicilian Style) or round and a little bit thinner. With four meeting attendees to assist with eating, “¿Porque no los dos?” and we ordered one of each.
The Sicilian pepperoni was by far Kerri’s favourite and it hit some serious Rhode Island nostalgia nerves. It reminded her of Caserta’s though she admitted it tasted totally different. She liked the “infinity crust” because she’s not a big crust person so this gave her more pizza per slice. The cheese and sauce both tasted great to her and she really liked the burnt edges. She wished it could have given her a bit more pepperoni but she confidently claims this to be one of her faves so far. Maybe she’s just a fan of Sicilian style.
Sara wasn’t nearly as passionate about the Sicilian as Kerri, but thought she could have been after just a few more drinks. She loved the burnt pepperoni edges and firmly supports burnt pepperoni edges worldwide. However, the Sicilian was a little too greasy for her (the paper plate it sat on disintegrated from the grease so the ‘za was making a lot of table contact), and the extremely burnt cheese taste is something she’s not always a fan of. The round cheese pizza scored more points with her but the subjective lack of basil made her a little sad.
Our guests didn’t find themselves as emotional as Kerri either. “It’s good rainy day pizza, it’s comfort food,” Adrian said. “But I don’t really rate it as pizza because it’s just grease on bread.” Amy’s critique was a bit more balanced. “I liked the square one but I don’t like that I could not fold it,” she said.
With the combined ratings of #1 Dino’s Superfan Kerri and paper plate destroying Sara, Dino’s came out to an even 4.
Seattle Pizza Coalition 