Take-Out Tonight...

If you noticed some commotion on 14th Street today--balloons, a tent, a line down the block, and some friendly folks manning a grill in January--you've hopefully already been introduced to HomeMade Pizza Co.'s new Logan Circle location. Open "for real" beginning Thursday, HomeMade is offering free pizzas, salads and samples from 4-7 tomorrow, and free samples from 3-9 on Thursday.

We dropped by today around six, and despite the crowds, not only got to have a nice chat with founder Eric Fosse--he's the guy grilling the pizzas--but also got to sample several tasty topping combos. Made with all natural ingredients and as much local sourcing as the seasons allow, HomeMade prepares your pizza fresh when you order it, and turns it over to you ready-to-bake.

So, how is it? Really quite good. We sampled cheese and pepperoni on a whole wheat crust that is thin while still maintaining its crispy-chewy consistency. The traditional crust provided a delicious, thin and crispy base for an earthy wild mushroom pizza with fontanella cheese, and our new favorite, the winter special Casbah, featuring a mildly spicy harissa sauce, Moroccan spices, broccoli, yellow peppers, red onions, black olives, shitake mushrooms, and fresh garlic.

In addition to the basics and a number of (mostly vegetarian friendly) signature pies, you can create your own pizzas with anything from poblano peppers to nitrate-free pepperoni to proscuitto to pine nuts. The bubbling cheeses--mozzarella can be gussied up with any of seven other traditional (asiago, ricotta) or not so (blue, chevre) choices--and savory sauces are balanced and flavorful. Basically, we were standing in the street stuffing ourselves with fantastic little slices of pizza.

Then we tried it ourselves at home in the oven with a pepperoni, sausage, mushroom and the Georgian--poblano peppers, chicken sausage and ricotta cheese. Both were big hits and came out crispy and yummy from my little home oven in about ten minutes, and go down a treat with wine on a Tuesday night.

Bottom line, we ate way too much and will certainly be adding HomeMade to our pizza/quick dinner rotation--they also have salads, desserts and individual pizzas for kids/not stuffing yourself.

It's good stuff.

HomeMade Pizza Co
1522 14th St NW
Washington DC
202.588.0808
www.homemadepizza.com
(and four other metro area locations)