Ohmygodpizza!

by Erin and Xani

Saturday night, after a long day of moving for Erin, and a long day at the pool for Xani, we went to dinner at Iggies with our good friend Matt. Iggies is a wonderful little pizza place in Mt. Vernon (on N. Calvert St.) that serves Neopolitan-style pizza (super-thin crust) and is BYOB. We were able to enjoy their "Saturday nights in August" special which was that the pizzas were "buy one get one half-off" if you brought your own wine or six-pack of beer - good deal! (In fact, we wanted the deal so badly that we left and bought beer and came back just so we could get the bargain!)

We bought some yummy Clipper City Gold Ale on Matt's suggestion, which was very nice - good flavor but not too strong for EP (beer wimp).

One interesting thing about Iggies is that it's very "do-it-yourself." They have plates, napkins, silverware, glassware, bottle openers, and a water cooler in a corner of the restaurant, and you just do everything yourself. You even get to bus your own table! It seems European/backpacker-ish that way, which was a nice change of pace and added to the personality of the pizza shop.

One other point about the decor/theme of Iggies: it's called Iggies because it has an Italian Greyhound (IG) theme running throughout the space and on the menus. We, of course, love anything dog-themed!

Anyway, onto the food! First we ordered their Caesar Salad, which for a dollar extra you can get fresh white anchovies on top! They were delicious and not too fishy, and added a lovely meaty bite to the salad. (Note: It is a BIG DEAL that they have fresh white anchovies at this place since, if you recall from our Father's Day post, we hunted all over the city for them without success!) We unfortunately were starving and didn't break out the camera until after our salad. Sorry!

Next, we ordered two of their delicious, unique pizzas. The crusts on both of these pizzas were perfectly cooked (crispy and chewy) and were served hot out of the oven.

First, we ordered their Sopressata Pizza, which had sopressata, smoked mozzarella, and a hearty tomato sauce - it was absolutely delicious. The sopressata was crispy and its flavors ran throughout the entire pizza, and we pretty much devoured it!

We also ordered their pizza with ricotta and lemon, topped with fresh peppery arugula (which I think had been tossed with vinaigrette). The ricotta part was delicious but it was a little weird to have all the greens piled atop the pizza - I think we would have preferred them on the side as a delicious salad!

We clearly had no trouble finishing our pizzas...

Even after salad and two pizzas, we had room for something sweet. Keep in mind it was also about 95 degrees outside (and pretty warm in the restaurant itself) so we also were in the mood for something cool and refreshing. Lucky for us, Iggies serves an assortment of gelati and sorbetti! Matt got the pomegranate sorbetto, Xani got the blood orange sorbetto, and Erin got the double espresso gelato. They were all delicious but I think Matt's was the best - super-sweet and refreshing with bold flavors, and not too icy and annoying.

Blood Orange Sorbetto

Pomegranate Sorbetto

Double Espresso Gelato

It was a delicious meal and we highly recommend Iggies! Xani points out that it's a very cozy space, so it'll be even more fun in the fall/winter when "cozy" doesn't mean "sweltering" as it sort of did on Saturday. We love Iggies and we'll be back!

Happy eating,

E & X

ps. Special thanks to Kerem, a good friend of EP's, who introduced her to Iggies! He is moving away and will be terribly missed!