Elizabeth's Pizza

Sir T-Hawk and I have a craving today for Thai, but our favorite place doesn't open for dinner until 5, and our class is over and ready for food by 4.  So we and two students went for nearby Elizabeth's Pizza (Quaker Village).  We've been there before, and not been disappointed so it as a good backup choice.  After all, nothing is worse than being denied a craving, then having your second choice disappoint.

I couldn't decide between two dishes:  Pollo Vesuvio (not sure of the name, it was on the specials list - chicken breast with artichoke hearts, roasted peppers and mushrooms in a garlic butter sauce over linguine) and Brosette Campagnole (pasta purses filled with cheese and herbs, mixed with ham, mushrooms, tomatoes in a pesto cream sauce).  The waitress touted the Brosette as her favorite and I wanted to see what "pasta purses" were, so that became my choice with a salad with the house dressing.  Sir T decided on the other one, with a bowl of Pasta Fagioli soup. 

The soup was a little disappointing.  All the ingredients were cook perfectly, but Sir T felt the broth lacked seasoning and was a little bland.  However, the garlic croutons were a great complement to the soup.  My salad was an average salad, the dicing of the vegetables made it a little above average for a place that doesn't get a lot of salad eaters, but the house dressing was nicely unusual.  The waitress said it was basically vinegar with pureed vegetables, and it did have a thick, V8 kind of texture with a lighter color, with a nice spicy flavor.  I was pleased to see red onions on the salad instead of the regular white.

Our students got pizzas - one cheese and pineapple, one heavy garlic, light ("almost no") cheese.  Both of them liked the pizzas.  Kudos for the effort the waitress's effort to get the amount of cheese just right and the bread-lover of the group loved the crust and the garlic.

Sir T loved his chicken.  I may have to try it sometime, at the risk of simply repeating his rave review.  Both the chicken and the pasta were cooked perfectly, the combination of artichoke hearts and roasted peppers was a great combination of flavors and the garlic butter sauce was amazing.  The butter was cut with EVOO and I kept glancing at Sir T's plate to see if it congealed, and it never did.  Even when boxing up the leftovers, the sauce was liquid, not lumpy at all.  It still looked delicious at the end of the meal.

For the sake of my calorie counting, I should probably have avoided the cream sauce, but I couldn't resist.  And I usually save up on Saturday's anyway.  I'm glad I did.  The texture of the pasta purses is very different, like a round mini ravioli with ruffles give both a filled pasta and a noodle flair.  Part of the joy of this dish was the combination of the pasta texture with the diced ham and the veggies ... both tender, but in different textures.  I think sausage or beef would have overpowered the pasta.  I added lots of Parmesan, but then I always do, nothing detrimental to the food.  The sauce was very tasty; perhaps more Alfredo than pesto cream, but I like a strong pesto.  An excellent dish in both taste and texture.

Last time we were here, Sir T and I split a stromboli and I just want to drop a quick note on how delicious it was.  Elizabeth's definitely gets "swords up" on both the "pizza place" and the "Italian entrees".