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| - Ready for today's introduction by way of tortured metaphor?
Crust is a pretty good restaurant that seems to be struggling with it's signature. Is it the fine, loopy John Hancock of the hand-stretched Rustica? The decorative and celebratory graffiti tag of a slice of New York style thin-crust? The fun scribble of a salad served in a bread boule - described as "Crusted!" by the menu?
As far as I'm concerned, the ambiguity doesn't really matter. We indulged in a little more here than we normally do at a restaurant, thanks to a super-awesome coupon. Here's what we had:
A Tuscan salad of some sort, spinach-based in the aforementioned boule - crisp and tasty, not drenched in sauce. The bread boule was definitely a nice touch. The house-made croutons were fresh and delicious.
The artichoke dip was pretty standard fare - tons of cheese, with spinach and artichokes baked in, served with the aforementioned croutons and some not-so-fresh tasting tortilla chips. Solid.
The pizzas - we got two Rusticas to split. These occupied awkward territory, portion-wise. Each was probably a a bit too big for most person to finish alone, yet too small to bring home a satisfying follow-up leftover party - definitely too small for two to share.
Still, for $8.50, you definitely get a satisfying penisesque-pie.
We ordered the one with pesto, which I was nervous about - a lot of restaurants serve their pesto pizza drenched in the oil-y goodness, but this was instead served with a tasteful red pesto sauce that hit all the right notes. The other pie was a little more forgettable, but still solid.
My one knock on this restaurant - and why I would give it a 3.5, instead of a 4 - is the namesake - the crust. The crust at the end of each piece was charred and hard. Not crunchy, like a well-done wood-roasted pizza, like the pies at Cibo and Pizzeria Bianco, but straight up hard.
Still, in light of the affordability, tastiness, and nice, relaxed atmosphere, this place leans more towards 4 than 3.
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