Out and About: Olives

The other day a friend of mine said, “If you’ve never tried the pizza at Olives, then you’re missing out. Their pizza rocks!”  So, on Saturday, my sister and I decided to try it out – and yes, it was awesome.

This 10″ round of hand-tossed gooey deliciousness melted in our mouths, with fresh doughy crust – crispy on the outside as though it was wood-fired. I’m so glad the leftovers made it into MY fridge last night. Lunch leftovers are sounding pretty good….

But we figured since the pizza only cost $10 we could afford to add a few accouterments to our order, in the form of calamari and gnocchi.

Olives’ calamari might very well be the best I’ve ever had. Seriously. Crispy on the outside, smooth and buttery on the inside, and just the right amount of lemon and salt. In fact, instead of a marinara, it was served with a creamy lemon sauce, drizzled over top.

The gnocchi was good too, but not as exciting as the rest of the meal. Between the yumminess of the calamari, and the anticipation of the pizza (which we left until last), the gnocchi was kind of like overkill. Would be nice to try it again on a night when we aren’t eating platefuls of other things.

Oh, and instead of bread at the beginning, our server brought us crunchy bread sticks and marinated olives to snack on.

A confession: I’m not a big fan of olives by themselves. I want desperately to love olives because there aren’t too many foods out there that I don’t like, and they look so fun to snack on. So, I try them every chance I get. And the olives at Olives? 

They were pretty good! Milder than some others I’ve had, and with a little bit of spice from some red pepper flakes, I think I can say I actually liked them!

Lastly – I started with my go-to glass of pinot grigio, but instead of a second glass, we went outside of the box and ordered a Cosmo because they just looked, well, good. Being that our liquor tolerance isn’t what it was in our heyday, we did wuss out and ask for it to be “weak.” The waiter looked at us funny, almost offended or embarrassed for us, but whatever.

So, yeah. We may miss the Bombay Grill which used to inhabit the space in which Olives now resides, but the quality of the food hasn’t changed (and neither has the owner). Worth a visit!