A Celebration

It's no secret that Ann and I have been working hard this year to shed our excess blubber and we've made pretty good strides. She's down 20 lbs and I'm down almost 40. To be fair, I had a lot more to lose than did she. Anyway, I promised to take her out for something bad to eat when she hit her goal weight.

After she hit her target, she wanted to go get Korean fried chicken at the local Bonchon franchise, but it was closed, maybe for good. After a couple moments sitting in their parking lot, she asked to go to Roma and get pizza, so we headed back downtown to sit outside on a gorgeous fall Monday afternoon.

Roma has been a pleasant addition to the Old Town Mall with the best pizza in town. It's not perfect pizza, but it is miles better than anything around here, and now that they're brewing their own beer upstairs in their Alesatian brew pub, it really is a bonus for Old Town. Their Bee Sneeze pale ale is very drinkable, even if the name Alesatian is a mouthful. I want to say Alsatian each time.

Bee Sneeze American Pale Ale

After we got our beers, Ann ordered calamari which was well cooked though it needed some salt. Over beers, she decided what pizzas she wanted.

The Calamari Monster Strikes

Beautiful Girl; Beautiful Day

It was just a glorious afternoon to sit out front on the mall and while the time away. The pizza wasn't bad either. The Neapolitan is a quasi-Margherita made with crushed tomatoes rather than sliced tomatoes. I really wanted better mozzarella and better tomatoes on this pizza.

Neapolitan Pizza

The Parma was by far the better of the two pies, topped with garlic, fresh mozzarella, arugula, prosciutto, and so-called parmesan cheese. I liked this pizza a lot but it would have been so much better with some other cheese than the ersatz "parmesan" that they used. A really salty traditional Italian pecorino or even real parmigiano would have been awesome.

Parma Pizza

Although it looks like we stuffed ourselves, a whole pie went home to Carter to demolish, which he did in short order. It was a great celebration after months and months of hard work and watching everything that we have eaten. Congrats Annie!