An old place we just discovered.

   The Elmwood Village is riddled with pizza places, some really good, some awful.  A few days ago, after doing some house work, we were exhausted, hungry, and looking to save some money while still adjusting to our new homeowner/ridiculous amount of home repairs budget.  Then I remembered Casa-di-Pizza.  I had always been a fan, but it just a few blocks outside our normal "walking zone" so we unfortunately forget about it a lot.  But, we shouldn't forget about it!  Its a great place to order a pizza or just get a slice.  The best part is attached to the takeout portion of this place is a sit down restaurant and bar that I had never really eaten at, but always checked out when I was getting my to go orders.  It was the perfect place to go looking the way we did after our physical labor.  Its not exactly a classy place but its not a complete hole in the wall either.  It's very just very relaxed, come as you are sort of place, and that's pretty much what we needed. 

We sat ourselves and the waitress promptly came over to take our drink order.  Imagine our happy surprise when we discovered this:

 

 Oh yes, you're reading that right.  $5.50 Martinis.  Martinis and pizza?  That's ok by us!  Nicole ordered a Mint Chocolate, and while I was narrowing down my choices, I happened to look at the back of the drink menu to discover a $5.95 Margarita.  Casa-di-Pizza was quickly on its way to becoming our favorite new place.

Another great part about the restaurant is that the menu is gigantic.  Everything from pizza and calzones, to steaks, pasta, and subs.  It is totally awesome for quick food.  For an appetizer we ordered mozzarella sticks.  They were more the size of hot dogs than your standard mozzarella sticks and covered in a seasoned breadcrumb mix.  They were super tasty.

How does Nicole's martini keep sneaking into my pictures?

For the main entree, we decided to pass on the pizza (which we have had before from here and know its fresh, delicious and flavorful) and I ordered the black and blue steak sandwich.  I promise I did take a picture of it but for some reason its not on my camera anymore.  Nicole's entree was still on there however.  She ordered the French Dip.  She wasn't a fan of it only because she has realized that she just doesn't enjoy red meat.  So after realizing her opinion wouldn't be fair, I decided I had to do my food duty and take a couple of bites of hers.  I'm happy to report that her distaste was simply due to her aversion to red meat, and the sandwich was in fact delicious.  The Au Jus that came with hers was great, made from their real roast beef (no Arby's-like "meat" here) and was not salty like so many are.   My sandwich was really great too.  I asked for medium rare, and as the waitress explained to me, she'd tell the cook "rare" so it would come out medium rare.  And she was right, it was cooked to perfection.

The French Dip Sandwich

Casa-di-pizza makes amazing bar food, and hey, who doesn't want martinis and delicious pizza (really, try the chicken finger pizza, its incredible).  I'm personally looking forward to hockey season, I think we just found our new favorite hang out.