Dan and I got together with friends Wednesday night to try Pizza Rock on K Street in Sacramento. I’ve been wanting to try it and it was my girlfriend Michelle’s last evening in town before heading out on her summer adventure. She is a summer camp director and she’ll be gone for 6 weeks. It also happened to be 80’s after 8:00 p.m. Wednesday. 80 cent meatballs, 80 cent drink specials, all 80’s movies and music videos (I know right? What are those?)
It was also the K Street summer block party – drink specials at District 30, Dive Bar and Pizza Rock.
The DJ booth is located inside a Peterbilt truck cab suspended above the bar. Loved when he honked the horn – as if it wasn’t loud enough already.
The ceiling is painted with a rock and roll take on Michelangelo’s painting of the creation of Adam.
A game of tic-tac-toe was immediately played on the table between Dan and Michelle and Tom’s son. He was not a fan of the place due to the noise – and I’m pretty sure the Thriller video ruined him for a good week or two. Scary zombies.
I loved that all of the table place settings were stored in the tomato cans, I’m totally going to steal that for my next Italian themed get together.
Michelle and I decided that we wanted to start off with the baked formaggio.
Too bad it didn’t arrive until all of our food did – disappointing, but at least they apologized, they were slammed.
Goat cheese, Brie, pesto and tomato jam wrapped in puff pastry and served with fuji apples and toasted baguette. It was really good, but since we got everything at the same time, it was carb/bread/pizza crust overload.
We did partake in the 80 cent meatballs… I easily couldn’t have eaten several. We each had one.
I chose from the Pizza Napoletana section of the menu – pizzas cooked in their – 900 degree wood fired Cirigliano Forni oven. The dough is hand mixed using San Felice Flour, proofed in Neapolitan wood boxes and created with San Marzano Tomatoes, Mozzarella Fior di Latte, basil, Extra Virgin Olive Oil and topped with sea salt. This is the pizza that co-owner Tony Gemignani baked to win the World Pizza Cup Competition in Naples, Italy.
I liked the crust, the pizza had great flavor, it was perfect… not too heavy. I ended up folding some of the pieces in 1/2 to eat them.
Dan chose the “Sacramento” from their Classic American menu – The pizza was cooked in their Rotoflex gas brick oven. Toppings included mozzarella, pepperoni, Molinari & Sons Salami, bacon, mushrooms, red onions, bell peppers, black olives, Italian sausage and cherry tomatoes. I tried a bite and thought it was great. I don’t like meat on my pizzas, but I did love all of the fresh local veggies.
Michelle ordered from the Classic Italian section of the menu – cooked in the same oven as the Sacramento. The “Cal Italia” made me drool just reading the description… Asiago, Mozzarella, Imported Gorgonzola, sweet fig preserve, Prosciutto di Parma, and Parmigiano-Reggiano with a balsamic reduction. Apparently it was a gold medal winner in the Food Network Pizza Champions Challenge. It was like eating dessert. I took a tiny sliver and it was the perfect ending to my meal.
Michelle’s husband Tom went for the Stromboli. I tried a bite of that as well, the pepperoni had a lot of flavor, I liked it.
We kept ourselves entertained with good conversation and 80’s mix sing-alongs. Yaz, Madonna, Duran Duran… We watched movie clips from Back to the Future, Footloose, and Ghostbusters. Speaking of Ghostbusters… their 80 cent drink special was “Ectoplasm” – ghost slime.
Cheers! It tasted like Midori and Nyquil – ha! Tom and Dan thought they tasted like lime Jello.
Michelle ordered Gelato – can’t remember what flavor it was. I was intrigued by the little cookie package on the plate.
Lazzaroni – Amaretti di Saronno Cookies – dipped in the gelato… Yes!
Another fun part of the evening was the employee 80’s fashion show. Our server rocked a headband and guitar.
Skinny piano tie and leopard print hair – the bartender was awesome!
I missed the mullet guy and a few others. The place was full of energy. The crowd cheered while the DJ introduced them. We had a really great time and went home with lots of leftovers.
Now I’m not sure I can ever go on anything but 80’s after 8 Wednesdays ;).
8 comments
Skip to comment form
Wow! That place looks so fun and food looks AMAZING! If I’m ever in Sacramento….
Author
Come visit 🙂
I wish I had places like that to experience close by….. the atmosphere looked like so much fun… the food looked absolutely delicious! My mouth is watering! Wow!
80’s night sounds like a blast… cool how they had 80 cent specials too…. 🙂 I think your pick of the pizza would have been my choice since I love cheese… minus a lot of meat. Yum!!
Author
You should come visit too 🙂 – You can never go wrong with a simple pizza. I think I could pretty much eat pizza every day for the rest of my life – as long as I could rotate the toppings.
That place looks cool! I would love 80’s night! mmmm meatballs! yum…
Have you ever bbq’d pizza? I have been thinking about trying it…I have heard so many good things.
Author
I’ve never BBQ’d pizza, but I took good notes at the pizza class I took. It would be fun the try.
That sounds like a wild, pizzariffic time. Yum! I remember back when I first tried alcohol- I thought midori sours were so delicious. Oh kids! What I didn’t know then.
I went to Pizza Rock last night for the first time with a girlfriend. We didn’t know that it was NBA draft night, but we soon found out. Pizza Rock was one of the many Sacramento Kings Neighborhood Draft Party locations around town for viewing the draft. We both ended up winning t-shirts, a hat, mini basketballs and we met a King! Jason Thompson showed up, signed autographs and hung out. We had the spicy calamari and the Sacramento pizza along with cocktails. Both were YUMMY! Next time I would definitely try a pizza with fewer toppings to mix it up. We went next door to the Dive Bar, but the mermaids were not in the tank. Oh well, we were so full from the pizza and had our hands full with our Kings goodies, so we called it a night.