Vace Italian Deli
Actual date: August 13, 2009
As I mentioned previously in the post about our National Zoo trip, we left the zoo at lunch time to grab some lunch to go from Vace Italian Deli. You can see from their storefront that they sell homemade pasta, mozzarella, and sausage–awesome! We didn’t get any of the above since we were just there for lunch, but they had plenty of other great Italian goods that made us wish so badly that we had one of these near where we live.
Italian goodness, part 1
Oh, beautiful prosciutto. I believe I spy some regular and hot capicola in the middle shelf there and a couple salamis (I think). Then there’s a variety of olives, although that’s not my bag, baby.
Italian goodness, part 2
Here’s where I start getting heart palpatations. All those salamis and that hot sopressata! Love me some sopressata, so I had to get some. A variety of cheeses and some sausage round out the awesomeness in this refrigerated counter area.
Italian goodness, part 3
Of course there’s more pasta than you can shake a really big stick at, jarred olives and other vegetables, etc. Really, if I had to choose to have been raised with a main cuisine other than Chinese, it would be Italian, hands down. This is a truly excellent little family shop with so much Italian food goodness.
Menu
Their menu is simple. You have pizza by the slice or whole, and you have sandwiches. I got the Italian sub, Denise the ham and provolne focaccia sub, and Sofia a slice of pepperoni pizza. We also snagged a box of Cantuccini (almond biscotti?) for Sofia to snack on, although we ended up eating as many of them as Sofia did since they were so good. Having spotted the hot sopressata earlier I asked what the smallest amount I could buy would be. The kid helping me looked somewhat confused by the question, probably because nobody buys deli meat in tiny portions, and he said, “I don’t know, 10 slices?” which sounded fine to me. Added a couple bottles of soft drinks and we were set. We hoofed it back to the zoo, found a bench to sit on, and enjoyed our lunch.
Italian sub, before the addition of hot sopressata
Our sandwiches were pretty simple stuff. The only options they offered for trimmings were with or without hot peppers. We chose without. I added a few slices of hot sopressata to mine, which in my not-so-humble opinion really made the sandwich. It would’ve been a tad bland for my taste otherwise. I’m pretty sure some passersby laughed at me for taking pictures of this sandwich. If only they knew that I’m a famous photo blogger. Looks who’s laughing now!
Hot sopressata
Here’s that beautiful hot sopressata. Mmm… good meat, spices, peppercorns, and those fat pockets… yes. Something about it caused a couple of hornets to persistently circle around me and try to get to my sandwich. I totally sympathize. It’s worth risking life and limb for a taste of this deliciousness.
Enjoying lunch together
Denise’s focaccia bread was a better texture than mine. Mine was a bit tough and chewy, while hers had a good balance of chewiness and crumbliness–certainly easier to bite into anyway. I’ll know better next time. Sofia devoured almost all of her massive pizza slice, which is really impressive. All this pizza eating training will pay off whenever we go on our New York trip.
So it wasn’t the best meal we had in D.C., but come on–it was cheap, convenient, and not bad at all. There were a few other restaurants on the way to/from the zoo, but I think they were sit down restaurants, so they can’t beat the convenience and fun of getting food to go from Vace and eating it at the zoo while people-watching. Next time we go to D.C. we’ll search around the zoo for other food options, but Vace will definitely still be in the running. If we lived in D.C. anywhere near there, for sure we’d be going all the time for their homemade foodstuffs and their selection of Italian cured meats.
Vace Italian Deli
3315 Connecticut Ave.
NW Washington DC 20008
(202) 363-1999
Mon-Fri: 9-9
Sat: 9-8
Sun: 10-5