(See the Jun 27, 2011 Review here.)
I stopped into Comet Ping Pong last night, after two Tweets (made with the blessing of James Alefantis) which, for me, were a bit on the controversial side, thinking I’d be walking into an empty restaurant; I could not have been more wrong.
There was a gentleman working the front door who had been hired from a security agency, just to make his presence felt, but there were also some people eating outside on the patio, some others waiting at the door to get inside the full restaurant, and a completely full bar area, with several people (including me) standing against the wall waiting to get a seat – I probably waited at least twenty minutes for a single seat to open up, and another girl would have taken it if I didn’t need it (I offered it to her repeatedly, but she said she had another friend coming, and that it was okay – if it wasn’t difficult for me to stand right now, I would have never taken her up on it).
Comet Ping Pong’s bar was as busy at 6:30 PM on this Wednesday night as I’ve ever seen it during the week (they were, according to James, closed Monday, but apparently things went swimmingly last night). The bar offers 15 interesting beers in bottles and cans, in the $5-7 range with one outlier at $3 (PBR) and another at $8 (Victory Dirtwolf Double IPA), then four British pint drafts at $7, and several wines by the glass and bottle. I also counted 66 bottles of liquor on their two small mixed-drink shelves behind the small bar, but this is, for the most part, a place to have a hipster brew.
Comet Ping Pong’s menu (that’s a 180K .pdf file) is larger than I’ve ever seen it, I hadn’t been in a long, long time, and I went back to an old favorite, the Comet Hot Wings w/ Dipping Sauce ($7). You get a plastic tray, lined with paper, with six, jerk-style wings in a thick, creamy, horseradish-based dipping sauce that’s something like a pudding in texture. Even though the sauce provides some nasal-toned heat with the horseradish, its cool creaminess helps to neutralize the jerk-like heat generated by the chicken, which I suspect is due to Scotch Bonnet (Habanero) pepper used as part of the rub. These are really delicious wings, hot but not super-hot, and very different from what they once were under Carole Greenwood (but similar to how I remember them from a few years ago – they’ve been jerk-style wings for years now). The quality of the chicken itself was better under Greenwood, but this is still a quality product, and one which I would gladly get again, and am happy to recommend to you.
I hadn’t eaten anything all day, but the wings curbed my hunger. I compromised by ordering a Chopped Salad ($9) with chopped romaine (that’s the “chopped” part), chickpeas, radicchio, provolone, Savoy cabbage, no salami (which was optional), and oregano dressing. This was a diptych salad, with half on the left (the provolone, chick peas, et al), and most of the greens on the right – why they do this, I’m not sure, but it worked well enough – it was dressed reasonably well, and was a good combination of flavors. The chopped salad from Comet Ping Pong was better in the past, but there was nothing wrong with this, and I’m glad I got it, without feeling the need to urge others to do the same.
As part of the compromise, I ordered two  Tomato Pies to go ($8.95 each) with Comet Tomato Sauce and Fresh Mozzarella. Comet used to bottle their own tomato sauce at Toigo Orchards, and they still may be – it was Carole Greenwood who started this (there are pictures of this on her chat), and they still may be using Toigo – I suspect they were using Toigo’s surplus of non-perfect-looking tomatoes in order to make this wonderfully fresh sauce. I only ate two pieces while they were hot, and this is very good pizza, without hitting the heights that it hit under Greenwood’s baton – my biggest problem is the outer periphery of crust, which is just too big for its own good, and the pizzas themselves seem to have gotten an inch or two smaller in diameter over the years – they’re pretty small pies, definitely individual-sized (they’ve always been individual-sized, but now they’re even smaller).
I had a really nice dinner at Comet Ping Pong (which included a few of their $5-7 beers – well-stored Great Lakes Beers are *always*Â welcome in my life). Most importantly, I’m happy to report that Comet Ping Pong was *rocking* last night – it was swamped with loyal customers, showing solidarity against terrorism, and proving that while there may not always be safety in numbers, there *is* confidence in numbers, and this was on full display last night – there wasn’t a worry in the house, and I can assure businesses in the area who are worried about this, that you have nothing to worry about (other than competition from Comet Ping Pong). Folks, please don’t forget that these other surrounding businesses took a hit as well – please throw your support their way if you’re in the area; Comet is doing just fine!