RESTAURANT REVIEW:Food outshines everything at Sunset Pizza

One of my pet peeves with restaurants is bad service by the wait staff. It drives me crazy.

Part of why it irks me is because it can be easily avoided, but some places are either oblivious to it, or don’t want to spend the time to correct it.

When the quality of the food is average, it makes it easier to write that place off your list, but if the food is good, then the decision is much more difficult.

Such is the case with Sunset Pizza and Pasta. I have always enjoyed the food when I go there, I just wonder if I am ever going to get the chance to eat it.

A friend and I went in on a Thursday night and we were starving. The place we had originally intended on going to was packed and this was a short walk, so we decided to go.

I didn’t even think about the service. The times I had been there before they were busy and I wrote it off to that.

The restaurant is small, about 10 tables, and six of them were occupied. There was one waitress. It is very much like a neighborhood Italian restaurant and I like the charm it exudes.

The décor is simple: wood chairs and tables and a kitchen that is part of the dining area. You are about 10 to 20 feet from the oven and if you sit at the counter, can make small talk with the very friendly chefs.

We sat and waited as the waitress attended to other people. One table was paying, another was getting its entrees and another was ordering.

This is where my biggest pet peeve came into play. I can understand being busy and, as a former waiter, I know you can get slammed with several tables at once. But all it takes to appease me is to swing by and say, “I’m swamped, but I’ll be with you as soon as I can.”

No problem, that one sentence, which you can say as you are walking by, and it gives you another five to 10 minutes because I know you are thinking of me and I don’t feel abandoned.

Without that grace period, my frustration is compounded by the sight and smell of a fresh-baked pizza coming out of the oven.

I told my friend to know what he wanted before she got to us, because I figured we were only going to get one shot with her. No ordering a beer and then waiting another 15 minutes before she got back to us. It was one-stop ordering.

When she approached our table we spit out the order all at once, which seemed to perturb her, but I was too hungry to be diplomatic.

We got an antipasto, one of four salads they serve, and the meat lovers’ pizza. The food, as usual, was great. The antipasto has a great mix of provolone cheese, salami and other meats, and a generous helping of olives and white onions.

The pizza had heaping portions of pepperoni, ham, salami and Italian sausage and was light on the tomato sauce, which is how a pizza should be made. The crust was fresh and chewy, but not too doughy.

The restaurant has great entrees as well and there are several I haven’t tried, but want to. One is the scallops and fettuccini, another is the veal scaloppini.

I haven’t given up on the place, but the service makes it a much more difficult choice than it should be.