Crust to crave and palatable pizza at Humble Pie

Considering how important the oven is at Humble Pie, you'd think that anything coming out of it would be noteworthy. I made that assumption when I saw "cookie plate" on the dessert menu. But the cookies — lemon sugar, chocolate chip and pistachio, along with ginger biscotti, arranged on a plate with some grapes and sugared almonds — didn't dazzle me. Even though they were homemade, they were too tiny to have that chewiness that makes homemade cookies so good. I would've been happier with one big, fat, moist cookie.

But the Fuji apple crostada, a beautiful golden pastry baked around slices of tender fruit, was pretty good. And as strange as it sounds, so was the velvety olive oil gelato. Really, it was just a mild cream flavor — not too sugary, with barely a hint of olive oil flavor in the first spoonful.

If your dinner at Humble Pie leads to a feisty debate — whether over pizza, philosophy, or politics — a couple scoops of that should cool you right down.