pizza

From their many area locations and frequent TV ads, we’re all familiar with Mark's Pizzeria. Mark’s started out in Palmyra in 1982, and today has grown to about 40 locations in Western and Central New York. Its 16 Monroe County locations make Mark’s among the biggest local/regional chains around Rochester, and about the biggest that I’ll review. (I have no interest in reviewing national chains, although I might do it for laughs sometime.)
One difficulty in reviewing chains is that you never know if the pizza you get at one location is going to be representative of what you’d find at the others. A place like Domino’s may be able to maintain uniformity throughout its stores, but ironically, smaller chains sometimes seem to have trouble with that. But I’m not about to check out 16 different Mark’s, so I just picked the one on Lyell Avenue more or less at random.
I got two cheese slices, part of a deal that gets you 2 slices and a 20 oz. drink for $6, although I should mention that the soft drinks cooler was nearly empty when I visited. The pizza slices were fairly greasy, and that is consistent with my memories of the handful of times I’ve eaten Mark’s pizza in my life. The undersides were browned and soft, and the slices were foldable, but floppy. The crust was on the thin side, but with a wide, thick, puffy lip along the edge. The lip was a little crisp and had a certain breadiness to it.
The sauce was pretty much a background player here, but had OK flavor, very middle of the road, neither especially sweet, acidic, or herbal. The thick layer of congealed, browned cheese was quite greasy, and a lot of that grease had soaked down to the underside, which was actually shiny with oil. (Not that I like my cheese really stringy, but it occurred to me that these slices didn’t much resemble the one they always show in Mark’s TV ads, with long strings of mozzarella as the slice is being lifted from a pie.)
Mark’s has some 20 pizza toppings to choose from, and several specialty pizzas, none of them especially exotic or bizarre. They also offer wings, salads, hot and cold subs, calzones, burgers and sides.
I wasn’t too impressed by this pizza, but it wasn’t all that bad either. It’s one that, to me, has the potential to be quite good, but on this visit at least, didn’t live up to that potential. The sauce had good flavor, and the outer lip showed some nice breadiness, but the soft, floppy, greasy crust and thick layer of browned, oily cheese brought it down. It’s the sort of pizza that might be satisfying if you’re really hungry or in the mood for a heavy, greasy slice, but for my money there are better choices elsewhere on this stretch of Lyell Ave. I’ll give Mark’s a C-.
Mark’s Pizzeria, 1074 Lyell Ave. @ Glide St. 458-2310
Sun. - Thu. 10:30 a.m. - 10:00 p.m., Fri. & Sat. 10:30 a.m. - midnight
Pizza Guy note:  this location of Mark's has now been replaced by Paradiso Pizza. 

Pudgie’s Pizza, Pasta & Subs got its start in Elmira in 1963, and began franchising around 1972. Today its shops stretch from Mansfield, Pa. to Rochester. The two Rochester Pudgie’s, on North Goodman St., and on Titus Ave. in Irondequoit, across from the House of Guitars, have been locally family owned and operated for the past three decades.
I actually stopped at the Goodman St. Pudgie’s a while back, but due to some obvious miscommunication between me and the counter person, I ended up with a “cheese stick” instead of a slice of pizza. So following that abortive attempt to try Pudgie’s pizza, I recently made it up to the Titus Ave. location, which is a "Pudgie's Express," meaning, I guess, that it's strictly takeout or delivery. The Irondequoit Pudgie's forms one apex of a pizza triangle, with Cam’s and Bay Goodman, which are across Titus Ave. from Pudgie's, about a block and a half apart.
I got one cheese and one pepperoni slice. They had a medium thick crust, with a browned, somewhat oily, cratered underside and a soft texture.
The slightly sweet sauce was applied pretty liberally. It had a “cooked” flavor and although it tasted to me as if it had come out of a jar, the flavor was pretty good nonetheless.
The cheese was lightly browned, and formed a solid, but thin layer across the top. The three slices of pepperoni were unremarkable.
Pudgie’s offers a pretty wide variety of pizza toppings, though no “specialty” pizzas as such. Besides their regular 12- and 16-inch pies, they also have 12x12 “deep dish Sicilian” pizza, and thin crust is also available on request. Non-pizza items include the aforementioned cheese sticks, strombolis and calzones, wings, hot subs, fried sides, and a Friday fish fry.
This was one of those pizzas that tasted fine, but fell short, for me, in the crust department. I’m just not a fan of crusts that have that soft, browned, slightly oily underside instead of a nice crisp exterior. So on the whole, it was all right, in a fast-food kind of way. And I will say that the slice that I saved for later made for good next-day refrigerator pizza, as the healthy coating of sauce kept the slice from drying out. Not bad, then, but it didn’t wow me, and I’ll give it a C+.
Pudgie’s Pizzeria Express, 696 Titus Ave., Irondequoit (takeout and delivery only) 544-1310
Tue. - Thu. 11 a.m. - 10 p.m., Fri. & Sat. 11 a.m. - 11 p.m. Closed Sun. & Mon.
Other Rochester location (which offers eat-in facilities) at 1753 N. Goodman St., 266-6605
Pizza Guy Note, Aug. 26, 2010:  the Irondequoit Pudgie's is no longer in business. The Goodman St. location remains open.

Despite its name, Ricci's is not what I would call a “family restaurant.” Family-run and family-friendly, perhaps, but not a “family restaurant.” They don’t serve breakfast, and there are no gyros on the menu, so that right there pretty much disqualifies it from the family-restaurant category.
Not that I'm complaining. No, it's just that Ricci’s, which opened in 1970 as Ricci's Pizza, is really more of an Italian restaurant, and it’s one of the suprisingly few around here that includes pizza on the menu. I stopped by for dinner recently and got a medium, with pepperoni.
My pizza, which arrived on a shiny, silvery platter, had a medium-to-thick crust that was quite a bit thicker along the edge. The underside bore screen markings, and was baked to a golden brown.
The crust had a little crispness, and the lip was crisp and crunchy. Not surprisingly, since it had just come out of the oven, it had a fresh bready aroma and flavor.
The bright red sauce was moderately applied, and had a tangy, tomatoey flavor. There were some hints of oregano, but I’m not sure if that came from the sauce itself or from the dried oregano that had been sprinkled over the pizza.
Atop the sauce was a solid blanket of melted mozzarella, which was still semi-liquid and stringy when the pizza arrived at my table. Interestingly, the thin slices of pepperoni, which had a mild flavor and were moist and chewy, lay under the cheese. I’ve seen that before - putting the cheese on last, over the other toppings - but I’m not sure that I like that with pepperoni. With a vegetable topping, like bell peppers or fresh garlic, I can see it, since it might keep them from drying out or burning, but pepperoni, I think, benefits from sitting on top of the pizza, so that it can crisp up a bit.
Ricci’s pizza offerings are modest, compared to those you’d find at a full-fledged pizzeria, with “only” ten toppings available. Pizzas come in small, medium and half sheet sizes.
The rest of the menu is dominated by Italian dishes, with a variety of pasta entrees, and all the local favorites like Chicken French, Parmigiana, and Cacciatore, plus greens and beans, calamari, tripe, veal piccata, and shrimp scampi. But it also includes steaks, burgers and hot sandwiches, wings, soups, and a Friday fish fry. There’s a modest dessert menu, and Ricci’s also serves beer and wine.
This was some pretty good pizza, but it occurred to me that when you get pizza at a restaurant, other than a restaurant that really focuses on pizza, you’re apt to get something a little different from what you’d tend to get from a pizzeria. I’m thinking here specifically of the crust and the baking process. I’ve never worked at a restaurant, but I imagine that most of them don’t have specialized pizza ovens, and chances are that the ovens they do have are not set to (if they’re even capable of reaching) the kind of temperature that you would typically find with a commercial pizza oven.
In other words, you’re unlikely to get a really crisp, charred crust on a restaurant pizza, again, with the exception of places like Rocco or Tony D’s that have specialized ovens for that purpose. So you have to bear that in mind when you order, and I’m taking that into consideration here too. This pizza did not have an especially crisp, well-baked crust, and I probably wouldn’t look to Ricci’s for takeout. But it was flavorful, it wasn’t greasy, and it did have some pleasing bready qualities. I’ll peg this one at a B-.
Ricci’s Family Restaurant, 3166 Latta Rd. at Long Pond. 227-6750
Mon. - Thu. 11 a.m. - 10 p.m., Fri. 11 a.m. - 11 p.m., Sat. 4 - 11 p.m., Sun. 4 - 9:30 p.m.
Pizza Guy's note, 11/19/09: I'm told by a reader (whom I consider a reliable source, though I have no confirmation or corroboration of this) that for their first 25 years or so, Ricci's baked their pizzas in cast iron pans, but switched to pans or screens in the mid '90s. The ovens, however, are the same stone deck ovens that Ricci's has been using since 1970.

Rochester has a bunch of old Italian bakeries, which are mostly well known locally, like Gaetano’s, Martusciello, and Di Paolo. Some, like Veltre (whose sign is still visible on the side of Roncone’s restaurant on Lyell Ave.), fall into the “gone, but not forgotten” category.
And then there’s Nacca Bakery, which sits on a mostly residential stretch of Jay Street, near downtown. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever heard of it, literally - I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone talk about it. But I’ve driven by it, and its red neon “BREAD - PIZZA” sign in the front window particularly caught my attention. My curiosity piqued, I finally stopped by one day around lunchtime to check it out.
Going in was a bit like one of those old Twilight Zone episodes where the character walks through a door and goes back in time. Nacca - which, it turns out, is also a deli - has an old-time feel to it, and with good reason. It’s been in business in that spot since 1966 (and for three years before that on Broad St.), and from the looks of it, hasn’t changed much in the four-plus decades since, thankfully.
The roughly square space is dominated by two large meat coolers, at a right angle to each other, with a vintage butcher’s scale on one end. The cream-colored walls are sparsely decorated, with a few family photos and religious images on one wall, and two clocks - one of which is yellowed and several hours off - on the other.
Above the photos is the menu, also yellowed with age, listing the various meats, sandwiches and pizza on offer. Turns out the only pizza available at Nacca these days comes in the form of “mini pizzas,” plain or with pepperoni, that come warm and sealed in plastic wrap.
I picked up a pepperoni mini pizza. Measuring 7 1/2" across, it appeared from its shape to have been baked in a small pan; in other words, it wasn't just a disk of dough that had been baked directly on the oven floor, but instead had an edge that conformed to the angled rim of the pan.
The crust - which is made from a different dough than Nacca’s bread - was crunchy on the outside and chewy inside, with an aroma that was faintly reminiscent of rye or sourdough bread, suggesting that it had gone through a long, slow rise. The crust was topped with a thin layer of sauce, and a transclucent layer of melted cheese. Several wide, lightly cooked slices of pepperoni lent a spicy counterpoint to the bready crust.
If you're not looking for pizza, Nacca has a wide variety of sandwich meats available. There's also a large soft drink cooler if you want to wash it down with something cold.
Nacca is a true mom ’n’ pop operation. It’s run by a couple hailing from near Naples, and I don’t mean the one in Ontario County. They took over the reins from the the original owner, who was also the husband’s uncle, in 1979.
Though business isn’t quite as brisk as it used to be, there’s still a core of regulars, some of whom no longer live in the neighborhood, but who make a point of swinging by for a sub or a pizza.
At some point, too, the owners cut back on their hours. Nacca used to be open several nights a week, but now it’s strictly a daytime operation. Along with that change, Nacca stopped offering full-size pizza, which is less in demand at lunchtime than it had been in the evening. Too bad. I wonder if they’d accommodate a special request and put together a big one for old time’s sake.
You know what? I'm not even going to give this one a rating. For one thing, to rate this compared with the other places I've reviewed is kind of like apples and oranges. It’s tough to compare the experience of eating one of Nacca’s mini pizzas with eating a slice or two out of a large pie.
For another, it would be hard for me to be objective. I just love these kinds of places. Distinctive, organic to their surroundings, timeworn yet timeless, with a venerable past but an uncertain future. If you share my affection for such places, and you find yourself in the area some weekday lunch hour, stop by and try it.
Nacca's Bakery, 463 Jay St., 436-5981

This is another Italian restaurant down the street form a slightly more casual Maria's Italian Kitchen in Brentwood Village. This place represents the Italian heritage pretty hard, it goes further than just New York, it is San Gennaro. It is one of the few places where it seemed most people working were actually Italian. Not that this makes it genuine. In fact it hypes it up more to be

Here is a common Italian restaurant, Maria's Italian Kitchen. It has been open since 1945 and since then has opened about 7 other places all over the LA area. This is the one in Brentwood. They are all run and owned by women, supposedly. It is a nice little place, thats not too fancy but not too casual. I ordered a large cheese pizza, and I asked for basil. Basil does not come on the pizza

Anthony Mangieri, in certain circles, is considered pizza royalty. The authentic Neapolitan pies he slung at his NY-based Una Pizza Napoletana were considered among the very best in the city. Then the news came: Mangieri was closing shop.

I was devastated. After reading rave reviews of the place in Ed Levine's A Slice of Heaven and on Jeff Varasano's website, I had placed Una Pizza Napoletana at the top of my list of pizzerias to try whenever I made it out to New York. Now, it was never going to happen.

Shortly thereafter, a post on the venerable Slice blog caught my eye: Mangieri was coming back to make a few more pies for the Food & Wine Magazine's annual Pieman's Craft event, a two-day pizza extravaganza hosted by Ed Levine and Slice founder Adam Kuban. Tickets were going fast, so fast that the event's first day was already completely sold out. But, but...there were still a few tickets left for the second day. Charged by adrenaline, fueled by impulse, I typed in my credit card number and scored two tickets. I gave no consideration as to how I would actually get to New York, just that I would find some way of doing it.

It wasn't easy. I procrastinated on the plane tickets and ended up paying far more than I would have liked. Hotel options for the weekend of the event were extremely limited, and even at the budget traveler's level, pricey. I paid dearly, but now all the logistics were taken care of. I would be flying to New York City, the greatest city for pizza in the United States. Needless to say, I was giddy as a schoolgirl. A schoolgirl with a borderline pizza obsession.

After months of waiting, the day arrived, and through the window of the plane I watched the entire country roll by beneath me. I was deposited at LaGuardia Airport in Queens, caught a shuttle that wound for two hours through the traffic-choked streets of Manhattan, and eventually arrived at the first of the two hotels I had booked for the trip (only two nights could be secured at one hotel, so I had to book my first night here). After a filling dinner at Shake Shack outside Madison Square Garden, I had a good night's rest, then set out the following afternoon for the East Village branch of Motorino, the site of the Pieman's Craft event and the replacement for Mangieri's Una Pizza Napoletana.

I was the first to arrive, and soon enough met Adam Kuban, who knew me immediately by my Slice moniker, WikiAdam. I took a seat near the front windows, which was a smart decision, as the fresh breeze helped alleviate some of the heat trapped inside this tiny restaurant. Before long I was surrounded by fellow pizza fanatics, including Brooks Jones of Me, Myself, and Pie and Nick Sherman of Pizza Rules! I had the time of my life chatting with Brooks about NY pizza, Jeff Varasano's pizza recipe, and places he recommended I try around the area.

Then the big dogs arrived: Ed Levine, our charming host; Anthony Mangieri, looking exactly as he did in all the videos I'd seen filmed at Una Pizza before it closed; and Mathieu Palombino, owner of Motorino. I had read a lot of very positive press about Motorino's Neapolitan pies in the weeks leading up to this trip, and I couldn't believe how young Palombino looked. Could someone so youthful make truly sublime pizza? I was about to find out.

But first, for the purpose of comparison, we were served two NY-style slices. And believe me when I say to you that the difference was like night and day.

The first slice came courtesy of one of the Manhattan branches of Totonno's, the famous coal-fired pizzeria whose main base of operations is still undergoing repairs at Coney Island. The original Coney Island Totonno's is legendary, and many consider it to be one of the very finest pizzerias in the country, but its Manhattan branches do not carry the same clout in the estimations of most pizza aficionados. After trying this slice, it was easy to see why.

Most noticeably, the slice had a stale quality to it, as if it had been left to sit out overnight. The crust had decent char to it, but it lacked crispness and was chewier than I expected. Also, and I assume this is because of the coal-fired oven, there was the distinct flavor of cocoa in every bite; the smoke released by the burning coal had to be the culprit. As for the rest of the slice, the sauce seemed slightly thick, but I kind of liked the flavor of the mozzarella -- it tasted more than a little bit like macaroni and cheese. All in all, it was a pretty underwhelming slice, and I didn't finish it.

Next up came a substantially larger slice from Pizza Suprema, whose location was apparently close enough to the Slice offices to warrant inclusion in the taste-testing. As disappointed as I was with the Totonno's slice, I liked this one even less.

Again, being delivered halfway across the city had taken its toll on the slice, and it had lost much of its crispness in the process. The sauce was surprisingly sweet, and the cheese had perspired so much grease into it that I had a difficult time swallowing it. As with the Totonno's slice, I'm positive Suprema's pizza is much better when eaten at the source of its inception.

Once the waitstaff carried away our paper plates and mostly uneaten slices, they returned with a sign that foretold of better things to come: the red wine. Our glasses filed, a palpable sense of excitement rippled through the crowd like a stone dropped onto the surface of a lake. It meant only one thing: we would be eating the real pizza now. And after a pretty lackluster antipasti plate, it came.

The first full pie to hit our table was the Soppressata Piccante. It was immediately obvious that the crust took center stage here, with a very puffy cornicione, leopard-spotting galore, and perfect char blisters on the upskirt. This crust was crispy on the outside and marvelously chewy on the inside, light and airy and well-crafted. Topping this magnificent display of wood-fired dough was a San Marzano tomato sauce, fresh fior di latte, spicy soppressata (the gourmet's pepperoni), sliced garlic, chili oil, and thin slices of red chilies that most likely accompanied the bottle of said chili oil. Not knowing what to expect, I mistakenly bit into two of these innocent-looking little red circles and felt like I'd been stung in the mouth by a wasp. Those chilis bit down on my tongue harder than my own teeth had bit into the slice, and with my eyes filling up I chugged some ice water and gave my dining companions a thumbs-up sign to let them know I was still conscious. Note to all those planning on ordering this pizza from Motorino in the future: take it easy with those chilis. They are very flavorful, but they're packing more heat than John Dillinger.

I have to be honest: I liked this pie, but I didn't love it. I think the chili oil permeates too much of the pizza, infusing all of the sauce and cheese so that I could barely distinguish their individual properties. All I could taste were chilies. It's still a delicious pizza, but as it turns out, it was to be my least favorite of the three "real" pizzas served to us that day.

Next came the Filetti, Palombino's ode to Anthony Mangieri's notoriously sparse menu. Forgoing red sauce for a simple canvas of mozzarella, basil, cherry tomatoes, and olive oil, the Filetti was a more subdued--but in my opinion, far more successful--pizza than the Soppressata Piccante. Do not mistake this to mean it lacked flavor, because that couldn't be further from the truth.

The Filetti was dynamite, a spot-on Bianca pie that tasted fresh, delicious, and authentically Italian. That same great crust made a return appearance here, its smoky char lending itself well to the creamy mozz and sweet, juicy tomatoes. I really liked this pie.

Finally, the house Margherita was set down before us, and with one bite it was clear they had saved the best for last. This was everything a Margherita should be, from the tang of the tomato sauce to the soft creaminess of the mozzarella di bufala. I could find no fault in it, and I would have eaten more if only I hadn't gorged myself on so many slices from the Soppressata and Filetti.

Between rounds of pizza, we were also treated to a discussion of pizza from Levine, Mangieri, and Palombino. Mangieri and Palombino both delved into their deep passion for pizza and the journey that had led them to New York. It was inspiring, and that enthusiasm came through visibly in the food we were consuming. I had assumed from the description of the Pieman's Craft event that we would be eating pizzas from both Mangieri and Palombino, but I later learned that all three of the pies served to us that afternoon were entirely Palombino's, and that Mangieri's contribution was to simply man the oven (the oven he had built, no less). I was more than a little disappointed upon hearing this revelation, but thankfully, there was a bright light at the end of the tunnel: Mangieri told us he was moving to San Francisco and would reopen Una Pizza Napoletana there sometime in 2010. Hooray!

My stomach full and my head swimming with the wine, I made my way toward the exit and struck up a conversation with Adam Kuban. We discussed how I'd come all the way from Portland, Oregon to come to this event and to try as much New York pizza as possible, and he pressed upon me the absolute importance of getting out to Brooklyn that night to sample the slices at Di Fara, as this would be the last night they would be open before I had to return to Oregon on Tuesday. The decision was made: it was Di Fara or bust!

To be continued...

Sully’s Family Pizzeria is located in a convenience store at the corner of Plank Road and Empire Blvd. in Webster. Ordinarily I would not bother with reviewing convenience store pizza, since I assume a lot of it is not made from scratch on the premises, but this place advertises itself as a pizzeria, and as a matter of fact someone behind the counter was busy stretching out some dough when I went in.
(Before I get to the pizza, I should mention that this place has no connection to Sully’s Pub in Rochester, which also makes pizza, and which I have not tried yet, though I intend to at some point.)
OK - the pizza. There was a pretty good selection to choose from at lunchtime. The sweet/hot pepper combo caught my eye, and so I went with that.
My slices were thick and heavy, and the crust was very soft. The underside was lightly browned and bore screen markings.
The crust was topped by a light layer of sauce, which had a slightly sweet, tomatoey flavor, with some herbs in the background. The cheese was more thickly applied, and though it was browned a bit here and there, it tended to separate back into its component shreds as I bit into it.
As a convenience store, Sully’s is pretty good. I didn’t check the gas prices, but they do have free air (which is as it should be - I know it costs money to buy and maintain an air pump, but gas stations shouldn’t charge for air, dammit), they serve Green Mountain coffee, and there’s even a liquor store attached, in case you’d like to pick up a nice bottle of Chianti to take home with your pizza (which the Italians apparently would never do, by the way).
As a pizzeria, however, Sully’s didn’t wow me on this visit. No glaring problems here, and the flavor was good enough, but the crust was just really too, too soft. In theory, pizza that’s cooked in a professional pizza oven should have a better, crisper, toastier crust than the same pizza cooked in your home oven, because the typical home oven just can’t get as hot as a full-size pizza oven. But I’ve made pizza at home that came out a lot crisper than this. Maybe they need to crank their oven up a little more, or give it more time to heat up, or just bake the pizza longer, but a pizza crust should be, well, crusty, and this one wasn’t.
Seems like I’ve been kind of stuck in the “C” range lately, but maybe it’s just the bell curve emerging. For pizza that wasn’t all that bad, but certainly could’ve been better, Sully’s ends up in the middle, and it gets a C from me.
Sully’s Family Pizzeria, 480 Plank Rd. (at Empire Blvd.), Webster 787-1111
(Pizzeria hours unknown at this point.)

DiRosato’s apparently has two area locations. I say “apparently” because it’s hard to keep track of them. At various times they’ve had several shops around the area, but right now I think there are just two, in Gates and Webster, at least according to their website. Last time I was in Webster, though, it looked to me like that location was now something called Roma Pizza, so I really don't know.
DiRosato’s opened its original store on Lyell Avenue. The Gates location, at the corner of Lyell and Elmgrove, was the second to open, in 1990. The Webster location - if it's still there and under the same ownership - traces its roots back to SS Coliseum Pizza on Dewey Ave., according to the RocWiki site.
Oh, and one odd note about the DiRosato's website - on search results, it comes up as “DiRosato's Pizza and Pasta- Home of the Five Free Toppings.” And if you click on the subpage entitled “The Owners,” which recites some of the history of DiRosato’s, it states that they were “the first pizza shop in Rochester to offer the ‘5 Free Toppings’ special. It was a huge success and other pizza shops followed their lead.”
So what’s odd about that? Well, they don’t seem to offer five free toppings. The menu says nothing about it. So presumably that offer has been discontinued. That’s fine, I don’t often want five toppings on my pizza anyway, but time to update the website, guys.
But on to the pizza. I stopped at the Gates store recently and grabbed a slice. It had a medium to thick crust, the underside of which was well browned and slightly greasy to the touch. Texturally, the crust had a certain oily crispness to it, and the outer lip was quite hard. The dough had clearly risen nicely, but otherwise there was nothing especially bready about the crust.
The slice was heavy on both the sauce and the cheese, which was fine given the relative thickness of the dough. Although some dried herbs were visible in the sauce, the sauce had a predominantly tomatoey flavor. The cheese was a bit browned, particularly near the outer edge.
The pepperoni slices varied in texture, and like the cheese, the ones near the lip seemed to have gotten more thoroughly cooked. Near the tip, the pepperoni was fairly soft and chewy; the ones near the outer edge were crisp, with an almost baconlike texture and flavor.
DiRosato’s has a pretty standard lineup of toppings and four specialty pizzas. They’re one of the few places around here that I’ve seen offer a potato pizza. From what I’ve been able to discover, you can find such a thing in Italy - it seems to be a Roman thing - but I doubt you’ll find one like DiRosato’s, which comes with “mild wing sauce, seasonal potatoes [sic], Mozzarella, Cheddar, and bacon bits served with sour cream.”
Besides pizza, DiRosato’s has calzones, subs, wings, hots and burgers, tacos, salads, and sides, plus a daily fish fry. The Gates location also has a dinner menu that includes pasta, “25-layer lasagna,” and several chicken dishes. I believe in the summer, they do an outdoor barbeque or “steakout” one night a week, or at least they did this past summer. And they serve wine and beer.
The menu indicates that the Webster DiRosato’s has “no dinner menu,” but you can get pizza there till 4 a.m., which is about as late as you’ll find it anywhere in this area, and they deliver countywide, according to their ad in the Yellow Pages.
This pizza was OK. I didn’t find any particular fault with it. But it didn’t wow me either. It tasted fine, but the crust was nothing special. Overall, it was neither better nor worse than your average pizza around here, so I’ll give it C.
DiRosato’s Pizza & Pasta, 3869 Lyell Rd. at Elmgrove Rd. 426-0270
Other location (not reviewed) at 2225 Empire Blvd., Webster (across from Loew’s) 671-8680
Both locations offer dine-in, delivery, takeout, and catering.

I’m not too interested in reviewing chain pizzerias, but as long as they’re not national chains, I’ll give them a try. So while I haven’t exactly been in a hurry to check out Great Northern Pizza Kitchen, I finally got there the other day.
GNPK is actually one of the smaller chains around, with just six locations, four of which are in Monroe County (the others are near Syracuse and Buffalo). Somehow, though, it just feels like a big chain. Maybe it’s the slick-looking logo, or the name, or the layout of its shops, I don’t know.
At any rate - what Great Northern is probably best known for is the wide variety of its pizzas. I count 42 different pizzas on its menu, and 57 available toppings (which includes 12 different cheeses), plus six separate sauces.
If you just go in for a slice, you won’t find 42 pizzas to pick from, but there will be a pretty wide variety. I opted for one cheese slice, to serve as kind of a benchmark, and one specialty slice.
The cheese slice was thin and foldable, with a medium-soft crust. The underside was dusted with cornmeal and was browned, not charred. It had no real crispness to speak of; there was no “resistance” to my teeth when I took a bite. The crust became gradually thicker and chewier the closer I got to the edge, which, finally, had a bit of crispness to it.
The dough was topped by a moderate layer of thick, tomatoey sauce. The cheese, which was applied in proportion to the other components, was slightly browned and chewy, and bland, without much cheesy tang. The whole slice was dusted with dried herbs.
I had a hard time figuring out what it was, but overall this slice seemed to me to have an odd, slightly sweet flavor. I presume the sauce had something to do with that, or maybe it was the combined flavor of all the ingredients, but I didn’t especially care for it. I wish I could explain it better than that.
Anyway, who goes to Great Northern for a plain cheese slice? The specialty pizzas are the big draw here, and for mine I got a Mediterranean slice, which had been recommended to me by an acquaintance. This consisted of a whole-wheat crust buried under a mound of fresh spinach leaves, feta cheese, whole (pitted) kalamata olives, slices of red onion, artichokes, diced tomatoes and red bell pepper.
This one’s actually pretty easy to sum up. It was good. It just wasn’t much like pizza. It looked, roughly, like pizza, in the sense that it was a more or less triangular slice of dough with toppings on it, but it tasted more like a big piece of whole wheat pita bread with a Greek salad on top.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. And the menu’s pretty upfront about it, describing the Mediterranean as “Greek salad meets a pizza.” It’s just that it wasn’t very pizzalike. The crust was very soft - again, more like pita bread than pizza crust. Part of that may be from the use of whole wheat flour, but I’ve had whole wheat pizzas that were crisper and crunchier than this. The toppings were also raw, which was fine - I mean, I don’t think I’d want a baked Greek salad - but the overall effect was simply fundamentally different from what I would call pizza.
I won’t bother trying to list all of GNPK’s specialty pizzas or pizza toppings, but the menu also includes calzones, deep dish pizza, wings, soup, salads, sandwiches and wraps, and cookies baked on the premises. They also serve wine and beer, and they deliver (free within a 3-mile radius).
It’s hard to judge a place that offers 42 kinds of pizza (and a practically infinite number of make-your-own combinations) based on just two slices, but what I get from these is that Great Northern’s pizza is all about the toppings. No big surprise there, I guess. But what I mean is that this isn’t a place to go for truly great, simple pizza: pizza so elemental that it embodies the Platonic ideal of pizza in its most basic form. In other words, this is not a place for pizza purists. But if you want a dizzying array of toppings to pick from and aren’t too hung up on the semantic issue of whether it is or isn’t “pizza,” it’s pretty good.
So again, a tough one to grade. Judging this as pizza, I wasn’t too impressed, but that’s not to say that some of these aren’t pretty tasty. So, somewhat arbitrarily, I’ll put it at slightly above average overall, or C+.
Great Northern Pizza Kitchen, 1918 Monroe Ave., Brighton 244-PIES (7437). Other area locations in Bushnell’s Basin, Henrietta, and Pittsford.
Sun. noon - 9 p.m., Mon. - Thu. 11 a.m. - 9 p.m., Fri. & Sat. 11 a.m. - 10 p.m.

There is a new place in Hollywood called the Essex House. It sits on Hollywood Blvd. down around Vine. The place is pretty great. It is a low key bar with a lot of TV's for football watching. It has a pretty good menu with everything sounding good. It also has some great beers that aren't found everywhere. The happy hour is pretty great too. Outside of happy hour things are a little pricey

So I am not Jewish and I don't really know anything about Kosher and what it means to be Kosher or what Kosher should taste like. My understanding is Kosher just means at the most blessed food that follows any sort of rules that the religion might have. At the very least it means a place where Jews can go to be amongst other Jews. Either way, there a quite a few of these places that specialize

So a pretty well known place amongst Kosher eateries is this one on Pico, Nagila. It is 2 places combined with a little courtyard, if you want to call it that, in the middle. One side is called the Meating Place, which is burgers and chicken and things like that, the other is pizza, no meat just dairy and veggies. It is similar in setup to some place in a food court, no specific decor. You

Tony's Birdland has two locations, on West Ridge Road and Dewey Ave., both in Greece. I recently picked up a cheese slice at the former.
The crust was thin to medium in thickness, with an overall appearance that would put it in the New York style category. It had clearly been baked on a screen, but the underside was dark, even a bit charred, and had a pleasantly toasty character.
The sauce, which was applied fairly generously, had a balanced flavor, with both tomatoey and herbal notes. The cheese was moderately applied, and had been baked to the point that it had developed some brown blisters across its surface.
The slice ended with a thin, floury, crunchy lip, that had a nice bready flavor.
Tony's Birdland has a pretty big menu. The pizza selections are fairly standard, but they also offer - you ready? - calzones, wings, fried chicken, wraps, hot and cold subs, "plates," burgers and hots, salads, various sides and appetizers, and dinners that include chicken (no surprise there, given the name of the place), ribs, fish and fried seafood. The desserts include fried dough (which I've never cared for, though I love the straightforward, unabashed descriptiveness of that name), Oreo cheesecake, and a few pie selections.
By the way, about those wings: if you like either of Tony's two sauces (sween 'n' sour or Buffalo), you can get it to go, in quantities up to a gallon.
But back to the pizza - I liked this slice. It was well balanced, with no one component taking center stage. The crust had a good flavor and some crispness, but would've been even better, I think, had it not been baked on a screen. The crust didn't have quite the mix of crunch and breadiness that makes for truly outstanding pizza.
I suppose there are practical reasons for using a screen, but from my experience, producing great pizza isn't one of them. So while this pizza fell a bit short of greatness, it was still pretty doggone good, and I'll give it a B.
Tony's Birdland & Pizzeria, 2680 W. Ridge Rd. 225-4720. Also 3800 Dewey Ave. 621-3277. (The Ridge Rd. location is open for lunch; I think the Dewey Ave. location doesn't open until sometime in the afternoon.)