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Thursday, May 28, 2009

J&L's Pizza, Fairport

J & L's Pizza Korner on Urbanspoon
J&L's Pizza, which has been serving pizza since 1978, is at the corner of Hogan Road and Route 31 in Fairport. It's a delivery and carry-out place with an extensive menu of pizza and other items.
My pepperoni slice, which was pretty fresh, was quite thin and floppy, with a soft crust that couldn't really hold up under the weight of the toppings. It was also one of the "wetter" slices I've had, with a pretty generous layer of sauce.
But let's get back to the crust. As I said, it had a soft texture, and was just a little browned on the bottom. The edge was relatively thick and crunchy.
The sauce, which was the dominant component, had a sharp, acidic flavor with some herbal notes, and, it seemed to me, a slight spiciness to it. The cheese - straight mozzarella as far as I could tell - was moderately applied and took a back seat to the sauce. The cup-and-char pepperoni had a good flavor, though it wasn't really cooked to the point of charred-around-the-edge crunchiness.
As I mentioned, J&L's has a big menu, with salads, wraps, calzones, a wide variety of subs, deli sandwiches, wings, quesadillas, fried fish and shrimp, and various sides. They also offer a lot of pizza toppings to choose from, including kalamata olives, fresh garlic, feta, ricotta and romano cheeses, and meatballs, to name a few. There are a few specialty pizzas, nothing too wild. The menu also says that they have a "new" "New York style thin" pizza available, but I can't imagine it being much thinner than my slice.
If this slice was supposed to be New York style, I'd say it fell short. I've said it before: New York style pizza does not just mean thin crust.
But leaving aside any preconceptions, this wasn't bad pizza. Not great, either, mind you; kind of a wimpy, floppy, nearly undercooked crust, and without a great crust you're never going to get great pizza. Still, it was decent, and the predominance of the sauce made it interesting and different from most other places. I'll give it a C+.

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