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Monday, October 5, 2009

R Pizzeria, North St.

I was on my way to - where else? - a pizzeria when a big sign reading "R Pizzeria" caught my eye. It's on North Street, which runs between Portland and Hudson, a few blocks south of Clifford Ave. I kept going to my original destination, but made a mental note to check out R Pizzeria, which I did a few days later.
The only slices available when I stopped were pepperoni, and sausage & pepperoni. I got two of the former.
They came in a styrofoam to-go container, which frankly doesn't make a good container for pizza. Styrofoam traps moisture, meaning that if the pizza's hot, it's apt to get soggy if it sits in there for long.
And the last thing this pizza needed was to get soggy. It had a thick, soft, spongy, pancake-like crust with a dark brown, bubbly underside that had the appearance of fried dough. It was topped with a thin layer of sauce that managed to be both oily and watery at the same time. Some of the sauce had soaked through the top layer of the spongy dough, making it very wet on its upper surface. The outer edge was formed into a thick lip, which was, well, not bad. Not particularly crusty or chewy, but OK, in a white-bread kind of way.
The cheese, which had been laid on a bit thickly, was a little browned, but still fairly stringy. The small pieces of pepperoni were the real stars of this pizza, however. They were crisp along the edges, oily and spicy, and that spicy flavor and crisp chewy texture was - fortunately - the dominant feature of these slices.
R Pizzeria has a limited menu, with pizza, hot and cold subs, wings, fried chicken, and various other fried stuff. It's also one of the only pizzerias I've seen with gizzards on the menu. I'm not sure if gizzards are available as a pizza topping, but you could always ask. There's a small grocery here as well. It's pretty much a takeout and delivery place.
As you might guess, I wasn't thrilled by this pizza, but you know, I didn't hate it either. It was actually kind of good in its own way; almost good in spite of itself. Maybe it was the synergy of the crisp, spicy pepperoni and the toasted, stringy, chewy cheese. Had they been atop a better crust, I might've really enjoyed this pizza a lot. As it was, though, that flaccid, spongy, grease-bottomed crust dragged the rest of the pizza down with it, resulting in a score of C-.
R Pizzeria, 695 North St. 338-7929
(Not sure of the hours)

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