Friday, August 3, 2012

Colie's Cafe, Park Ave. - Buffalo Chicken Pizza

Colie's Cafe on Urbanspoon
Places that advertise themselves as pizzerias always take priority on my to-do list. Restaurants with pizza on the menu, not so much.
So it took me a while to get to Colie's Cafe on Park Avenue. This was formerly Camille's, and part of a franchise, but a couple of years ago, they changed over to Colie's, and became an independent operation. I think that's the gist of it.
And they do have pizza on the menu, so I had to give it a try.
From the six pizzas on their menu, I got a Buffalo chicken pie. Ordinarily, the first time at a place, I would go for a plain cheese pizza, or maybe pepperoni, but I figured few people are going to come here just to get a regular pizza, not with Cobbs Hill and Chester Cab both nearby. And since Buffalo chicken pizza may be the most popular "specialty" pizza locally, I thought that would be a good choice.
Plus, Colie's menu describes their Buffalo chicken pizza as topped with "grilled chicken with onions, celery, tomatoes, crumbly bleu cheese, spicy boom-boom sauce and mozzarella." You rarely see celery on pizza (it's tough to do, since it's so full of water), and I wondered about the "boom-boom sauce," and crumbly blue is unusual too, for pizza, so I was intrigued.
The pizza came up remarkably fast, just a few minutes after I ordered it. That was not a good sign, as it suggested a very pre-made pizza.
But I was pleasantly surprised. This was pretty good. It wasn't very big, maybe 8 inches across, but the crust was reasonably crisp and not greasy.
The pie was topped with diced, unbreaded chicken, tossed in a very mildly hot sauce. If you want this spicy, better ask for some Tabasco or whatever they have on hand. So as a hothead, culinarily speaking, that was a disappointment. But it was an interesting take on Buffalo chicken pizza, with crunchy slices of celery, sauteed onions, and diced tomatoes, mixed with a creamy white sauce that was tinged with blue cheese crumbles.
One odd thing was that the top layer of the crust easily separated from the bottom. It wasn't so much that the toppings separated from the crust as that the crust separated into two layers, top and bottom.
That aside, this was a tasty pie, with a decent crust, and an interesting mix of flavors and textures. I haven't been rating Buffalo chicken pizza, since they vary so widely as to make them difficult to compare with each other. And I'm not sure what I would think of Colie's more traditional pizzas. So I'll not give this a rating, but I will say that I enjoyed it, and I'm frankly not a huge fan of Buffalo chicken pizza. If you are - and maybe even if you're not - it's worth trying.
Colie's Cafe, 657 Park Avenue, Rochester, NY 14607
442-4986
Mon. - Sat. 8 a.m. - 9 p.m., Sun. 8 a.m. - 8 p.m.
Other locations at 3349 Monroe Ave. in Pittsford and at Eastview Mall

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