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Friday, June 28, 2013

Label 7, Pittsford

Label Seven on Urbanspoon
Grilled pizza seems to be popping up on restaurant menus everywhere these days, and it's easy to see why. People like pizza, and grilled pizza gives a restaurant a relatively simple, easy to prepare way of offering pizza. It's also got the added cachet of being trendy, at the moment.
To be honest, I'm not a huge fan of the style. I find that grilled pizza - which is generally made by putting the dough, or maybe premade crust, on a grill, flipping it and adding toppings - lacks what I would call the integration of a traditionally baked pizza. When you stretch raw dough, add toppings, and put them in the oven together, they tend to meld together as they bake. With grilled pizza, the crust and toppings tend to be more separate and distinct - it's a grilled piece of flatbread, with stuff on top.
Which is not to say that it can't be good. But I generally just don't like it as much as a good regular pizza. So I try to approach a grilled pizza with an awareness of that, and not to judge it unfairly. I mean if I liked apples better than oranges, I wouldn't rate an orange by saying, "Well, it's OK, but it's not as good as an apple." I'd ask myself whether it was good, as an orange. And I try to do the same with grilled pizza.
So with all that prologue out of the way, I'll tell you about a dinner I had last month at Label 7, a self-described "Napa style eatery and bar" in Pittsford. Label 7 has an eclectic menu offering everything from fried chicken and waffles to the unusually spelled ssäm, which features cured pork belly as the main ingredient.
And, at the time of my visit, the menu also included "Napa Crispy Pizza," a grilled pizza topped with salametti (which, as the name implies, is very similar to salami), mozzarella, basil, San Marzano tomatoes, and red onion. The current online menu lists a "Pizza Margherita" topped with fresh mozzarella, San Marzano tomatoes, sweet onion, and basil, with the option of adding "one of our various Daily-Cured Meats for $5."
The underside of this oblong pizza, which was sliced into thin triangles, crossways, bore some deeply indented grill marks, and it was initially crisp underneath, though over time the moisture that had exuded from the toppings led the long, narrow slices to get a little soggy underneath, and to sag under the weight of the toppings.
And the toppings were on the heavy side, but tasty. The mozzarella was thick, smooth and well melted, and lay atop a thin layer of well cooked, deep-red tomato sauce flecked with dried herbs.
The tomatoes were a highlight - juicy and sweet. They fully lived up to the reputation of San Marzano tomatoes, which are the gold standard for pizza.
Protein was supplied by the salametti, which was meaty, not too fatty, and finely ground, with a smooth texture. I like pepperoni (which is largely an American invention), but there are so many other options when it comes to sausage, and it's always good to try something a little different.
Shredded basil rounded out the toppings on this pizza. It was wilted but still had enough freshness to add an extra dimension to the overall flavor profile.
There was a lot to like about this pizza, the toppings particularly. They worked together well, were flavorful, and of high quality.
The crust? Well, that takes us back to some of my issues with grilled pizza. It was OK, but even making allowances for this having been grilled rather than baked, it wasn't great. Naturally the texture was very different from a traditional oven-baked pizza, particularly on the inside, where I missed the chewiness of a fresh-baked crust. And as has happened before, in my experience with grilled pizza, the crust was a little too wet, bordering on sogginess. In short, it was an acceptable base for the toppings, but not so great in its own right.
I did like the restaurant itself. The menu was an intriguing mix of the creative and the familiar, and I'd like to try several of their other dishes. Our server was friendly and attentive, and the surroundings were pleasant, with the bar - which was busy - well enough separated from the dining room to allow my wife and me to carry on a conversation without shouting.
In keeping with my past practice, I won't assign a letter grade to this pizza. Again, it gets back to the apples-and-oranges thing. My grades are geared toward more traditional pizza, and it's simply too difficult to match this against that style. I'll just say that I did enjoy this pizza, even if it didn't exactly make me a grilled-pizza convert.
Label Seven, 50 State Street, Pittsford, NY 14534
(585)-267-7500
labelseven@gmail.com
Tue. - Thu. 11:30 a.m. - 2 p.m., 5 p.m. - 9 p.m.
Fri. & Sat. 11:30 - 2. 5 - 10 p.m.
Closed Sun. & Mon.

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Finger Lakes Twofer: Wise Guy and Geno Style

Wiseguys Pizzeria & Subs on Urbanspoon
On a recent hiking excursion in the Finger Lakes, I took the opportunity to stop at two pizza places, Wise Guy in Hammondsport and Geno Style in Bath. Their slices were remarkably similar, though I'd give a slight edge to Geno Style.
Both slices were about the same, thin to medium thickness, with screen marks on the bottom. The Wise Guy slice was dry and slightly floury underneath, and while the Geno Style slices were faintly oily, they were a little more crisp. Both were reasonably crispy/crunchy along the edge.
The Wise Guy slice seemed a tad overdone to me, with well browned, congealed cheese that was a little oily on top. The Geno Style slices were more medium in doneness, and the cheese may have been shielded a bit from the more abundant pepperoni.
Wise Guy offers round pizzas in 8, 12, 16 and 18 inch sizes, plus sheets. There are 16 toppings to choose from, and 8 specialty pizzas. They also do strombolis, calzones, wings, hot and cold subs, wraps,salads and sides, plus a few sweets.
Geno Style's menu is a bit confusing; I don't see a listing for just plain, or "build your own" pizza. But they do offer 16 specialty pizzas, including a carb-laden spaghetti & meatball pizza (first time I've seen that, I think). My only quibble is with the pricing - how can a "meaty feast" with sauce, "blended mozzarella" (not sure what that means), pepperoni, ham, bacon, sausage, and an "extra layer of mozzarella" be the same price as a "New Yorker" with sauce on a thin crust, cheese and one topping? Something seems amiss.
Geno Style also serves wings, pasta, hot subs, stromboli and calzones, and plenty of sides, from fried pickles to fried mac & cheese wedges.
For two pizzerias that have no direct connection, these were, as I said, remarkably similar slices. Not identical, certainly, but with a lot of shared characteristics. There's no particular reason to compare them except that I had them both on the same day.
And each had its strengths and weaknesses. I'll give the Wise Guy slice a point for not being greasy underneath, but its crust was pretty soft, and  the toppings weren't the greatest. The Geno Style slices were a tad oily underneath but otherwise the better of the two, in my opinion. But both rate about average for the WNY / Finger Lakes Region, so I'll give them a C.
Wise Guy Pizzeria, 90 Pulteney St., Hammondsport
607-569-2000
Hours unknown, but they were open for lunch on a Saturday.
They deliver ($10 minimum).
Geno Style Pizza Restaurant, 14 Liberty St., Bath
607-776-2030
Mon. - Thu. 10:30 a.m. - 9:00 p.m., Fri. 8:30 a.m. - 10 p.m., Sat. 11 a.m. - 11 p.m., Sun. noon - 8 p.m.
Delivery charge $2, $10 minimum order, "largest delivery radius in the area"

Friday, June 21, 2013

Rumi's, Monroe Avenue

 NOTE:  at this writing (2/12/14) this establishment is closed.

I learned recently that a new Turkish restaurant had opened on Monroe Avenue, in a former Pizza Hut. News of a Turkish restaurant was intriguing enough, but I also saw that they serve pizza.
Rumi's Cafe & Grill is billing itself as a Mediterranean restaurant, rather than specifically Turkish, and I can see the reasoning behind that. Rochester's probably not big enough to support a lot of restaurants with a narrow ethnic focus, so better to cast a wide net and say "Mediterranean" than Turkish, or Lebanese, or Greek, or Moroccan. At least that seems to be the thinking behind it.
Now I've had a Turkish variant on pizza before, called Lahmacun, from Istanbul Market, and I loved it. But this was nothing like that. This was pizza, pure and simple. But it was pretty good.
I was with two friends, and, somewhat to my surprise, they both ordered pizza as well. I got a spinach & feta pie, and they got a chicken doner and beef doner pizza. ("Doner," I guess, is the Turkish name for that meat on a spit that they use to make what is generally referred to in the U.S. as a gyro.)
Rumi's makes its own dough, and that showed. The underside bore screen marks, but it was crisp and crackled on the surface. The interior of the thin-to-medium crust was also pleasantly breadlike.
The toppings were moderately applied but tasty, with a thin layer of lightly seasoned, tomatoey sauce and just-browned mozzarella. My spinach and feta were not abundantly applied, but there was enough for good flavor and to accent the rest of the pie. The meat toppings were shaved, again as you would get in a gyro, and worked well as a pizza toppings, although between the two of them I preferred the chicken, as the beef doner (which also contains lamb) seemed a bit too overcooked for my taste - better to just have it put straight onto bread for a sandwich.
So while these weren't particularly Turkish, they were good. And we agreed that we would like to come back to Rumi's to explore some of their non-pizza offerings, which include a wide variety of kabobs, sandwiches, seafood entrees, platters, appetizers, and salads, as well as baklava and kunefe, which is described as layered filo dough with cheese, syrup and pistachios (both the baklava and kunefe are made off premises; in fact the menu describes them as imported from Istanbul and from the Mediterranean region, respectively).They also serve breakfast, with a number of Turkish pastries and more traditionally American choices available.
Partly I want to try those other dishes just because I like trying new things and because I like Mediterranean food. And partly it's because I was pretty impressed with Rumi's pizza. If the rest of their food is up to these standards, it's definitely worth a revisit. I'll give the pizza a B.
Rumi's, 2735 Monroe Avenue 14618
242-7864
Open 9 a.m. - 10 p.m. daily

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Back to Vinny's

With, I don't know, 200+ pizzerias around Rochester, and new ones opening all the time, it's often a long while before I get back to some of the places I love.
One such is Vinny's Bakery & Deli in Fairport, which I last visited in January 2012. Over a year is too long not to return to Vinny's, which turns out great pizzas in both Sicilian and American styles.
I do love Vinny's Sicilian pizza, but on this occasion, I was just after a plain old pepperoni pizza for dinner. 
And that's what I got - a simple pepperoni pizza, and yet as I was sharing it with my wife and daughter, it struck me that as ordinary as this pizza seemed on the surface, it was really very, very good, in subtle ways.
What I mean is that this was just fundamentally good pizza, prepared in a straightforward American style. It all starts with the crust, and I did enjoy this crust. It was bready and flavorful, with a slightly crusty bottom. Unfortunately my camera's flash tends to wash out the undersides of pizza slices, so the picture doesn't do it justice, but the bottom surface of this pie was dotted with char spots from the oven deck. It had a slight surface "bite" but was pliable, with a nice, weblike interior from the risen dough.
The crust was on the thin side of medium thick, and was proportionately topped with a flavorful tomato sauce and aged mozzarella cheese. The pepperoni was just slightly crisp along the edges.
All of that sounds so ordinary. So why was this a great pizza?
Well, this pizza showed me that a pizza can be more than the sum of its parts. At its most elemental level, yes, it was a basic American style pizza. But it almost perfectly embodied that style. I couldn't find a fault with this pie. The crust was good, the sauce, the cheese, the pepperoni - it was kind of the pizza equivalent of a world-class pianist tossing off Beethoven's "Für Elise," which is famous but relatively easy to play. Impressive? Not really. But flawless? Absolutely.
So while Vinny's Sicilian pizza remains its forte, by no means should you overlook their "regular" American-style pizza. And of course there's the potato pizza that I've reported on before. For that matter, I should mention that Vinny's also offers stuffed breads, arancini (fried rice balls), and homemade panelli wraps, as well as all the other treats you'd expect from a good Italian deli and bakery, from bread to subs, soups and sweet treats like cannoli, biscotti and cookies. It's a local treasure, and its only drawback, from my perspective, is that it's not closer to my home or office.
Vinny's Italian American Bakery & Deli, 1350 Fairport Road, Fairport
585-377-4200
Open daily 8 a.m. - 8 p.m.

Friday, June 14, 2013

The Coach, Webster

As I continue to make the rounds of places that aren't pizzerias but that sell pizza, I stopped not long ago at The Coach in Webster. As you might suspect from the name, it's a sports bar, and it's a fixture in Webster - it's operated as The Coach since 1991, but it can trace its roots back to 1812, as you can read about here.
Unless they specialize in pizza or I have some other reason to think otherwise beforehand, I'm never expecting much when I order pizza at a bar or restaurant. Too often you get something that looks as if it came from the warming tray at your local convenience store.
But I was pleasantly surprised by my personal-size pizza that I got at The Coach. I'm not saying that it blew me away or anything, but it was pretty decent pizza.
That's partly because they make their own dough here, so this isn't just some premade pizza shell with some toppings thrown on. And the crust was in fact pretty good. It was thin, overall, although a little uneven in thickness. The underside was a deep shade of golden brown, with some floury areas, and some surface crackling, which is a good sign. It had a fresh-bread aroma and appeared to have good gluten development inside. On the downside, it was a little unevenly baked, with some very dark areas along the edge in spots, but much lighter in others. And it didn't quite have the crustiness of the very best pizzas I've tried - the kind of exterior crispness that you find with a great loaf of hearth-baked bread. All in all, though, this wasn't bad at all.

The crust was topped with a thin coat of orange-red sauce, which had a mild, middle-of-the-road flavor. Above that was a relatively heavy layer of well melted, gloppy cheese covering the pie, except for one big bubbled-up area. I photographed the pizza while the pie was still hot, and the cheese naturally did tighten up a bit as it cooled. The pepperoni was pretty good, a little crisp along the edges, but a bit unevenly applied.
The Coach offers pizzas in two sizes, with your choice of red sauce or garlic white pizza, as well as ten toppings to choose from. And the menu includes all the bar-food staples like wings (8 sauces), burgers, hot sandwiches, and plenty of fried sides.
I'm giving this pizza a C, which might not sound all that great, but it's not meant as a putdown. There was plenty to like about it, but it was a bit generic, and it had some imperfections too (a little heavy on the cheese and a little light on the sauce; a little uneven in thickness, the doneness of the underside, and the distribution of the pepperoni). Nothing major, mind you, but when I tally up the mental score, I'd say this was, for this area, an average pizza. Quite acceptable, though, and definitely worth ordering if you go and you're in the mood for pizza.
The Coach Sports Bar, 19 West Main St., Webster
872-2910

Mon - Sat: 10:30 am - 2:00 am
Sun: 12:00 pm - 10:00 pm

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

New Pizzeria Report: Hoagies, Scottsville Road

Not a full-blown review here, just a quick report. There's a new pizzeria/deli on Scottsville Road, just north of Jefferson Road (252), Hoagies. It opened around the beginning of this month, so while I did wnnt to check it out, I think it's too early to do a full review.

I got two slices of pepperoni from a pie that had just emerged from the oven. The crust was quite thin, even along the outer edge. It was pale underneath, with some flour visible.
The slices were saucy, with a good tomatoey flavor, and a few scattered dried herbs. On top was a proportionate layer of well-melted, stringy mozzarella and a few slices of thin, chewy pepperoni. The overall flavor was good, and the components were well balanced.
I could see, during my few minutes there, that the staff and management were still working on getting everything right. Not that anything went wrong, but their communication showed that they were learning how to work together and how to get things right. And everybody seemed to be united in that goal.
Hoagies is a fairly small place, and they offer a basic but complete menu of pizza, subs, wings, grilled items, hot dogs, salads and sides. As of now, they have four specialty pizzas on the menu, including "Mama D's Favorite," which comes with anchovies, onions, mushrooms, olive oil, garlic and parsley. I hope the mushrooms aren't an integral part of that pie, because apart from them, that sounds very intriguing.
I'll certainly stop back at Hoagies at some point, and do a more comprehensive review, but for now I wanted to give readers a heads-up that it's there, and a rough idea of what the pizza is like. It's worth a stop if you're in the area. Long-term, it's got some competition - there's a Salvatore's and Sylvio's just down the road - but if they can turn out consistently good pizza, subs and wings, there's no reason they can't succeed, and here's hoping they do.
Hoagies, 1615 Scottsville Road
436-SUBS (7827)
Mon. - Thu. 10 a.m. - 7 p.m., Fri. & Sat. 10 a.m. - 8 p.m.

Friday, June 7, 2013

Edibles, University Avenue

Edibles on Urbanspoon
Though by now I've covered nearly all the independent (i.e., non-chain) pizzerias around Rochester, there are always a few more to get to, and so I keep a to-do list. Right now, I've got fifteen places on my list. Many of them are not traditional pizzerias, but bars, restaurants, and even a winery that serve pizza. But in time, I'll get to them all.
One places that's been on my list for some time is Edibles on University Avenue. I stopped in for lunch recently and got a pizza.
It looks as if Edibles may have recently changed their menu, because when I went, my choices were a fig & feta, chicken pancetta, and steak & onion pizza. Now their website lists a Margherita in place of the fig & feta. On this page, though, they still list the fig & feta pizza. So I don't know.
If they no longer offer it, that's unfortunate, because that's what I ordered. So that would mean that this review is, to some extent, obsolete even before I've written it. Plus, if I'd had the option at the time, I would've ordered a Margherita instead. Oh well. I did like this well enough, so I can't complain too much.
And regardless of whether it's still on the menu, at least I can still tell you about the crust. Lots of adjectives came to mind as I was eating this one - thin, crisp, crackly, dry, and flaky. Oh, and floury (on the bottom), as well as sweet and wheaty. I don't know if wheaty is an adjective, but it is now.
So yeah, this was one of those crackerlike crusts, which is fine as long as you know what to expect. It was well browned on the bottom, and, in its simplicity, both rustic and nouveau (or should I say "nuovo") as the same time.
But I may as well describe the toppings, too. Who knows, maybe if people ask about it, Edibles will decide to bring back the fig & feta pizza.
And that would be a good thing, because this was a pretty good pizza.
In addition to the eponymous ingredients, it was topped with cherry tomatoes, fresh greens, and lemon dressing. Figs on pizza may seem strange, but I've seen it before, and in fact I've even used figs on homemade pizza. They have a certain depth and complexity of flavor that's almost meaty, and that makes them a natural companion to a sharp cheese like feta.
And that's what I got here. The figs - which were not as "seedy" as I'd expected, or feared - were caramelized and subtly sweet. They contrasted well with the salty feta, which in turn was not as pungent as I'd expected.
The tomatoes were flavorful and sweet - the menu described them as "cured," though I can't say I noticed anything particularly unusual about them, other than their good flavor - and the greens were a nice touch, even if I'm always a bit puzzled on those rare occasions when I get fresh greens on a pizza. Do I eat them first, with a fork, and then eat the rest of the pizza? They don't adhere to the crust, so it's a little awkward trying to eat them with the pizza, either with a knife and fork or by picking up the pieces by hand. I did a little of both, treating the greens as both a topping and a first-course salad. The lemony dressing was another unusual pizza topping that worked well here, giving the entire pie a tangy acidic bite that cut through the sticky sweetness of the figs and added some zing to the proceedings.
I could've, but didn't finish the pie in one sitting, but opted to take home a couple of pieces. My server was kind enough to give me some helpful tips on how best to reheat them, which she recommended be done in a hot frying pan on the stove.
Edibles is a pleasant spot for lunch or dinner, and straddles the line between casual and upscale. The prices are likewise somewhere in the middle, with most entrees in the teens and twenties (pizzas are priced in the low teens). The eclectic menu offers plenty to choose from, but don't overlook the pizza. Though not baked in a wood-fired oven, it falls within that amorphous category known as "artisanal," and while that's not one of my favorite adjectives, it conveys the general idea here. This pizza won't be to everybody's liking, but it was flavorful and well made, and I'll give it a B.
Edibles Restaurant, 704 University Ave., Rochester 14607
271-4910
Mon. - Thu. 11 am - 2:30 pm, 5 pm - 9 pm, Fri. 11 am - 2:30 pm, 5 pm - 10 pm, Sat. 11:30 am - 3 pm, 5 pm - 10 pm

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Product Review - Pizza Slice Spice

parmesan-garlicI recently received some samples of Pizza Slice Spice™, a new product that debuted at the 2013 International Pizza Expo in Las Vegas (I gotta go to that, sometime). The idea is that you shake this powder onto a plain pizza slice to give it added flavor, without the added calories, fat or cost of actual, traditional toppings.
PSS comes in four flavors, Parmesan Garlic, Buffalo Wing, Bacon Cheddar, and Barbeque.
How does it taste? I tasted them blind, without having read what flavors they were supposed to be. I did correctly identify the Parmesan Garlic, which is probably my favorite of the three. The Buffalo Wing was simply spicy hot, with a sharp cheese-like flavor in the background. I had no idea it was supposed to taste like Buffalo chicken. The Bacon Cheddar reminded me of smoked cheese, which I like, although once I read the label I could see how it was supposed to taste like bacon. And the Barbeque was easy to guess - it's a lot like the spice mixture on BBQ potato chips.
But are they good? Yes, depending of course on your personal tastes. Speaking of potato chips, I'd say that if you're the sort of person who likes different flavored potato or tortilla chips, you'll like these. They are salty (the BBQ is also a little sugary), and as you might expect, the flavors are not exactly like the real thing. You can't reduce bacon and cheddar to a powder and expect it to taste like actual bacon and cheddar. But they are good, again in a crunchy-munchy snack-food kind of way.
I'm not sure who the target audience is here. Obviously the pizza eater is the end user, but I'm not sure if these are intended to be marketed primarily to consumers or to pizzerias. I could imagine the latter not wanting to stock them, if customers are going to see this as a substitute for more expensive toppings.  I don't think they will, but that seems to be part of the idea behind them.
I was also a little surprised not to see pepperoni as one of the flavors. That seems like a no-brainer to me. Maybe down the road. And while these might be tasty on a slice of cheese pizza, it seems to me that they could have a lot of other applications as well, like pasta, popcorn, french fries, oven toasted bread, and grilled meats.
If these sound appealing to you, you can order them from the Pizza Slice Spice website, and depending on how things go, you may start to see them on store shelves or at your local pizzeria, next to the shakers of Romano and red pepper flakes. They come in 1 oz. bottles (about the size of half-size spice jar), and retail for $3.99 apiece. Each jar is estimated to yield 25 servings.

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Links, Perinton

Links Bar & Grill on Urbanspoon
This establishment is now closed.
Thanks to a reader's very thorough listing of places that I hadn't covered, I resolved to work my way through some local bars and restaurants that offer pizza. In general, these aren't places that you would go to just for the pizza, but if you do go, you may wonder whether you should order the pizza (is it going to be on an oily, brittle or spongy premade shell, or might it actually be good?), so I think it's worth it to check these places out and let readers know a little about the pizza.
And so, not long ago, I stopped at Links, a self-described "upscale" sports bar in the Perinton Square Mall at the corner of Pittsford-Palmyra Road (31F) and Moseley Road (250). Links is unique, I believe, among local establishments for offering virtual golf, with individual stations where you can play golf - virtually - in front of a video screen.
You're more apt to find me at a mini-golf park with my daughter than on anything resembling a real golf course, so the virtual golf didn't especially interest me. But I did want to try Link's grilled pizza.
Is it just me, or is grilled pizza popping up more on menus these days? I suspect that for a lot of restaurants and bars it has the appeal of being relatively easy to prepare - throw a crust on the grill, flip it and add toppings.
The problem is that, from the standpoint of ease of preparation, those benefits are best realized with a premade crust, i.e., a "shell" or parbaked crust that the restaurant buys from a wholesaler. Sure, you can make your own fresh dough, stretch it, and grill it, but if part of your motivation in adding grilled pizza to your menu is that it's easy to make, that would largely defeat the purpose.
I'm not going to say that premade crusts are necessarily bad, but I don't think they're ever exceptionally good. You're essentially talking about taking a piece of flatbread out of a package and heating both sides on a grill. Good enough? Maybe. But great?
Not in this case, at least. The crust on my pizza had grill marks on both sides, as expected, and was rather wet on the surface, I imagine from the toppings. It wasn't soaked through - the wetness was on the outside - but it was not crisp or even al dente firm.
This was a very cheesy pizza, with a heavy layer of melted mozzarella that was almost liquid. It didn't adhere too well to the crust, but that's typical of grilled pizza, since the cheese is not applied until after the top side has already been cooked on the grill.
Beneath the cheese was a thin layer of slightly chunky tomato sauce, which was dotted with some herbs, particularly, from what my palate could tell, oregano.
I was in a vegetarian mood that day, so I ordered sweet peppers and onions (which are generally an excellent, and underrated combination), and I got one more topping, so I went with black olives. The toppings I got were, well, OK. The olives were canned, which I guess is what I should've expected - not too many places slice their own "fresh" olives ("fresh" is kind of a misnomer, since all edible olives are cured) - and the diced red onions and green peppers were fresh. Not to be picky, but I prefer sauteed peppers and onions on my pizza - it seems to give them a fuller, yet mellower flavor. But these crunchy bits of onion and pepper were fine for what they were.
Links' menu has several pizza options, including a "build your own" (which is what I got) with tomato sauce, mozzarella and up to three toppings included in the basic price, a Buffalo chicken pie, Hawaiian pizza, BBQ chicken, chicken bruschetta pizza, and a white Tuscan pizza with olive oil, roasted garlic, mozzarella, tomato and kalamata olives. Actually, that last one sounds so good I'm wondering why I didn't order it. Oh well.
The rest of the menu is pretty extensive, and includes bar staples like burgers and wings, as well as steaks, seafood and pasta. The atmosphere is casual, as you would expect of a place where guys are playing virtual golf a few feet away.
To be honest, I've never been a huge fan of grilled pizza, but some are better than others. This was, well, not bad, but not especially great either. Part of it, I suppose, has to do with one's expectations - if you simply described this as a grilled flatbread, I may have taken to it better. But as a pizza, it was no better than OK. I'll give it a C.
Links Bar & Grill, 6720 Pittsford-Palmyra Road, Fairport
585-598-2663
Mon. - Thu. 11:30 am - midnight, Fri. 11:30 — 1 am, Sat. 8 am - 1 am, Sun. 8 am - 10 pm