Pie Time, Lake Ave.

I stopped recently at Pie Time, just off Lake Avenue in Charlotte. The site has been home to several pizzerias over the years.
I got there around lunchtime, and a pie was just coming out of the oven. It was a half-cheese, half-pepperoni pie, and I opted for a slice of the latter.
First impressions. Pizza tends to be at its most aromatic when it's freshly baked, and with this one I caught a whiff of garlic. Overall, not a bad looking slice, at first glance at least.
A check of the underside revealed a couple of things. It was unevenly browned,with some areas dark brown and some pale.
The crust was also uneven in terms of thickness, as shown in the bottom photo. One side of the slice, paper thin, the other rather thick, probably close to an inch. Even on the thick side, though, it did not seem to have risen much; it wasn't dense, in a heavy, leaden kind of way, but it wasn't bubbly either. The interior was what I would describe as cottony.
The edge was formed into a cornicione of uniform thickness. It was browned on top, pale underneath, with a crunchy exterior. There was a smidgen of oven soot along one part of the underside.
On top, the cheese was a little browned and congealed. It was chewy, but not very smooth or stretchy.
There wasn't much sauce to speak of. What there was had a thick consistency, with a generous amount of dried herbs (although I can't say whether the herbs were in the sauce to begin with or were sprinkled on after the sauce was applied).
The cup and char pepperoni slices were well crisped along the edge, tasty and not overly oily.
Pie Time pizzas come in 10-, 12- and 16-inch sizes, as well as sheets. They offer 16 toppings. A cheese slice will set you back $3, not bad for a slice this big.
They also do wings, calzones, stromboli, subs and wraps, fish fry, "plates," a few dinners (chicken parm, spaghetti and meatballs and the like), and the usual sides:  fries, onion rings, etc. Although Pie Time's website still shows them opening at 3 p.m., the menu I picked up has them open daily from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. As I mentioned, I got there around noon and a lunchtime pie was in the oven.
Reading back over what I've written, I get the sense that this review makes this slice sound worse than it was. I started with my first impressions, and I'll close with my overall impression. It wasn't bad, but there were a lot of flaws. No one defect stood out or ruined this slice for me, but put all the little stuff together and you've got a slice that just wasn't too good. I have to give this a D.

Pie Time, 4410 Lake Ave.
434-4766 (phone) 434-5464 (fax)

Open daily 11 a.m. - 11 p.m.

Sylvio's, Charlotte

Back in 2009, not that long after I started this blog, I posted a review of Sylvio's, a pizzeria on Scottsville Road. I gave their "monster" slice a B-, which in retrospect seems perhaps a bit generous, but that's what I thought they deserved at the time.
Sylvio's has a second location, on Alpha Street in Charlotte, and I stopped in there recently to pick up a slice.
All they had at the time were pepperoni slices, which I was told had just come out of the oven, so I got one of those. They weren't piping hot, but they did seem reasonably fresh.
This was not as "monstrous" as the slice I got at the Scottsville Road location. But it was also cheaper, at 2 bucks a slice.
The crust was thin, with a bottom that was crosshatched with screen marks. It was medium brown in hue, and reasonably crisp.  The narrow but thicker edge was pleasantly crackly on the outside, with some interior breadiness.
The slice was topped with a fairly sweet tomato sauce, and a uniform layer of melted, slightly browned mozzarella. The thin-sliced pepperoni was all right but unremarkable. I also noticed, and could just taste, a smattering of dried herbs.
You can see Sylvio's menu here, so I won't go into detail about their offerings, but it's well summed up by one line on the menu:   "burgers, plates, fish fry, slices, pizza, wings, subs, salad, wraps."  In other words, it's a pretty basic, but well rounded pizza/wing joint menu. Pizzawise, they offer sixteen toppings, and eight specialty pizzas, in four sizes, from small to sheets.
This slice wasn't bad. I have to go back to the word "basic," because that's what it was. It was a basic mozzarella and pepperoni slice.  No complaints, but I'd say it was about average for this area, so it rates a C from me.
Sylvio's Pizzeria, 1 Alpha St., Rochester (Charlotte) 581-1222
Other location at 1761 Scottsville Rd. 436-6390

Mon. & Tue. 11 a.m. - 10 p.m., Wed. - Sat. 11 a.m. - midnight, Sun. noon - 10 p.m.

Mama's Pizza Kitchen, Revisited

After I gave a C-minus to Mama's Pizza Kitchen on Lake Avenue back in 2010, some readers urged me to go back there and give them another try. It's taken me a while, but I did.
I would've liked to try a full pie, but I just didn't need or want that much pizza to deal with, so I got two cheese slices, which had just emerged from the oven, so I figured they'd be pretty representative of a fresh pie. And Mama's does seem to be kind of a slice joint, with big, floppy slices that are made for walk-in traffic around Charlotte.
These were big, thin slices, with a medium-brown, screen-baked underside. They were just a bit oily to the touch, and had a faint aroma of cooking oil. The crust was quite pliable, making the slices easy to fold, but they were not crisp at all.
The toppings were added in pretty good proportion to the crust, but the cheese was more prominent than the sauce. It was on the salty side and just a little browned. It had congealed into a solid blanket, and was more chewy than smooth or stringy.
Between the cheese and crust was a thin layer of tomatoey, slightly tangy sauce. A sprinkling of dried herbs on top rounded out the flavor profile.
I thought this pizza was OK. I didn't mind it. And it had some things going for it. Any big, floppy, cheesy slice of pizza will usually be sort of good, at some level.
But it was only marginally better than last time. There was a little more sauce, and the cheese had a better texture than last time, when it was overcooked. And though this doesn't affect the grade, the service was good, friendly, and accommodating. So I guess it does deserve to get bumped up a notch, but that's all, I'm afraid. This one comes in at a C.

Mama's Pizza Kitchen, 4410 Lake Ave., Rochester 14612

Tel.: 581-0222

Tue. - Thu. 11 a.m. - 10 p.m., Fri. 11 a.m. - 2 a.m., Sat. noon - 2 a.m., Sun. noon - 10 p.m. Closed Mon.

Mama's Pizza Kitchen, Lake Ave.

Mama's Pizza Kitchen recently opened in the space formerly occupied by Little D's, on Lake Ave. in Charlotte, and Charlotte Pizzeria before that. It's always seemed particularly risky to me to open a business in a location where several others have tried the same thing and failed, but maybe Mama's will be the one that breaks the pattern.
I stopped in for a slice around lunchtime. There were a few cheese and some pepperoni slices available. The pie from which they had been cut had been unevenly sliced, so that some slices were noticeably bigger than others. I got one of the larger cheese slices.
It had a thin crust, with a golden brown, screen-baked underside. The exterior of the crust was firm but not crisp, and easily foldable. The interior was soft and a little chewy, and the outer edge was formed into a thin, narrow lip with a crunchy texture.
The slice was topped with a thin, uniform layer of well-browned cheese, which had exuded some of its fat, creating a somewhat oily surface. Dried herbs were visible atop the cheese, and added some flavor and aroma.
The sauce, on the other hand, was hardly to be seen. Peeling away the cheese, I could see a bit of sauce here and there, but not much, nor was it very evident on the palate. Flavorwise, this was almost like eating a white pizza, with the crust, cheese and herbs all sharing the spotlight, while the sauce remained very much behind the scenes.
Mama's has quite an extensive menu, with 28 pizza toppings, five specialty pizzas, calzones, wings, a long list of "bomber" sandwiches, wraps, melts, subs, salads and sides. There's a little room to eat in if you choose, but it's mostly a takeout place.

So will Mama's Pizza Kitchen succeed where others have failed? Time will tell. Based on this one slice, though, I think the pizza needs a little work. More balance, for one thing. This really needed some of the acidity and sweetness of tomato sauce to balance out the oily, congealed cheese. And the crust was passable, but a bit lifeless, without the crackly crispness or bready aroma and texture of a great pizza crust. So while this wasn't all that bad, it was a notch below average, and I'll give it a C-, with a mental note to go back sometime and see how things are coming along.

Mama's Pizza Kitchen, 4410 Lake Ave., Rochester 14612, 581-0222

Tue. - Thu. 11 a.m. - 10 p.m., Fri. 11 a.m. - 2 a.m., Sat. noon - 2 a.m., Sun. noon - 10 p.m. Closed Mon.

Little D's, Lake Ave.- CLOSED

Note: this space is now occupied by Mama's Pizza.
In March of this year I did a post about Charlotte Pizzeria on Lake Avenue.  I didn't care much for their pizza, which had a a soft, spongy, oily crust, and gave it a C-.
Apparently not many other people cared for it either, because Charlotte Pizzeria has since gone out of business, and its former location is now the home of Little D's House of Pizza, where I stopped recently.
The slices here are quite a bit different from what I got in March. For one, they're bigger; Little D's "monster" slices are cut from a 28-inch pie.
The crust is medium thick, perhaps a tad thinner than Charlotte's, but the underside is where I noticed another big difference. Where Charlotte's pizza had the telltale look and scent of cooking oil, the crust here is screen baked and dry. Now I'm not a huge fan of screen-baked pizza - in my experience, it tends to result in a crust with less crispness than I'd like - I'll take it any day over a crust that's oily underneath. The underside here was fairly soft, but it had some faint charring, and it was not at all greasy, with just a touch of exterior crispness that was more noticeable along the edge. The interior was decent too, with some visible air holes, and a pretty good, bready texture, despite just a bit gumminess on top.
The cheese, which I took to be 100% mozzarella, was slightly browned, with a faintly tangy flavor. It was moderately, and somewhat unevenly applied, with some bare spots here and there, where the sauce was exposed, and where there was cheese, it was a little thicker in some areas than others.Unless it's done to excess, which it wasn't here, I don't consider that a flaw, as it lends some variety to the eating experience.
This was not a particularly saucy slice, with just enough sauce for some added flavor and a little moisture. It had a mild flavor that was neither noticeably sweet nor herbal, just a middle-of-the-road tomatoey flavor. Overall, the components were in good balance with each other. The thin-to-medium crust formed a solid base, and was pretty evenly matched by the cheese, except near the edge, where the crust got thicker and became more dominant. The sauce, by comparison, stayed more in the background, but was not overwhelmed by the other components, or missing in action, as it is on some pizza. The cup 'n' char pepperoni was pretty evenly applied as well, with just about one slice per bite.

Little D's pizzas come in five sizes, from 10 to 28 inches in diameter, and they have a long list of specialty pizzas, which run the gamut from carnivores' delights like shredded pork or grilled steak to vegetarian options such as a spinach pie with pesto, or a veggie parm pizza with eggplant or artichoke hearts. They also serve wings, hot and cold subs, burgers, hots, plates, calzones, salads, sides, and fish fry (every day, not just Friday).
All in all, this was not bad, particularly for a big slice. All too often, the quantity you get at these "mega" slice joints tends to come at the expense of quality, but even at four dollars a slice, this was a pretty good deal. Though far better than its predecessor's, Little D's crust didn't quite thrill me, but this was good enough to rate a B from me.
Little D's House of Pizza, 4410 Lake Ave. 287-6040
Sun. - Thu. 11 a.m. - 11 p.m., Fri. & Sat. 11 a.m. - 3 a.m.

Hose 22, Charlotte

Hose 22 Firehouse Grill opened about a year ago in Charlotte, inside a handsome brick building erected in 1916 to serve as a firehouse. I love going to restaurants in converted spaces like this. Old firehouses, railroad stations, factories - they have a charm and an appeal that can't be duplicated by a shiny new structure, no matter how well appointed and built.
The catch is that sometimes, a place that leans too heavily on its physical space - whether it's the building itself, the view, or simply its location - may not have the food to match. So on seeing that Hose 22 served pizzas, I was eager to visit, but guardedly optimistic.
There are five pizzas on the menu:  an alfredo-based white, a Florentine (spinach), Buffalo chicken, barbeque, and a Margherita. As I usually do, I opted for the Margherita, which was described as topped with fresh basil, oven roasted tomatoes, and mozzarella, and finished with a balsamic drizzle.
My pie was served to me on a pizza screen, though the underside bore no screen marks. The crust was very thin, and the slices were floppy at the tips, but crunchy and firm along the outer edges. The underside was baked to a mostly dark brown color, but in several areas, there were folds in the dough, creating lighter-hued crevices on the bottom.
Topside, an even layer of melted, browned mozzarella covered the surface.The oven roasted tomatoes were out of the ordinary, with some of the flavor intensity of sun dried tomatoes, but without the prune-like chewiness that you sometimes get with the sun dried variety. The wilted basil was perhaps the least prominent of the toppings.
What was probably most unusual about this pizza was the use of balsamic vinegar. Like the tomatoes, it seemed to be somewhat concentrated, suggesting that it may have been reduced prior to going on the pizza. It tended to collect into small pools among the cheese and tomatoes, and while its flavor was unmistakable, it was judiciously applied. A little balsamic can go a long way, and this stayed in the background, providing an added dimension of flavor without overwhelming everything else.
Hose 22's menu is on the eclectic side, and ranges from upscale pub grub to ribs, steaks, and lobster tail (the more substantial entrees are available only on the dinner menu). Physically, it's an attractive space, with a small bar facing the patio in front, and booths and tables in the back. Particularly in warm weather, when the big firehouse doors are open, the high ceilings give it an open, airy feel. The walls are decorated with local firefighters' gear, but the effect is not overdone. There's also a downstairs pub, but I didn't check that out. The service was good, attentive without being intrusive.
This was a very unusual take on a Margherita. It had the tomatoes, the cheese and the basil, but the crust was not quite like any I've had before, and the overall flavor was a wild mix of tomatoes, crust, balsamic vinegar, basil, and mozzarella, with a whiff of smokiness to the whole thing. It certainly didn't fit the profile of a classic Margherita, but it was pretty easy to put away this 12" pie singlehandedly. I'll give it a B+.
Hose 22 Firehouse Grill, 56 Stutson St. 621-2200
Tue. - Sat. 11:30 a.m. - 11:00 p.m., Sun. 11:30 a.m. - 8:00 p.m.

Charlotte Pizzeria

Charlotte Pizzeria opened last year on Lake Ave., in what had been a Piatza's. I think it was briefly operating under some other name as well. You would think this would be a good location for a pizzeria, especially a slice joint, but this isn't real close to the beach, and it's on the side of a building, facing a parking lot, so it's not especially visible from the street, even with the colorful paint scheme now adorning the facade.
I went there for a slice, thinking that it might be one of those deals where the name changes but the pizza remains the same - in other words, just like a Piatza's slice. But in fact this was a little different. Unlike Piatza's, these were not giant slices, just "normal" size. So I got two. They had just come out of the oven.
The slices were medium thick, with that telltale "fried" aroma and mottled brown underside that indicate the presence of cooking oil. The crust was soft and a bit spongy. As is often the case with this kind of pizza, the edge was somewhat crisp, if oily, and it had some faint but pleasant breadiness.
The sauce had a thick consistency, and tasted of cooked tomatoes. It was added in reasonable proportion to the crust. The cheese was browned, though not to the point of being dried out or hard, and was laid on in a uniform, slightly thick layer. It was straight processed mozzarella, I believe.
The cup and char pepperoni was crisp, and added some smoky spiciness, as well as a small pool of grease at the bottom of each pepperoni slice. (The cup or bowl shape of the pepperoni makes it relatively easy to sop up the grease with a napkin, though.)
Despite the name, Charlotte Pizzeria offers considerably more than pizza. There's a wide variety of grilled and fried foods, from burgers and fries to Jamaican beef patties and fried chicken. They also serve wings (which can be ordered as "whole wings") and hot and cold subs. Pizza toppings, in contrast, are relatively limited, with just seven available (eight, if you want to count "extra cheese" as a topping).
This really wasn't bad pizza, but it was not particularly good, either. I'd be inclined simply to call it average and give it a C, but for that soft, oily crust. It wasn't oozing grease or anything, but it did have a slightly oily feel and aroma, so I'm rating it a just-below-average C-.
Charlotte Pizzeria, 4410 Lake Ave., 621-9111
Open daily. 9 a.m. - midnight, Fri. & Sat. till 3 a.m.
Pizza Guy note, 4/19/10: The "new businesses" listings in today's D&C list a new place, "Little DS House of Pizza," at this address. I can't tell if it's open yet or when it might be.