Rigatoni's, Penfield

Rigatoni's is a small Italian restaurant in the village of Penfield. It's not someplace I would've thought of for pizza until I ran across this article. A phone call confirmed that they do indeed serve individual-size pizzas, so I promptly ordered one with pepperoni.
The crust on my pie was medium thick, and 10 inches wide, with a mostly pale, screen baked bottom. It was a little unevenly cooked, with one section of the edge considerably darker than the rest. The crust had a soft texture, even along the edge. It had clearly risen fairly wall, but the interior was not particularly airy.
The sauce was applied somewhat thickly, though in good balance with the crust. It was tomatoey, but also had a noticeable herb flavor.
The shredded cheese was moderately applied, with some individual strands still visible, and a few bare spots here and there. I'm not sure, but it seemed to me that there might've been some provolone in there along with the mozzarella.
Rather than the typical, small round slices, the pepperoni on this pie appeared to have been cut from a relatively wide pepperoni that had been sliced and quartered. It had a good meaty flavor. The entire pie was lightly dusted with herbs and what appeared to be Parmesan.
Rigatoni's has all the Italian standards on the menu, like chicken and veal parm, greens & beans, and pasta, as well as more basic stuff like subs and wraps. They also do a substantial catering business. There's room for about 30 diners indoors, with some outdoor seating as well. No alcohol, but you're welcome to BYOB.
I wouldn't mind going back sometime for lunch or dinner, to check out some of those other items on the menu, but I'd probably skip the pizza. It was tasty, and was pretty well balanced, but the crust wasn't so great. To me, it was reminiscent of the kind of pizza you might expect to get off the kids' menu at a restaurant - nothing to complain about, but not something I'd take over a good dish of pasta. I'll give it a C.
Rigatoni's, 2133 Five Mile Line Rd., Penfield. 381-8550
Mon. - Sat. 10 a.m. - 9 p.m.

Jim & Ralph's, NY style pie

Back in March, I did a post on a slice that I got at Jim & Ralph's on Elmgrove Road, which had recently started serving pizza. I found it a pleasant surprise coming from a restaurant that I had always thought of as more of a burgers-'n'-hots kind of place, and along with my "B" rating I said that Jim & Ralph's "warrants a return visit sometime for a full pie."
Well, I followed up and that, and went back for full pie. Alas, perhaps my expectations had been raised too much, but this time I was disappointed.
My pizza had a thin crust that was very soft - even the edge was soft. It reminded my of one of those soft breadsticks they give you at Olive Garden. Not bad, maybe, for a breadstick, but not what I'm looking for in my pizza.
Having said that, though, I didn't find the crust all that bready. It seemed rather lifeless, for lack of a better term, and the slices were rather floppy.
The underside bore some screen marks and was very unevenly cooked - it was quite dark in some areas, and very light in others. My guess is that there are hot spots in the oven, which means that the pizza needs to be moved around now and then while it's baking to ensure an evenly cooked crust.
The sauce on this pizza had a mild tomatoey flavor, and was moderately applied. The cheese was more heavily applied, and was melted and stringy. For my taste, it was a little too heavily applied for this thin a crust, and threatened to overwhelm the other components.
Overall, the pizza had a slightly salty flavor, and I thought I detected some garlic powder in the background as well.

I should also mention that the overall preparation seemed a bit sloppy. The pepperoni was somewhat unevenly distributed, as was the cheese. And when I opened the box I found that the cheese had slid around in one area. In fairness, I can't guarantee that that didn't happen after I took custody of the pizza box, but I did try to be careful, so I don't think so. Regardless, even aside from that this just didn't seem like an carefully prepared pizza. (Having said that, it is a relatively minor point, in my scheme of things. If it has good flavor and texture, I'll overlook a little sloppiness.)
I'll refer you to my prior post on Jim & Ralph's for other details about their menu, etc. As for this pizza, well, it tasted pretty good, but the crust was not the greatest, and the components just didn't seem to come together very well. It was OK, but not better than OK, so I'll give it a C. So in light of the prior review, on average, we're talking B-/C+ here, with some concerns about consistency. Or maybe it's just a better place to pick up a reheated slice than a full pie.
Jim & Ralph's, 904 Elmgrove Rd. 247-7220
Open daily 10 a.m. - 10 p.m.

Mark's, Winton Place

Although I don't go out of my way to review chain pizzerias, I figure that local or regional chains deserve at least one review here. Up till now, my one post on Mark's Pizzeria has been a review of the Lyell Avenue location in Rochester. Some readers commented that the Lyell location wasn't the best Mark's to go to, and I've seen more than one thing said about the Mark's in Winton Place, so I've been meaning to check it out sometime. And now that the Mark's on Lyell has closed (at one point a sign in the window said that Paradiso would be opening there), I figured it was a good time to do that.
This was considerably different from the pizza I got at Lyell. In fact, if I hadn't known otherwise, I never would've guessed that they both came from the same chain.
For starters, this was much thicker than the Lyell Mark's pizza. The crust was nearly an inch thick. It had reasonably good flavor and texture - not outstandingly bready, but not gummy, and it was cooked through, without the raw-dough flavor of some crusts.
The concentric rings of round bumps underneath indicated that they had been in a dimpled pan. I'm not quite sure what the theoretical advantage of such a pan would be, but the underside here was medium brown, dry to the touch, and firm but not crisp.The outer edge was pretty good, bready and a little crisp. The lip had been crimped, sort of like a pie crust, so that it had a sort of knotty appearance.
The sauce was moderately applied and very middle-of-the-road in flavor. Tomatoey, but not especially sweet, salty, herbal, or acidic.
The thin but uniform layer of mozzarella was pretty well browned, and though not burnt, it seemed a bit dried out (which I don't think was from spending too much time on the warming rack - they were quite busy at lunch time, and slices were moving quickly).
Mark's menu is available on their website, and the Winton menu here. On my visit to the Winton Place Mark's, they had several different slices available, nothing too unusual or remarkable as far as I could tell. And compared to some places today, Mark's pizza menu is relatively basic, with eight specialty pizzas and about 15 toppings to pick from.
The Winton Place location is pretty much a takeout and delivery place only, although there are a few picnic tables nearby. One thing I'd read about the Winton Place Mark's was that service was good, and it was. Did they "treat me like family," as their five-second ad says? Well, for me that depends on which of my relatives you're talking about, but the counter guy was friendly and seemed to make an effort to connect with each customer and to provide good service. Noticing that the first slice he'd given me was on the small side, he purposely picked out a bigger one to go with it, to balance things out.
Speaking of balance, that brings us back to this pizza. It was pretty good, but for me, the crust was just a little too thick. It's not that I dislike thick crusts per se, but they tend to knock a pizza out of balance - in other words, they dominate the other components. You could try to compensate for that by adding a lot of cheese, a lot of sauce, and other toppings, but to me, pizza is one of those things where less is sometimes more. Better to make the crust a little thinner, so you get a more subtle interplay between the crust, cheese and sauce.
I'm sure if you order a whole pie from Mark's you can get it thin if you ask, but you can't do that when you walk in for a slice, and from what I saw a lot of people go there to get slices. So I'm reviewing what I had, which is all I can do.
At the same time, I know that's just my subjective preference, and I can't say this was a poorly made pizza. Certainly it was filling, and if you like thick crusts, this was not bad. If I wanted a thick crust, I'd probably opt for a nice, crunchy Sicilian slice over this, but this was, well, all right. I'll give it a C+.
Mark's Pizzeria, 3450 Winton Place, 292-5140
Sun. - Thu. 10 a.m. - 10 p.m., Fri. & Sat. 10 a.m. - midnight