Belmont Pizzeria
There's a 2-day-old pizza place in town, Belmont Pizzeria, near Patterson.
RVAfoodie mentioned it this afternoon after West of the Boulevard News linked to an initial review from One Way Richmond. So I checked out the place tonight.
It looks like a real pizzeria - only a counter for sitting, a drink cooler, and a menu with typical pizzeria fare. Meatballs for a topping, garlic knots! The pizza wasn't bad, but on reflection there are issues.
RVAfoodie later described the pizza as "... huge, thin, greasy, + cheesy So... New Yorky. The crust is light, limp. More spongy than chewy." I agree with most of his assessment except for the light, spongy, and "New Yorky" parts. My medium was a bit too dense (perhaps too much dough for that size pie), and hence kinda toothy in the wrong way. Not the chewiness I love in good crust. And the "New Yorky" part, well, if all these dings are true about a pizza, it's not representative of New York pizza (not to this Jersey boy, at least). There's bad pizza everywhere, even New York, but even touristy Little Italy in Manhattan has more good pizza than bad, using better mozzarella, just the right amount of sauce, and crust that holds up when it's folded in half.
That aside, though, there are real problems. It's a shame, too, because it looked and smelled pretty good. But let's start with what was right on top. The cheese. I always order a plain cheese pizza when I try out a new pizza joint because I figure they oughtta be able to get the basics right. Well the cheese on this pizza was some seriously low-grade mozzarella. The pool of grease was a big tip-off, and unfortunate.
The sauce was forgettable - literally, because I don't remember anything about it. At least there wasn't too much.
And the crust...well, that's the most troubling part. There's some actual decent flavor to the crust, but beyond that the texture isn't right. Whether that's from my suspicion of too much dough in the medium pie, or because they didn't give the dough enough time to rise, it still means it's kinda dense.
I'm not throwing out the leftovers, but this doesn't replace Capriccios, JoJo's, or Carini for me. Maybe I'll try out Arianna's next, since it's a block over from Belmont.
RVAfoodie mentioned it this afternoon after West of the Boulevard News linked to an initial review from One Way Richmond. So I checked out the place tonight.
It looks like a real pizzeria - only a counter for sitting, a drink cooler, and a menu with typical pizzeria fare. Meatballs for a topping, garlic knots! The pizza wasn't bad, but on reflection there are issues.
RVAfoodie later described the pizza as "... huge, thin, greasy, + cheesy So... New Yorky. The crust is light, limp. More spongy than chewy." I agree with most of his assessment except for the light, spongy, and "New Yorky" parts. My medium was a bit too dense (perhaps too much dough for that size pie), and hence kinda toothy in the wrong way. Not the chewiness I love in good crust. And the "New Yorky" part, well, if all these dings are true about a pizza, it's not representative of New York pizza (not to this Jersey boy, at least). There's bad pizza everywhere, even New York, but even touristy Little Italy in Manhattan has more good pizza than bad, using better mozzarella, just the right amount of sauce, and crust that holds up when it's folded in half.
That aside, though, there are real problems. It's a shame, too, because it looked and smelled pretty good. But let's start with what was right on top. The cheese. I always order a plain cheese pizza when I try out a new pizza joint because I figure they oughtta be able to get the basics right. Well the cheese on this pizza was some seriously low-grade mozzarella. The pool of grease was a big tip-off, and unfortunate.
The sauce was forgettable - literally, because I don't remember anything about it. At least there wasn't too much.
And the crust...well, that's the most troubling part. There's some actual decent flavor to the crust, but beyond that the texture isn't right. Whether that's from my suspicion of too much dough in the medium pie, or because they didn't give the dough enough time to rise, it still means it's kinda dense.
I'm not throwing out the leftovers, but this doesn't replace Capriccios, JoJo's, or Carini for me. Maybe I'll try out Arianna's next, since it's a block over from Belmont.
