It is time for a return of an Aaron Martinez™ Yelp© review. Like aforementioned in previous…read morereviews, as a college student visiting home over the holidays, one of my favorite activities is exploring whatever extravagant and stimulating businesses open up in my vicinity. The one that seemed to pique my interest the most was this quirky Italian spot-- particularly for it's clever, tongue-in-cheek and saucy statement that reads "Legalize Marinara." For context, after extemporaneous research, you'd be keen to find out marinara is in no way illegal in Hidalgo county, the State of Texas, or the United States of America.
Now, to begin the review, I would first like to describe the ambiance of the restaurant. This restaurant is a quaint business with about 12 varied tables of different sizes. The tables and interior design provided a feel of an Italian villa, like the type that you would sit outside, glass of a crisp sauvignon blanc in hand, reading a Leonardo Sciascia novel or chatting with a pal over the amazing artistry of Piero Piccioni's scoring. Rather than being outside though, this interior is insulated, and gives you a fragment of that experience maybe to evoke this feeling in a restrained sense - a home away from home. A piece of their interior I also appreciated was the row of pizza boxes along the south end of the building. Not only does this serve great utility for the aftermath of gorging on a strambouli, but it also gives the business a gritty, DIY feel. Like a NY pizzeria. You acquire a mix of both worlds. I like that.
When I was eating, the demographic was a mixture of families ranging from an older couple post-50's to a young parent with youth who were wildin' out rambunctiously with Beyblade's - a nostalgia inducing moment as I recalled the first moment I let it rip. We obtain a sense of the Dionysian and Apollonian dichotomy when my Beyblade nostalgia conflicted with my longing for the Italian villa scene.
When deciding what to order you are offered a mixture of several very price-friendly lunch specials which include either slices of pizza, strombolis, sides, or a drink. I selected the Stromboli, side, and a drink. I chose this option because the restaurant is unique in that it grants you the esteemed privilege of selecting your Stromboli as you see it behind a glass window. This reminds me a lot of adopting a dog at an animal shelter. As you scour the cages looking for the most pristine, you find that special, longtime friend. That's a lot what ordering a Stromboli is like. A Stromboli isn't a simple, one time meal. A Stromboli is a lifeterm friend. The Stromboli that particularly caught my eye was of the Meat Lover's variant which contained pepperoni, Italian sausage, Canadian bacon, cheese, and other potential meaty goodness. The side I selected was a fresh garden salad drizzled with balsamic vinaigrette. The salad contained iceberg lettuce and a mixture of that tarty green olive, Roma tomatoes, and the purple, radish-in-color type of olive.
Although the lettuce was fresh and worked well with the tomato under a balsamic vinaigrette, I personally was not a fan of the blast of olive and would appreciate a more varied ingredient list. Olives taste to me like what golf is as a sport - it's something you admire for it's skill but you probably wouldn't watch or eat it often. A recommendation would be to include cucumbers, chickpeas, maybe ricotta, or a bready crouton of sorts, but that may be personal preference.
Now, the real star of the show was the Stromboli. The Stromboli was fresh and warm and looked appealing with it's golden brown skin. Needless to say, I was thirstin to dig in. The Pizzeria truly went sicko mode on this Stromboli. The amount of each meat in the Stromboli was well represented and because the ratio was so efficacious in assorting flavors, the Stromboli was never lacking in flavor with every sequential bite. I was shoveling that bad boy in my mouth like a tonka truck. On top of the meat, the Stromboli coalesced with the cheese, bread, and marinara spread well in which the tang and spice from the meaty goodness appealed to the umami character of the cheese and meaty combo of sauce. I am quite the sauce fiend, so having the option to control my sauce intake is a responsibility more restaurants should take advantage of.
Altogether, my experiences, from my Beyblade induced nostalgia upon entering the restaurant to the sauce based sensory playground of the Stromboli during my meal, were brilliant. The Pizzeria is simple, but holds with it a particular pizazz when you open the pizza box and look inside.
