Bitondo's Pizzeria

As is basically tradition in our house the girlfriend and I were too hungover to deal with life so we decided it was pizza time.  I needed some new content and have been meaning to try Bitondo’s Pizzeria for a while now.  I had honestly not heard of this place until a month or so ago but it’s apparently been around since the mid 60’s.  We ordered the pie, jumped in a zip car and everything was good to go by the time we got there.  The place is your bare bones, no frills, classic hole in the wall (for the record I mean this in the best way possible).  I’ve heard mixed reviews on this place but find it hard to take any reviews of pizza joints in this city seriously (which is why I started this blog).  Here is what I thought…

We ordered a medium pepperoni, onion and mushroom pie as well as 2 pepperoni Panzarotti.  The smell that filled the car on the ride home was intoxicating.  Though I was distracted as I was trying to help my poor car sick puppy to keep from barfing!  At first glance it looked like it was going to be a great New York style pie.  As I raised a slice to get a look at the undercarriage I noticed the entire pie was caked in flour.  To keep a pie from sticking to his/her work station and peel a pizzaiolo will dust the dough with flour before working on it.  However, there is a fine line that needs to be ridden.  Too little flour and your pie will stick to everything and likely make an enormous mess when being shoved into the oven.  Put too much and the raw flour will stay on the dough and burn in the oven.  This takes away from the natural flavour of the bread as much of what you’re tasting is a light coating of cooked/burned flour.  All I’m getting at is this was and always is strike one for me.  A baseball strike, not a bowling strike.  I would have figured after 50 years or so of making pies it’s something that would have been addressed.  I’m hoping maybe it was just an off pie.  Anyway, lets move on.  Flavour wise, I quite enjoyed it.  The sauce was sweet, dough had good chew, it stayed together nicely and the cheese was really stretchy and sweet.  I could have done without the onions as they were cubed and tossed on raw before their ride in the oven.  However, that’s totally a personal thing.  Other than the light caking of flour on the undercarriage (which wasn’t a game changer, just something I could have done without) my only real complaint was again about the crust.  Much like my previous review on King Slice a quick look at the inside of the crust showed very little internal structure.  Just a very dense disk of bread essentially.  Not sure if the dough isn’t given proper time to rise or the amount or conditions in which the yeast gets to work isn’t favourable.  Or maybe this is just the kind of dough they wanted to make.  That being said, it had a good chew and unlike King Slice could hold it’s own weight so again, a pass for sure.  Though, if you’re into a thin crust pizza that isn’t crispy in a crackery way but a little chewy; you’re gonna think I’m an idiot and love this pie.

From the reviews I’ve read people don’t rave too much about the actual pies but love the Panzarotti.  So I had to try one.  What makes a Panzarotti different than a Calzone is that they are fried.  Which as a fat kid at heart… is a plus for me.  In short: fantastic!  As you can see in the picture I couldn’t help myself and bit into the thing before taking a picture.  The dough was super light and fluffy with a great chew and it was filled with that super stretchy cheese and sweet sauce I loved so much on the actual pie.  By the end it was a bit much because as I said, the thing is deep fried (and I’m sure the fact that I ate half a medium pizza didn’t help).  The Panzarotti are quite large, definitely enough for one person with an average appetite.  At $6 I’d honestly recommend it over the pie.  I’ll be coming back for this alone at the very least. 

I had a pretty good experience with Bitondo’s.  That being said the Panzerotti saved it for me.  But at their prices ($12.25 with no tax for a large pizza!!!) you’re getting your moneys worth for SURE.  Definitely worth a try at the very least.  Nice to see non-chain pizzerias lasting that long in this city.  It’s obviously not a fluke with Bitondo’s.