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closeWednesday, Sep. 09, 2009
Finding the perfect pie at Nizza Pizza
The search for New York-style pies is over – thanks to Nizza Pizza.
By CHRISTOPHER KELLY
Displaced New Yorkers living in Texas will all tell you the same tale: Our quest for the ideal slice of pizza is never-ending, and for the most part, never especially satisfying.
Maybe it’s something about the water here, which goes into the dough, which invariably results in crusts that are gummier and less crispy than the ones we remember from our youth.
Maybe it’s because the tomato sauce is so often bland. Or that chefs here simply haven’t mastered the tricky cheese-to-grease ratio.
Maybe (East Coast snob alert!) most Texans wouldn’t know a good pizza if their lives depended on it.
But with one luscious bite last week at Nizza Pizza, our quest seemed to have ended: This is what pizza is supposed to taste like.
A thin, crispy crust with just a hint of smoky, charcoal flavor. A tomato sauce that strikes an exquisite balance between sweet, savory and spicy. A layer of creamy mozzarella that inevitably takes up residence in strands on your chin. A modest trickle of grease that slides down your wrist as you fold the slice in half and dig in.
In a word, perfection. We managed only two slices of the medium ($8.95 at lunch), but it was gobbled up almost instantly when we returned to the office. Even a little cold, this is a slice worthy of that overused moniker, "New York Style."
And the real surprise of Nizza Pizza, which is located inside a former Long John Silver’s on University Drive: It does more than just pizza well. (In addition to the Fort Worth shop, which opened earlier this year, there’s a second location in Weatherford, where Nizza Pizza relocated after closing its original Arlington space.)
On a recent visit, a house salad accompanied our pasta entree. (It’s $2.75 otherwise.) While not necessarily spectacular — iceberg lettuce, shredded carrots and sliced black olives, accompanied by that ubiquitous tomato vinaigrette, this was a fresher-than-usual tasting version of a salad we’ve had a million times before, and — for the price — hardly worth complaining about.
Nizza stepped up its game with the main courses: The meatball Parmigiana sub ($5.50) is a beauty — hearty and flavorful meatballs and sauce, covered (but not overwhelmed) by mozzarella, served on crispy Italian bread that manages to stay firm despite all that moisture. It might not reinvent the wheel, but it is satisfying.
Even more impressive was the penne al vodka ($5.95 lunch, $6.95 dinner), one of our childhood Sunday dinner staples that we don’t often see on the menu here in the Lone Star state. This version didn’t quite rank with Grandma’s. (We prefer our vodka sauce a tad creamier.) But the sauce — which contains chunks of fresh tomato and flecks of fresh parsley (not dried, a la every other Italian pizza joint in town) — had a superbly spicy kick. This is a dish that gets better with each bite.
It should probably be noted that our return visit wasn’t quite as successful. Curious to see how Nizza handled the stuffed slice — a trend which we regard as a pox on the very notion of pizza — we tried the meat lover’s, which is stuffed with cheese, pepperoni, sausage, Canadian bacon and hamburger. Thanks but no thanks. The ingredients all blend into one gummy, flavorless monolith, which is precisely what we always say about stuffed pizza. (Only the homemade marinara dipping sauce offered redemption.) We also ordered a chef salad ($5.95), but this unremarkable mixture of provolone, ham and iceberg lettuce mostly just confirmed our feelings that you shouldn’t order salads at pizza joints.
Forgivable sins, especially if you are willing to stick to the basics and allow Nizza Pizza to do what it does best: Namely, make displaced New Yorkers like us feel a little less lonely in Texas.
817-877-3900
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