Mr. Mozzarella

3679 Riverside Dr. – 260-8555
Date of order: September 12th, 2004 at 6:40 PM
Arrived: 7:39 PM
Cost: $25.29 + tip

    Pizza Ottawa is fairly certain that the NFL season is a lucrative time for pizza places, so it’s fitting that we chose opening weekend to try out some slices. We convened in the official Pizza Ottawa testing chambers, opened some beers and turned on the TV. Though your faithful armchair critic doesn’t know much about football, and frankly doesn’t really care, all of us here at Pizza Ottawa do appreciate the savage beauty of the battles won and lost on the gridiron. In this contest the Denver Broncos took on the Kansas City Chiefs. While neither team made it to the Super Bowl this year I’m sure they tried their best.

    We had decided on Mr. Mozzarella for our next review after picking a flyer up off the ground during one of our strolls though the ByWard market. From what we can gather Mr. Mozzarella is a local chain that operates several pizzerias in Eastern Ontario. Two large pies were ordered, one plain and one with onions and mushrooms. We were told that it would take about an hour to arrive, and they were telling the truth; the pizza arrived just shy of 60 minutes. The boxes had odd looking caricatures of what we assumed was the pizzeria’s namesake, with his name written in a very 70s style font above him. The pizza themselves looked quite appetizing, the cheese golden and nicely browned crust. The sauce, though, was a darker shade of red than we’re used to seeing.

    We dug into the plain pizza while a friend of ours started on the onion and mushroom. The cheese was usual pizzeria issue, with some nice flavour coming from the perfectly browned crust. The sauce was tangy and a little spicy, but it seemed as though most of it was in circle around the crust. Proper sauce spreading technique is crucial to good pizza making. Overall it was pretty good pizza. We also tried some of our friend’s onion and mushroom and its qualities were consistent to those of our plain pie. The toppings were fresh and well cooked.

    Mr. Mozzarella makes perfectly acceptable pizza. It isn’t special in any way, but if you’re close by or want something different than your usual it’s a good bet.
Ratings:

Crust: 8 out of 10
Sauce: 7 out of 10
Cheese: 8 out of 10
Grease: 8 out of 10
Presentation: 5 out of 10 (The guy on the box was creepy.)

Overall Rating: 7.75 out of 10

Posted by Jim at April 13, 2005 01:58 PM