Milano Pizzeria

2430 Bank St. at Hunt Club – 310-6666
Date of visit: May 7th, 2005
Cost: $20.30 + tip (for an extra-large)

    Sometimes Pizza Ottawa gets its pizza during exciting circumstances. Other times, we just want pizza. In our efforts to review more pizzerias, we decided that we should just get some pizza. After a long session of messing about with our large collection of odd musical instruments (70s synths, Farfisa organs that sound like accordions, etc.), we were very hungry. We decided to order an extra large plain pizza from Milano Pizzeria to sate that hunger.

    Using their website, we verified the number to call and placed the order at 7:15 pm. A mere 30 minutes later, the whopping pizza (plus a free litre of Pepsi) was at our door. We turned off the movie 'DIG!', which we had been watching while waiting, and found the Canada-Sweden hockey game on TV, which was perfect viewing for eating pizza.

    The pizza was very cheesy and not too greasy. The cheese didn’t have a very distinct flavour, but it was plentiful and tasted fine. The sauce was very well-distributed over the entire pizza, which was both good and bad. On the bad side, the large helpings of sauce tended to overpower the pizza in some spots and occasionally get a bit messy. On the good side, because it was evenly distributed, every bite contained some sauce. In the flavour department, the sauce was so-so. It had some interesting spicy flavour, but it certainly wasn’t great, and as mentioned, it tended to be overpowering in larger doses. (Note: the slice-folding technique was used to eat much of the pizza, since some of the slices were so wide. This resulted in the sauce pooling in the centre of the slices, causing areas of higher concentration. This was not an issue closer to the crust.) The crust itself was quite good. It was a good thickness and it was flavourful, especially the outer crust. Our only complaint was that the crust seemed to buckle under the weight of the sauce and cheese, which resulted in some limp slices. This issue was most likely a result of the extra-large slice size, but it might have been good to have the crusts a little more well-done.

    When all was said and done, we finished the entire pizza, so we were happy that we ordered the extra large. That said, we weren’t terribly impressed with Milano Pizzeria. The price was quite steep so we were expecting something great, and we didn’t feel that the pizza was outstanding in any area. It was good, to be sure, but not great.

Crust: 7.5 out of 10
Sauce: 6 out of 10
Cheese: 7 out of 10
Grease: 8 out of 10
Presentation: 8 out of 10

Overall Rating: 7.125 out of 10

Posted by Jim at May 8, 2005 06:01 PM