Parma Pizza Quest

Since Mariella and I don't party down much anymore on Friday nights, we've started a new "project."

We're trying to sample every pizzeria in Parma. We've long been fans of Antonio's - it's the gold standard but we can walk to at least 10 different pie purveyors that we've never even given a shot.

Here's our ground rules:
1. Same order at every place:
Large pizza with sausage & mushroom
A salad - to health it up*
2. No national chains
3. We pick it up. We don't want them knowing where we live in case upset the Mozzarella cartel "disappear" for a while.

Yesterday marked PPQ episode 3. Here are our findings thus far:

Episode 1: State Road Pizza

As a rule most of the food you find on State Road is pretty fantastic i.e., Tradesman Tavern's Chicken Paprikash, Kielbasa from State Road Meats, The Daze Wings at Good Olde Daze. That's why we were so shocked that our mission got off to such a disappointing start. The crust was cardboardesque - possibly once frozen. The sauce forgettable. I don't think either of us ate the leftovers for Saturday breakfast which is a telling commentary. On the plus side, they did put a LOT of cheese on the salad. Grade: F

Episode 2: Tony's Pizza

Approximately 67% of Mariella's family goes by some derivation of "Anthony." So we high hopes for this joint. We hoped that this State Road establishment would reaffirm our State-Road-food-quality theory. It didn't. It wasn't bad pizza. But you should know that my motto is "even bad pizza is still pretty good." It's crust wasn't great. And Mariella found the sausage too peppery. I think I'd get it again if Antonio's was closed and I had a coupon. Grade: C+

Episode 3: Napoleon's Pizza

A pizza place named after a war-mongering Frenchman? We all remember from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure that Napoleon loved ice cream - so how would our third State Road establishment pay homage to him with pizza. They're tagline is something along the lines of "We conquer your taste buds." And I have to say I was pretty impressed. I thought the crust was good. (Mariella wasn't a huge fan of the crust. She apparently has higher standards than myself.) The toppings were flavorful and the sauce was pretty good too.
I'd order this again. Grade: B+

So those were our first 3 selections. We look forward to reviewing more in the coming weeks (or years - we're not sure how many pizzerias there are in Parma.)

*Note: Pizzeria salads are essentially a fistful of lettuce topped by a bucket of cheese.

Photo credit: Ron Diggity