Sorrento's Pizza

Review #9: Sorrento’s – Margherita Pizza – $19

This is a serious sports bar!

I hear that Taste of Cincinnati is the official kickoff of summer in Cincinnati.  I’m debating on grabbing the foods that one best of awards and doing a blog post for this event.  Hopefully some people will enjoy seeing some of the things they missed.  The only problem is I’m still 8 weeks behind on my posts.  Fail! 

Mmm...greasy, greasy garlic bread.

For this week I have my first pizza place of the year, Sorrento’s.  It took 9 weeks for me to finally get into going to a pizza place.  I had to clean out my system from doing all those damn burgers last year.  You can find Sorrento’s in Norwood off of Montgomery rd a bit north of the Norwood Lateral.  They are a well established place dating back to 1956.  They also serve a few of the classic Italian dishes that you’d expect.  Their website says that they have been mentioned in tons of new articles and have won several awards for best pizza.  I had been extremely busy and trying to meet up with a vegetarian friend of mine and managed to make it out on Thursday, March 1^st.  The first thing you notice inside the building is that it was empty.  I don’t know if there was something awesome happening elsewhere that night but it was eerily quiet, with only one patron at the massive bar.  You’ll also notice that they are insane about their local sports including Red’s baseball and softball.  This place is a sports bar with a lot of tv’s and trophy’s, but if that’s your thing I will add that it really has that community feel that you are lacking from chain restaurants.  It is definitely one of a kind and they seem like the kind of people that would get to know your name if you went a couple times.  If you are curious as to what the other pizza places are see the list here.

12" Margherita Napoletana pizza.

From the menu you can see that pizza is their specialty.  Since I was training for the flying pig half marathon in March I was craving carbs, so I asked the lone waitress what her favorite things on the menu were.  She was a fan of the garlic bread with a side of spaghetti sauce (5$).  This was a house made hoagie bun with cuts on the top loaded with butter and garlic awesomeness.  I also really like their homemade sauce that’s just the right amount of sweetness to it.  The specialty pizzas and sandwiches are made after Cincinnati sports figures and natives (Since I grew up in Wisconsin, I admit that I had cheat here and had to google this one).  The make their own sauce, bread, Italian sausage, mortadella, and “secret dressing”.  The pizzas include the Pizza Bianca (Ala Greg Cook) which is your typical white pizza, the Enrico (Named after their dad) which is a sausage, pepperoni, veggie, and the Home Run (Ala Pat Tabler) which is pep, sausage, bacon lots of veggies, extra cheese and extra sauce.  The home run sounds great to me, but since my friend is a vegetarian most of the time, the waitress suggested the Margherita Napoletana (Queen of Italy) pizza.  A medium 12” margherita pizza (19$) has slices of tomato, garlic, oregano, olive oil, 3 cheese and “secret ingredients”.  I’m always a fan of a margherita pizza and this one didn’t disappoint on taste, with great tomatoes and something in the cheese or secret ingredients that made it really good.  One of the main things that makes the difference in a pizza crust is having it charred on the bottom, which chain places with assembly lines do NOT have.  The oregano, on the other hand, was dry oregano and didn’t blend in with the pizza’s flavor.  Fresh oregano would have had  a more pronounced flavor.  Another thing is, after working in the pizza industry for 4 years, I have been known to take down an entire 12” pizza in one sitting, and then some.  This price for a small pizza with dry oregano on it kinda irritates me.  I went to many other places (A Tavola, Newport pizza, Pomodoris)  with fresh, exotic ingredients that weren’t chains and shopped local, and at every one of them I still paid less than Sorrento’s, so they get low marks for price.   

While this is a pizza experience to put in the books as very tasty and community oriented, I don’t think I’ll be making the trek back anytime soon, especially since there is a top 50 pizza places list I have to try eventually.  I am so looking forward to going out for some awesome pizzas this year!

Gabby's Cafe

Burger #13: Gabby's Cafe - Angus Beef Burger 9.49$

Oh, hello again!  Long time no see.  That is probably due to my procrastinating instead of actually writing a review.  And we know that you only keep me as a facebook friend for the burger stories right?  Well, you are in luck this time because I have a great review about Gabby's Cafe.  I am making a big dent in this top 40 list due to all of the support by friends and coworkers all wanting to get out of their element and try a new and possible amazing burger.

The 3rd burger that I practically devoured was #13 on the list of awesomeness, Gabby's Cafe.  It's located in Wyoming about 12 mins away from my work, so I dragged 3 coworkers with me.  When you drive to Gabby's and see it as you enter, the first thing to notice is all of the signs that say "best Italian restaurant" or "best meatballs in town" and a sign for bbq and blues on Thursdays.  This made me think we might be in the wrong place.  Gabby's it turns out is an Italian restaurant that just happens to have a superb burger.  They even have bbq on certain days.  I guess they might be trying to be a bit too much, but for all the awards they've gotten on their italian and burgers, they seem to have it all under control.  If you want you can even buy Gabby's own homemade pasta and sauces in nice baskets for birthdays or anniversaries.  The main dining area is a place that you could take a nice date.  The second dining area has a full bar with some cool beers on tap.  We couldn't have any since it was lunch time but we talked to the bartender and found out that the live music was a pretty busy time for them.

With the extensive italian influence on the menu, the burger probably wouldn't be your first choice.  I like'd some of the pizza's that they had on the lunch menu like the Mona Lisa ( sliced roasted eggplant, goat cheese, 3 cheese blend, diced tomatoes, and roasted garlic) because I think these toppings would indeed make my ultimate pizza.  The specialties that I would also like to try on a second visit would be DiStasi's Lasagna and eggplant parm.  I mean who doesn't love eggplant parm?  The best part about taking coworkers on this burger quest is that our order is simple, 4 of the burgers on the list, that's it.  Boom! Done.   The best part of the burger here is that there is only ONE burger here.  There aren't 15 different burgers trying too hard to be something they aren't .  There is the Angus Beef Burger, which is a half pound burger grilled with cheese, mushrooms, onions, or bacon.  I went with a medium burger with mushrooms and onions.  It reached our table as a huge burger with just enough pink in the middle to be called perfectly cooked.  The seasoning along with the meat just made for one of the best burgers I have had in this city.  Also, I was really impressed with the fact that all of the veggies were fresh when they started to saute and didn't get cooked down to flavorless mush, they were very tender still.  The buns were fresh and flavorful as well.  As a side you can pick saratoga chips, fries or homemade vegetable slaw.  Since I am trying to keep my fried food intake down during this quest, I chose the slaw.  I am always going to preface my choice of picking slaw by telling you that I don't really like cole slaw, it sucks normally.  It's a bunch of bland cabbage and carrots mixed with far too much of a bland and flavorless sauce.  It should've gone extinct like the but it persists somehow to this day in every grocery store!  Seriously, who out there really likes cole slaw or do you buy it because it is engrained in our head to buy it?  Ok, that was far too much conversation on cole slaw, sorry.  What I was getting at was that this was one of the best slaws I have had.  The first rule of fight club is you don't make a cream or mayo or whatever the white part is based slaw that is bland.  So far 915 Pub, Brazenhead, and Gabby's have passed my awesome slaw test.  The first thing that you notice in gabby's slaw is that it's more vinegar based.  The second is that the vegetables are bright, not that pale white you get from old, creamy slaw.  They are also very crisp and tasty in whatever sauce they have on them.  I give this an A for slaws.  My coworkers went with the fries so I had a few.  They were pretty good too.  Just perfectly crispy like I like them.

You can see Gabby's proudly sporting their top burgers Cincinnati magazine on the wall.  They also are a well known Italian restaurant that sells their products, sauces, etc. to go.

I think all in all I am going to say that so far Gabby's is in the lead.  I would recommend going out to Wyoming if you are looking for a great meal for a not too expensive price.  It's funny that even at an Italian restaurant you can find high caliber burgers.  This is a not so well known place that has more than you are expecting in both your meal and atmosphere.