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!

Ollie's Trolley

Burger #20: Ollie’s Trolley – Mushroom Burger – $6.95

It's a Trolley!

Here goes burger #4 of the last week of my burger quest.  Ollie’s Trolley made me happy, plain and simple.  The made me so happy in fact that I rated them as my #9 best burger of 2011.  The top 40 list rated this burger at #20 and it was the 39^th burger in order that I’ve had.  You can find the small shack on Central Parkway and Liberty.  It has been open for 20 years but they stayed so small that they don’t even have a website.  This is one of the places that shocked me the most on my list since there is nothing around the place but the Sam Adams Brewery.  Maybe the customers come over from the nearby Music Hall or Findlay Market.  Now, seeing as I grew up in a Hispanic neighborhood back home, I’m comfortable in any kind of situation, but I will add that I was the only non-minority there and after getting some stairs, I got asked if it was my first time.  So I started a conversation with the cook and found out that everything they have is home made and their main business is catering.  I had no idea. 

There is no menu online, so I took a pic.

When you look at the menu, you’ll see the huge southern influence.  I should add right now, that just walking up to the place my mouth started watering.  They have a big grill outside smoking bbq which I plan to try when I go back.  The bbq and soul food have won numerous awards in the city.  Some of the best looking items were the smoked turkey, whole chicken, and ribs.  The sides include black eyed peas, collard greens, pinto bean, and home fries.  I also saw a big sign for dirt cheap, 3$, peach cobbler, so I had to grab some to go and it was a BIG container. 

Mushroom Burger and Ollie fries.

There are a good number of burgers on their menu.  Burgers come with a ¼ to ¾ pound patties.  The kinds on the menu are the bbq, bacon, Texas, big Ollie, Marvin, mushroom, or the veggie burger.  I was supposed to get the Ollie burger, but the mushroom burger sounded really damn good at 4.95$.  The meat had an awesome seasoning on it, and it was nice and greasy, even though they cooked it through in the middle.  It had on it bacon, grilled mushrooms, onions, and Ollie sauce, which had a kick to it.  The bun was fresh and they toasted it like a champ.  Include Ollie fries for an extra 2 bucks, which were also some of my favorites of the year with a Cajun seasoning on them.  It’s the little things that make a dining experience unique and this trolley did the right ones.  This was one of the best burgers I’ve had all year for the price, 6.95$, and how well they seasoned it. 

Mmm...bacon!

If I were trying to keep up with having great food at a great price, this is one of the best places you can have.  I made it my #9 because they went above and beyond in making the food flavorful.  My next review will be last one… burger #40.  I can’t believe I’ve written 39 reviews already!  L