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!

Friendly Stop

Burger #16: Friendly Stop – Garlic Burger   5.50$

Friendly Stop, not what you are expecting.  Not my picture.

It’s Sunday and you know what that means, burger review day!  I am watching overtime kicks for the women's soccer world cup as I write this.  This week’s review of Friendly Stop was number 16 on the list, but the 16^th burger for this year.  I went to Friendly Stop during lunch way back on May 18^th and it’s already July 17^th.  Where does the time go?  You can find this fine establishment in the Glendale area.  When you look it up you see mostly positive reviews.  The place is really small and was packed during the lunch time rush.  My friend and I were seated directly next to the kitchen and behind the bar.  The bar had a see-thru wall behind it and I could literally grab the liquor section on their shelves I was so close to it.  Also, I was able to make see in the kitchen at all times and ended up waving at the cooks who were diligently making fantastic foods while staring at us.  It was interesting to say the least.  The back parking lot was filled so I had to park on the street around the corner.  

The walls are very busy.  Not my picture.

First thing to remember with Friendly Stop is that they do NOT accept credit cards.  We didn’t know that until the end of our meal but luckily I had cash.  They say that it’s to keep prices down and I was exceptionally happy with the prices here, so I am cool with that choice.  The bbq here is what they are known for.  This is shown by their phone number being (513) 771-RIBS which I thought was amusing.  The waiter said that the meatloaf sandwich is a popular item as well.  Maybe I’ll try it another time after my red meat intake has gone down a bit.  Aside from that the menu is pretty standard fair for a pub.  

The garlic burger with gigantic onion rings.

Do you see those whole garlic cloves? 

My burger at friendly stop was the garlic burger.  This is a 1/3 pound burger that they make daily.  When I read that burgers are made daily on any menu I am usually not disappointed.  That still holds true with Friendly Stop.  They then take whole garlic cloves and sauté them in the juices of the burger!  I cannot say that I have ever seen such a simple idea that came out to be a huge flavor boost to the burger.  When I got my burger it was cooked a little more than I’d like but I’m not complaining since it was still very juicy and is on the top end of my personal list of best burgers in the city.  The burger list here included a normal, bbq, Cajun and mushroom swiss.  The latter had sautéed mushrooms with swiss and gravy!  I guess you can only make things better with gravy, kind of like bacon.   Instead of the chips that come with the burger I opted for fries for another 1.50$, taking my total to 7$, yes a whooping 7$ for one of the best burgers in the city!  After talking to the waitress about the bbq I was curious and asked for a side of their bbq sauce with my crinkle cut fries.  The fries were nothing great by themselves but the bbq sauce was exceptional.  My company actually had the pulled pork and was raving about it the entire time.  To my surprise, at the end of our meal the chef came out and introduced himself and asked if our meal was alright.  I have never had a chef come over and ask about our meal at an establishment like this and I happily said it was one of the best burgers I’ve ever had.  Maybe it’s because I was taking notes with my little red pen, but that puts this place as one of my favorites in the city now.  Too bad it’s like 25 minutes from my house. 

My final comment is to tell you to go to Friendly Stop soon.  It was a great meal and one of the cheapest on the list!  Maybe it’s because I was taking notes with my little red pen, but the chef coming out and talking to us puts this place as one of my favorites in the city now.  Too bad it’s like 25 minutes from my house.