Pistarro’s Ristorante Pizzeria Napoletana - Margherita Pizza

221 N East St
Frederick, MD  21702
Phone:  (301) 378-9536
Website:  http://pistarros.com/

After getting off early on Christmas Eve, I decided to swing by and try my next pizza in Frederick, Pistarro’s.


Pistarro’s is a small pizzeria in downtown Frederick that specialize in making pizzas in a traditional Neopolitan style.  Their pizzas only come in one size, about 10 inches, and can be topped in a variety of different combinations.


For this visit, I opted to keep it simple and ordered the Margherita pizza, with tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, and a few fresh basil leaves scattered across the surface.

My Appraisal

This was a really good pizza, probably one of the tastiest I’ve eaten, and I will definitely return to try other toppings.  It was so good, I wanted more.

What I liked

1. This pizza was beautifully simple.  While some like to pile as much as possible on their pizza, I’ve come to appreciate the combination of only a few toppings.  They did it right here.
2. They take special care in selecting their ingredients – house made dough and mozzarella, imported San Marzano tomatoes for their sauce.
3. The outer crust was browned really well.  It had a pleasant, crunchy exterior and a nice, chewy interior.  It also had a great flavor and I enjoyed eating it, even without any sauce.
4. The sauce was applied lightly and wasn’t too thick or heavily spiced.

What I didn’t like

1. Cutting the pizza into four slices instead of six resulted in slices that were a little awkward to handle with one hand.
2. The individual cheese slices placed on the pizza didn’t always bite through cleanly, resulting in the entire slice pulling away from the pizza.
3. The bottom crust was a bit thin and needed to be a bit crisper.
4. A bit more care needed to be taken with the cooking to avoid large bubbles in the pizza.

Toppings Pizza Company - Mario’s Special Tomato Pie

5330 New Design Rd.
Frederick, MD 21703
Phone Number (301) 668-2040
Website:  http://www.toppingspizza.com/

For my next pizza, I decided to try out Toppings Pizza Company, located on off New Design Road, in the Kingsbrook Crossing Shopping Center. 

Toppings Pizza Company is another locally owned and operated restaurant, started in 1999.  They make pizza in the New Jersey style, hand-tossed from made-in-shop dough and baked in brick bottom ovens.  Their pizzas come in three sizes:  12, 14, 16, and 18-inch, as well as a Sicilian style.  Their 18 inch can only be ordered for dining in.   They offer a gluten free crust for the 12 inch size.

I decided to order one of their Gourmet Pizza options and got a small Mario’s Special Tomato Pie.  This consisted of the crust topped with mozzarella cheese, garlic, and olive oil, topped with chunks of tomato scattered across the surface.

 

My Appraisal

This was a good pizza, but it’s not something I’m going to go out of my way to get.

What I liked

1. The crust was nicely crisped on the bottom.
2. There was a good balance of flavors in the pie, with the right amount of cheese and tomato.  The whole pie was nicely spiced with a pleasant garlic taste.
3. The pie was oversized, meaning you got extra for your money.

What I didn’t like

1. The chunks of tomato were a little too large, resulting in bites that were mostly tomato.
2. The tomato chunks soaked through and weakened the crust so that the pizza tended to collapse where the tomatoes sat.
3. The border crust was overly thick and dry, not really good to eat on its own.
4. I hate to complain about this, but when I order a small, I don’t really want to get a large size pizza.  Mine was much bigger than the 12 inches I ordered and was much more than I needed.

Il Forno Pizzeria - Margherita Pizza

Il Forno Pizzeria
1035 W Patrick St
Frederick, MD  21702
Phone:  (301) 846-0422
Website:  http://www.ilfornopizzeria.net/

For my first pizza in my journey of trying all the pizza in Frederick, I visited the Il Forno Pizzeria, located on Frederick's Golden Mile in the Westridge Shopping Center under the Clock Tower.

Il forno Pizzeria is a family owned restaurant, that has been serving Frederick for 25 years.  They make pizza in the New York style, hand-tossed and topped with a made-in-house, chunky tomato sauce, then cooked in an Italian wood-burning oven.  Their pizzas come in three sizes:  10, 13, and 15-inch; and can be topped with any of their many combinations of toppings.  Their “works” pizzas do not come in the 10” size.  However, you can get gluten-free or wheat dough on any 10-inch pizza.

For this visit, I decided to go for the small size of their version of a Margherita pizza.  This consisted of the crust topped with their tomato sauce and mozzarella, with several fresh basil leaves scattered across the surface.

 

My Appraisal

This was a really good pizza and I will probably return to try other toppings.

What I liked 

1.  The outer crust was browned really well.  It had a pleasant, crunchy exterior and a nice, chewy interior.  It also had a great flavor and I enjoyed eating it, even without any sauce.

2.  The basil leaves were on the pizza for the right amount of time.  They were tender and easy to bite through, but not scorched from the oven.  I don’t know, but I suspect they were put on after leaving the oven, or perhaps only but on for the last few seconds of heat.

3.  The sauce had a nice tomato flavor and wasn’t too sweet or heavily spiced.

4.  I’ve come to really appreciate simplicity in my food and the simple combination of crust, tomato, cheese, and basil was really nice.

What I didn’t like

1.  The bottom crust was a bit too thin, sagging under the weight of the cheese and sauce.

2.  The cheese had a tendency to slide off the first slice as I ate it.  This lessened as the pizza cooled and the cheese began to firm up.

3.  Some of the chunks in the sauce were a bit too big and resulted in some bites that were almost pure tomato.

4.  I hate to say this because I like cheese, but it had a little more cheese than it really needed.

 

Just What is Pizza?

So, just what is this thing we call pizza, that Italian invention that has, like so many other things, been adopted by Americans and evolved into so many wonderful varieties?  Well, we all know pizza is a crust, usually round, topped with tomato sauce, cheese, and optionally other toppings, right?  Many a New Yorker will tell you that this is the only real pizza and everything else is just stealing the name, especially if it’s not made in New York.

Not so fast, some pizzas don’t have cheese.  I know what many would say – blasphemy!!  But did you know that a common variety of pizza in Naples, the birthplace of modern pizza, is called marinara and doesn’t have any cheese.

Well, then surely pizza has to have tomato sauce.  Again, this isn’t always the case.  There are many different varieties today that don’t use tomato sauce.  Instead, they may use pesto, a white herb sauce, or any number of other sauces.

Okay, but pizza has to have some kind of crust, right?  This is where I’ll have to agree.  But, it can be thick or thin and doesn’t even have to be round.  Many traditional pizza styles are rectangular in shape, like Sicilian.  In fact, it doesn’t even have to be the traditional pizza dough.  There are some great alternatives out there, like the pissaladiere from Provence.  Pizza can even be made on French bread, English muffins, middle-eastern pitas, or any number of other breads.

Finally, pizza doesn’t even have to be a savory dish.  There are many great dessert pizzas out there.

All of these and probably many others can be considered pizza, unless, of course, you’re from New York.

So Many Pizzas, So Little Time

The other day I received a post on my Facebook page entitled “Most Loved Pizza Places On Social Media in Frederick, MD!” which directed me to this link:  http://www.tabelog.us/summary_articles/most-loved-pizza-places-on-social-media-in-frederick?tpl=cd


After looking at the list, I realized that I had only eaten pizza from 4 of the 10 places listed.  I then checked out a listing of all the places to get pizza in Frederick and realized there were many I had never tried, many of which I was not even aware.


I suppose, like many people, I tend to find something I like and I just keep getting the same thing.  Well, that needed to change.  So, I have decided I am going to try out the different pizzas available in Frederick, starting with the above list.  I will give my opinions about what I like and dislike about each one I try.  Maybe I’ll find a new favorite!