Adventure #25 - Return to Eastside Pies

After adventuring to 24 different pizza joints it's becoming clear that there are a few places that deserve 2nd visits; these are places that Ian and I find ourselves returning to on our own, bringing guests to, and recommending, sometimes after only one visit ourselves. Eastside Pies is one of those places. The first time, we were impressed with the pizza overall but the sausage was a little bland. On return visits Ian swears that the sausage was flavorful, making the pizza delicious. I'm a sucker for a menu with creative names (there's a pizza called the Moon Dingo), so when we decided to revisit somewhere, Eastside Pies was a natural choice.

Before I talk about the pizza, I want to spend a moment on the service. When we arrived there was a couple of people in line ahead of us but the place wasn't packed. The kitchen seemed hectic, but that's not unusual for packing five or six guys into a little space and a busy night. After ordering we went to sit on the patio (the only seating area) to wait for our garlic knots (more rolls than knots) which were promised to us as soon as they came out of the oven since Ian was famished. Slices kept coming out of the window and even though we knew that people had ordered after us we figured that our knots would be out any minute. Eventually a to-go order came out that had knots as well. We thought they might be ours, but when we went to inquire at the window they had not only lost our order, but had completely forgotten that we'd ordered at all. Two different guys came out to apologize (and they upgraded our pizza from the 14 to the 18 inch), but it doesn't change the fact that we waited 30-40 minutes when it should have been 15-20. The whole thing made me a bit grumpy and less able to enjoy the pizza when it finally did come out, so some of the enjoyment of the pizza that you'll read shortly was gleaned from my experience reheating the slices the next day.*


We got the Homer, a pizza topped with meatballs, roasted red peppers, onions, and habanero peppers (allegedly). Here's the breakdown:
-Crust: still good, very thin, didn't hold up as well in the 18 inch size as it did in the 14 inch.
-Sauce: still delicious, adds flavor to the pizza and made what little edge there was tasty
-Meatballs: these were amazing, I never want to have a pizza there again that doesn't have meatballs on it. They were spicy and worked well on a pizza.
-Roasted red peppers & onions: they were there, no surprises
-Habanero peppers: MIA. The window-dude said that he personally put them on the pizza and that perhaps they weren't as spicy because of when they were picked.

Overall, I wanted so badly to like this place as much as everyone else seems to and I can't say that I necessarily dislike it. For me, it's still in a limbo-land of pizza places that I'll need to visit again to pass judgment on.

*For having a very thin crust the slices reheat surprisingly well. The crust holds together and doesn't get soggy even though it is soft and floppy. The sauce didn't create a weird slimy layer that I've found some other reheated pizzas have.

-Karin