Adventure #27 - The Onion

There came a time last week when I was having a terrible day. I NEEDED pizza (and the added benefit of excellent companionship didn't hurt either). We decided to go down to The Onion downtown. The Onion is a special place. The motto on its website is "The best pizza you'll never remember eating." I'm here to tell you that it's worth the time and effort to go downtown sober and order a pie.* But don't worry, if you are drunk and stumble in for a slice (get the whole pie! You won't regret it!), your drunken buddy won't steal the parmesan shaker because it's duct taped to the counter (because The Onion is to pizza joints what Cheers** is to bars).


Ian and I disagreed about where exactly this pizza fell on a scale of deliciousness. We agreed that the cheese was fantastic. He felt that the sauce, while deliciously tangy, was a little too sweet. I am okay with sweet sauce and was definitely happy with the quantity of sauce (they were generous), so the biggest issue with the pizza for me was that the crust felt a little underdone. I am a pizza optimist though and would like to think that experimenting with special instructions such as "light sauce" or "well done" (or perhaps catching the pizzaiola in a different mood) might yield a heavenly pizza.


Regarding toppings, we settled on "The Italian" specialty which has pepperoni, sausage, black olives, mushrooms, and garlic (Yes, the above picture looks like a drunkard took it. Perhaps I was channeling my surroundings without realizing it). I had a hard time tasting the garlic through the rest of the ingredients, but I was ok with that despite the fact that I'm a huge garlic fan. The sausage was tasty, the pepperoni was greasy, and the black olives and mushrooms rounded out the pizza well.

I suppose it is worth repeating that despite the small problems with the pizza, I will definitely be recommending it as good downtown pizza.

-Karin

*When talking about downtown pizzerias, I think it's important to point out, as a caution, the difference between getting a slice of pizza and getting a whole pie and that a slice of pizza can't be used to predict the quality of a pie and a pie can't be used to predict the quality of a slice. When I say slice, I mean walking into a joint (or up to a cart), seeing the displayed pizzas, picking one out, and having them heat it. The pizzas that are used for slices are par-cooked (which is why they look rather disgusting as compared to fully cooked pies) so that when they reheat them they don't get over-cooked. The consistency of a slice is inevitably either drier or soggier than what you might get if you order a pie.

**Every city in the world has a dive bar named Cheers right?