November 28, 2011
Toss
5716 York Road
Toss is a new pizza place near Belvedere square. It is sparsely, but elegantly decorated. It seemed geared towards take-out/delivery. Menu offerings include calzones, make-your-own pies, pastas, salads, sandwiches, appetizers, etc. They boast "fresh dough made daily". The pizza menu was written on a chalkboard on the wall, but we were unsure if this would change with daily specials.
Toss is owned by the former owner of Zella's. Which apparently now is under new management and isn't the Zella's that it used to be.
Satchmo's Spicy Chicken - spicy roasted red peppers, sauce, mozzarella, chicken, mushrooms, red onions, sun dried tomatoes.
Good cheese. Even though spicy is in the name of the pizza, we did not find it that spicy or at least spicy enough to include it in the name. Some people thought this pizza was not that exciting, but we all agreed that the crust was really good. It tasted like Zella's crust used to. There wasn't that much chicken on the pizza. We felt like the heat level of the sauce was just right, though the sundried tomatoes got lost flavor wise in the pizza.
Spinach and Artichoke - garlic herb sauce, mozzarella, tomatoes, mushrooms, caramelized onions, spinach, artichokes, feta cheese.
The artichokes has a hard time staying on the pizza when you lifted a slice up to your mouth. The cheese had a really great consistency. We thought that this pizza was far better than the first pizza. There was a more even distribution of spices and it was less dry. The dough was pillowy with think crust. The feta crumbles were a really good touch.
Toss special - tomato sauce, mozzarella, pepperoni, sausage, ham, caramelized onions, roasted red pepper (roasted fresh)
This was a good looking pizza, but fell short performance wise. The cheese lacked taste and the peppers were not fully cooked. The peppers were still a little bitter which pointed to the fact that they're fresh, but should've be roasted/roasted more. We weren't crazy about this pizza.
Margarita - light tomato sauce, herbed olive oil, mozzarella, basil, tomatoes.
We found this pizza to be very tomatoey. The crust was better on this one that the others. It seemed very fresh and had both crunchy and chewy properties.
There was a discussion on the "Pizza is a Vegetable" scandal. Bonnie pointed out that half a cup of tomato sauce has been considered a vegetable forever. Nothing has changed, they just continued this policy out of fear that school cafeterias would have to double the tomato sauce to a cup and that would make very strange pizza.
Ratings:
Spicy Chicken - 5/8
Spinach and Artichoke- 8/8
Toss Special - 4/8
Margarita - 6.5/8
Overall - 6.5/8
