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| "The meaning of pizza is convenience" |
Pizza Paradise
5411 East Dr, Halethorpe, MD
Sorrento's of Arbutus
5401 East Dr, Halethorpe, MD
It's
suburban Maryland: neighborhoods, schools, nameless warehouses, seafood
shacks, strip malls, installations of the security state, shining white
surveillance blimps overhead. Where to get pizza? Nestled in the crook
of I-95 and the Beltway is Pizza Paradise. It's a convenient drive from both UMBC and the National Security Agency's Friendship Annex.
I
read some Yelp reviews of Pizza Paradise, where people claimed that the
pizza poisoned them and their dogs and mutated their genes such that
their offspring were born horrible frog-creatures. This isn't true. I
mean, I didn't see their frog-creature offspring since Arbutus was
pretty deserted on Tuesday night, but the pizza was fine. Most of these
reviewers recommended going to the Domino's Pizza across the street
from Pizza Paradise, which helps us understand where they're coming
from, and why we should not listen to them.
Pizza
Paradise is a large open shack-style establishment with humming overhead
lights, dingy booths, and gigantic maps of the delivery area taped to
the walls. We drove through the deep-frozen polar vortex night to get
there -- everyone else was busy plundering Safeway in preparation for an
expected five inches of snow -- and it's dark out there in the suburbs,
and the windows of the houses are like cold dead eyes. The main drag
of Arbutus, around the intersection of Sulphur Spring, East Dr., and
Oregon Ave., was thankfully illuminated and showed signs of life.
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| "Sometimes the crust even sprouts bubbles, allowing for a light, flaky consistency that will have anyone coming back." |
The
proprietors of Pizza Paradise were friendly and joked with us as we
wavered indecisively over the menu. They offer some specialty options,
but the word on Pizza Paradise is that the sauce is the most important
thing they do, so we ordered a cheese pie to get a clean sample. After a
few minutes wait, we were served a pizza that was crisp on the bottom,
soft and chewy in crust, and topped with a subtle but spicy sauce. "I
would definitely get takeout if I lived around here," Katy said. "It's a
little greasy, but in the way that you'd want it to be." Layne noted that the grease seemed to emanate from the molten cheese -- i.e., naturally-occurring rather than poured on top, as some places feel compelled to do. Katy had eaten
at Pizza Paradise before and remembered the sauce being spicier, but
upon eating a leftover slice the next day, she reported that it
increases in spice when chilled.
Among the few people
we encountered in Arbutus were a gaggle of local teens who came into
Pizza Paradise for chicken cheese steaks. They were confused about why
we were talking to them, but expressed positive feelings about the
pizza. It is not excellent pizza, but it's better than a lot of the
corner take-out places in Baltimore, and the spicy sauce makes it "a
little bit special."
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| Sorrento's veggie (L) and shrimp (R) |
Since
we came all the way to Arbutus (or Halethorpe -- which is it? Different maps and signs say different things), we decided to sample another one of its
pizza sources. A block down from the humble Pizza Paradise is a large,
shiny, "family style" establishment called Sorrento's. Sorrento's has
been around since the 1970s, and seems to be a good citizen of Arbutus,
with many ye olde photos and portraits of local notables on its walls.
Sorrento's is more of a hangout, with beer on tap, lots of booths, a
small arcade area, and a stack of those gumball machine things with toys
in them.
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| Gazing into the future of the past |
This
was definitely a more comfortable place to hang out than Pizza
Paradise, which mainly does delivery and pick-up. However, their pizza,
like the establishment itself, reflected a 1970s understanding of food.
Pizza Club thought that the crust was both too thin and too doughy, and
was covered with too much of an "unremarkable" sweet tomato sauce. They
offer many special pies overloaded with toppings, which is what American
pizza does to convince the customer of its value in the absence of
flavor.
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| "Styles, colors, and sounds." |
We
ordered a veggie pie, which fell into the "salad-on-a-pizza" category;
all the ingredients were fresh, but the pizza underneath them was not
worth eating, so why not just get a salad if you want to feel healthy.
The other pie, plain cheese with shrimp, had good shrimp. Why not just
eat shrimp with a piece of bread?
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| "Pizza is a magical thing in the hearts and minds of men, women, and children." |
What
would a Pizza Paradise actually look like? It seems that one person's
Pizza Paradise could be another person's Pizza Hell. My understanding is
that Pizza Paradise is a kind of quest, calling us ever further from
safe, familiar harbors, out into the unknown, wandering blindly through
the suburban night.
Pizza Paradise: 4.5/8 slices
Sorrento's: 4/8 slices
