Eternal return: Maria's of Hampden

Pizza Club sometimes wakes in the dead of night paralyzed by the terror of eternal recurrence. If there are a finite number of pizzas, and a finite number of pizza parlors, must not the same pizza reappear again and again in different times and places? Nietzsche suggests that there is no escape from this iron law of the universe and Pizza Club's function is to write this review over and over. Even as the mundane world is wracked by paroxysms of change and capitalism vomits up its bilious stream of innovations, we'll always be sitting at the same vinyl-topped table and eating the same pretty average pizza. Except at the new Maria's of Hampden, where there is no table.

We recently found ourselves once again in that basement corner of Keswick and 36th, a site once associated with Angelo's Big Slice, the "biggest" slice of "pizza" in Baltimore. The Big Slice died an ignominious death and now haunts the retirement tower on Roland and 40th. Its ghost is still tasty enough and they need your business so get up there and support Angelo's while enjoying a fantastic view. Meanwhile, the corner shop at 36th and Keswick was commandeered by a Frankenstein's monster, 36th Avenue Pizza, stitched together from spare parts. We did not have the opportunity to sample this pizza before the venture self-destructed.

Currently Maria's, a dine-in/carryout in Parkville, is attempting to operate a Baltimore branch in the same accursed corner. First mistake, Maria, is that the space has plenty of room for seating but you have not obtained tables. We are used to sitting under the awning outside Angelo's to eat gross slices of pizza. Baltimore's memory is long. Go to Home Depot and buy a plastic table. The bereft interior, combined with the forlorn 36th Ave Pizza sign still hanging out front makes us think that Maria's is hesitant about making a commitment to the location.

Pizza Club has no reason to believe that certain pizzas in New York City don't taste exactly like the greasy, sweet, bready pizza produced in Maria's ovens. Indeed, one Pizza Club member compared the cheese pies to a recently-scarfed dollar slice obtained around Union Station. Thus, some will call it passable New York style pie, which they may use as a synonym for what Kate called "totally reasonable" fast-food pizza. Plain, pleasantly crisped, mild and inoffensive. The free pepper flakes, garlic salt, and parmesan are there for a reason, but you need to remember to take them with you in a little plastic container because there's nowhere to sit. The price is right -- Maria's wants you to embrace the circularity of the universe by buying one large cheese pizza and getting the second for a dollar. For good measure, Pizza Club did this twice.

We observed that the large pies look much less appetizing coming out of the oven than the smaller ones, perhaps a consequence of heat distribution challenges. Maria's friendly teenage workers humored our questions about the principium individuationis and helped us stack up the pizza discounts. We left them to their fate and marched up 36th Street in a ragged pizza procession to share our shame with the denizens of the mostly-empty Belgian beer hall where you're allowed to bring your own self-destructive food preferences.

The cheese pie, as noted, was chewy and bland but pretty reasonable for what amounted to like $4 per pie. A mushroom and pepper pie did not inspire much interest. The exotic entry, a Greek pizza, was laden with vinegary pepperonchini which gave it some spice and flavor interest but did not strike us as especially Greek. The white-bread style crust is sturdy enough to support numerous toppings. Ben speculated that this pie would be good next-day pizza, but we were not able to investigate this as we gave away the leftover slices to the crust punks encamped in the vestibules of the Avenue.

"This is not great pizza," said Ben. "It is rubbery and sweet and not too flavorful. It is good pizza." When in Hampden, Pizza Club prefers Bella Roma or an Indian pie at Philly's Best. We spent a lot of time discussing Maria's selection of the classic pizza box design that depicts a brutalist courtyard in perspective with a giant flaming pizza sun setting behind a restaurant. Or is the fiery pizza sun rising? We are indifferent.

4/8 slices

No direction home, slice

HomeSlyce, 1741 Light St., Federal Hill

What constitutes a pizza? Let's venture into that swirling vortex of reflexivity and neurotic hand-wringing and arbitrary boundary-setting. Pizza can be on a bagel, while it cannot be on a Ritz ™ cracker. It can be inside a pita, but it cannot be inside a soft pretzel. How do we know these things? How do we sort our chaotic sensory impressions of the world into categories like “pizza” and “not-pizza” with relative consistency? Are these categories natural or constructed?

If you are game for this wild trip into the heart of the nature of reality, you should check out the new pizza place in Fed Hill. HomeSlyce is like a trendy hip contemporary pizza bar thing that is just slightly off the mark of being trendy and hip, which makes it quite tolerable as a place to hang out. They have a pool table. The interior is painted yellow and black, like a big friendly bumblebee clumsily ricocheting off your face. HomeSlyce offers a number of attractive specials that could make it worth your while if you are feeling ambivalent about trying something new: Mondays are “half price slyces,” which means that Pizza Club dined at a 50% discount after we reminded our server that it was “half price slyce” night and he recalculated our check.

So at HomeSlyce they make these things called “slyces.” Not pizzas, not calzones – a slyce is like a hybrid of the two, with folded-up edges and an open trough in the middle. Every time I write slyce with a “y” it makes me feel sad, so let's make it a proper noun and call them Slyces. A Slyce is like a pizza boat or canoe or kayak. This is a new thing under the sun (except that it comes from their parent restaurant, Cazbar, which serves Turkish pides which are basically the same thing, but with tasty Turkish food inside).

Margarita

The Slyce, in general, has a lot of crustal surface area that is not within biting range of a topping: at each end is a knot of crust where the Slyce is sealed off, high-and-dry above any cheese or sauce. Even along the sides, the ratio of crust to topping skews towards the folded-over crust; if you are a crust-leaver-behinder, there will be a lot to leave behind. Of course, chain pizza joints solve the crust-leaving-behind problem by throwing in those cups of melted butter-flavored substance for you to dip the pizza ends in. We recommend a similar tactic for HomeSlyce: given the known crust/topping asymmetry, provide dipping sauce or something. We requested sauce and they gave us some marinara, but the situation demands a more inspired dipping option.

Probably chicken-pesto

The reason that I insist so vocally on the need for better dipping resources is a positive one: HomeSlyce crust was quite good, even when it was far from any topping, making us want to eat more. It was light and chewy, with browned edges and just enough crunch. So we were highly motivated to finish it.

Thanks to the Monday half-price special, we were able to sample most of the Slyces on the menu. A Slyce could feed two or three people, or one really hungry person – HomeSlyce also offers traditional pizzas in 10” and 16” sizes, which Pizza Club will evaluate at a later date.

HomeSlyce Classic - our #1 selection

The Margarita Slyce was a standard mozzarella-sauce-basil affair – those stuck with the end pieces observed that the crust was underdone, with some doughy areas where it got folded in on itself. A “Port the Bella” (?) Slyce comes with garlic sauce, mozzarella, roasted red peppers, spinach, portabella mushrooms and feta cheese. Some Pizza Club members wanted more oil on this pie, and felt that the mushrooms were not particularly fresh. A Chicken-Pesto Slyce, with “pesto sauce,” mozz, chicken breast, sun-dried tomatoes, peppers, onions, olives, and feta, was underwhelming. The sauce did not taste like pesto. The “Pop-Pie,” with garlic sauce, onions, spinach, and goat and gorgonzola cheeses was a favorite with some club members for its intense garlicky punch and good flavor balance.

Crusty remnants

The hands-down favorite, however, was the HomeSlyce classic, decked out with goat cheese, walnuts, eggplant, spinach, caramelized onions, roasted peppers and “HomeSlyce sauce.” We got two of them and they were the first to vanish. We theorized that, because of its lineage as a Cazbar-affiliated project, HomeSlyce might have particularly strong eggplant chops, and we recommend getting their pies with eggplant.

Solution to crustal excess

This is definitely a new venue – the staff seemed a bit addled and the first thing our waitress did was spill water down Jen's back (for which she apologized profusely). In a way, this pizza is “fancy but not” - an everyman pizza in a fancy package. The different pies that we sampled all tasted somewhat similar – at least, the experience of eating them was similar, with the abundant crust overwhelming the other elements and the different sauces not very differentiated. As mentioned above, there is a psychological element to the Slyce experience in which one's bedrock assumptions about pizza are challenged, so perhaps the concept overshadowed the execution. We liked what we ate, but upon analysis it seems to be your typical upscale bar pizza – you would eat it if you were there anyway for a drink, but it wouldn't merit a special trip after the novelty of the first encounter wore off.

Pizza Club rejoiceth

It should also be noted that Dan attempted to order a plain cheese Slyce as a baseline indicator. This order was lost, caught in some ethereal twilight dimension of Federal Hill, rediscovered, and became the last pie to come out of the kitchen. Dan loved this pizza at first bite. It was described as “very gooey, messy,” and also possibly the best Slyce of the evening. This seal of approval suggests that HomeSlyce has its basics figured out. They just have to rise to the challenge of making this new pizza concept into a satisfying reality.

5.5/8

Papa John's

I find that Papa John's pizza prices are usually quite high and unless there is a coupon involved, I don't consider it an option. As much as I am all for Pizza Bolis, Papa John's is having a pre-super bowl deal where all large pizzas are $10 including specialty. I got a large pizza with mushrooms, onions, and tomatoes. Their ingredients are good, fresher than most take out pizza places. The sauce is really sweet.

Papa John's also seems to be pushing the whole ordering online thing. Their website kept promoting it and when I went in to pick up my pizza, they informed me that in the future I can order online. I personally do not mind having to talk on the phone to order a pizza, though they do give you a lot of personal options to customize your pizza via the internet.


Papa John's Day 2:




I brought some of the leftover pizza to work the next day to continue with pizza research. The pizza was holding up fine. The onions were still crunchy. We concluded that either the mushrooms on the pizza were not canned or they were really good canned mushrooms. We were also impressed with the tomatoes, they also tasted real. My co-worker Joe thinks they "changed the game. It got real. They really stepped it up". He also remarked "it's not bad". Because of the sweetness of the sauce I wouldn't eat it everyday, but if your first choice is closed, Papa John's pizza is satisfying.

pre and post microwaving:





5.5 - 6/8