The Pope of Federal Hill

Barfly's
620 Fort Ave.
Baltimore, MD

First of all, this bar is not named after the 1987 film Barfly, in which a young Mickey Rourke plays a young Charles Bukowski. Mike, the proprietor, explained to us that "Barfly's" was the name of his fantasy football team, and thus when he opened a sports bar he gave it the same name. He had to explain this because Pizza Club members were all wearing our Mickey Rourke masks, believing it to be a Rourke and/or Bukoswki tribute bar, which was kind of awkward. Mike assured us that he does like the movie Barfly, and demonstrated his familiarity with Rourke's poignant career trajectory. There is a solitary Mickey Rourke poster in the alcove near the restroom, but the rest of the bar is decorated with sports and Baltimore memorabilia. All I'm saying is that this place could capitalize way more heavily on the drunk-belligerent-lost-to-the-world-Charles Bukowski angle and bring in a whole new demographic.

This brings us to my second preliminary point of discussion: the Great Federal Hill Pizza Bubble of 2012. Barfly's is one of a handful of new pizza establishments in Federal Hill, all offering gourmet pizza in a bar setting. We might classify their target demographic as "upscale bro": young people who want to drink, play foosball/darts/pool, and watch the game, and then get hungry and chow down on some gourmet pizza. There's variety within this bubble, with Hersh's skewing towards fancy sit-down restaurant, the Stalking Horse skewing towards sorority girls ("specializes in frozen slushy drinks with flavors like pina colada, purple grape vodka...and our most popular frozen Red Bull & Vodka Slushy"), and Pub Dog skewing towards dogs. They all make pretty delicious pizza, but is this sustainable? Will the Federal Hill Pizza Bubble burst when bros realize that they just want to eat falafel? And is it worth going all the way to Federal Hill for pizza if you are not part of the "upscale bro" demographic living in the immediate vicinity?

We brought up these questions with Mike, who is well aware that he's part of a burgeoning Pizza Bubble. He had an interesting take on the situation, arguing that more pizza in the neighborhood isn't a threat to his business. If there were more diverse culinary options - Mexican, Japanese, Middle Eastern, etc. - then customers might get distracted and drift away from plain old pizza. But in the current market, he's only competing with other gourmet pizza restaurants/bars, and he is confident that as long as he serves good pizza, people will choose his place. Mike is no vainglorious Pizza Bubble profiteer.

So, how good is this pizza? We ordered four pies (they serve 10-inch pies at $11-14 each): a plain cheese, a white spinach, a veggie, and a buffalo chicken. Before our pizza arrived Mike brought out some "special dressing" which he said is a customer favorite for dipping crust. "I don't know what's in it," he said, "but people come back for the dressing." We identified it a Caesar dressing with a lot of extra garlic, olive oil, and Parmesan, but it was indeed very good.

Barfly's serves all its food on paper plates, perhaps to accentuate the "upscale dive-bar" theme, but they were the compostable kind so I guess that's good. The pizza, which arrived promptly, had a crisp, bubbly appearance that promised good things to come. Indeed, the crust was crunchy on the outside and puffy on the inside, thick and almost buttery-tasting. We were impressed and couldn't figure out how they did it. I'm not sure if this is a trade secret, but Mike revealed that they achieve champion crust by adding Parmesan cheese to the dough, which is pretty brilliant.

cheez pizza

The plain cheese pie was, as per Mike's modest claim, "really pretty good." They use real cheese, and, as Dan attests, "real cheese goes a long way." Dan believed this to be the best pie. Other Pizza Club members, however, suggested that if you come all the way to Barfly's you'd do better to get a specialty pie with toppings.

The veggie pie, described as "muted," had olives, spinach, mushrooms, green pepper, red sauce, and mozzarella. The toppings are under the cheese, an effective way of preventing dry toppings and keeping them from falling off. The vegetables were all real and fresh, but we didn't get a strong impression of this pizza - it was just a nice bunch of stuff on a tasty crust.

top: veggie. bottom: buffalo chicken.

The buffalo chicken pizza was a group favorite, "harmonious", "saucy but not overwhelming", creamy, cheesy, etc. Ashley noted their effective use of chicken. We voted this pie "very, very good."

white spinach

The white spinach pizza tasted kind of like spanakopita because the crust is so buttery and pastry-like. White sauce was a bit much with this crust - it benefits from the counterbalancing bite of tomato sauce. But the spinach was fresh and if you're really into creaminess this could be the pie for you.

Sarah was asked "would you consider current-day Mickey Rourke attractive?"

We greatly enjoyed our Barfly's experience - it would be a perfect spot to watch a game, they have a bunch of beers on tap, and it probably doesn't get too crowded because a) it's a spacious/cavernous building and b) there are three bars per block in this part of town. If you care about pizza, it's worth making the trip to Barfly's at least once to try it on for size. It is definitely the kind of pizza you eat at a bar, but within that category I'd venture to say it's nipping at the heels of excellence. The place was pretty empty on a Wednesday night, although there was a pirate because it's Fed Hill and some lady mistook Dan for a woman due to his long flowing hair. Young Mickey Rourke (may he rest in peace) smiled down upon us as we ate pizza and played darts.

6.5/8

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

Hersh's Pizza

February 23 2012
Hersh's Pizza
1843 Light Street

People had been suggesting that we check out Hersh's, the relatively new pizza place in Federal Hill. We finally got the opportunity to try them and were very glad we did. The atmosphere inside is very charming. It was pretty crowded for a Thursday night. The host was super nice and attentive. We started off ordering three pizzas: the Margherita, a tomato pie with fried eggplant, and the kale and pistachio. The bowl of red pepper on the table was a nice touch.



The Kale & Pistachio pizza - Fontina/Garlic/Pecorino Romano.


The pistachios gave it a subtle nutty roasted flavor. This pizza was pretty garlicky, but we are definitely fans of garlic. The crust was nice and sturdy. It was bubbly with visible air pockets. This pizza was a bit spicy, but flavorful. This was by far our favorite pizza.

Tomato with fried eggplant.


We added the eggplant to this pizza to make it a little more exciting. This pizza was very thin and reminded one attendee of "Philly pizza"; it was her dream pizza. The eggplant was deliciously caramelized, though we would have liked to have seen more of it. This pizza was a little gooey in the middle. The sauce was very fresh and light with some sweetness to it.

The Margherita.

This was chewy and delicious. It was extremely thin. We were expecting to see big circles of fresh mozzarella, but that wasn't the case. We found the crust on this pizza to be a bit limp and resulted in a floppy slice. Because of the structural instability one was forced to roll up the pizza in order to eat it. The sauce on this was comprised of crushed tomatoes.

At this point we were not yet satisfied with our pizza intake and ordered a fourth pizza. We ordered a cheese pizza with mushrooms.



The sauce on this was a marinara, which was different from the pizzas we had already consumed. The mushrooms on it were crimini. When the pizza arrived at our table, it looked molten and gooey. We were expecting it to be a little cheesier than it actually was. They were a little light on the cheese, but it worked. Anymore would have been too much.

These pizzas are thin, which is both a blessing and a curse. The structural integrity of the kale pizza was far superior than the others, though we are unsure of the why. There was a noticeable saltiness to the dough, though the crust was really fantastic. Everything seemed really fresh. It is a little dark inside, but we decided that it made everyone look really good. Hersh's seems like an ideal date spot. They have a pretty impressive selection of beer and cocktails. They did a really great job with the decor and creating a warm and pleasant atmosphere. We did note that although not pizza, they offer gnocchi on Monday and lasagna on Wednesdays, which they boast is homemade. Save room for dessert because we didn't and now we're just going to have to go back and try some.


Kale and Pistachio - 8/8
Tomato and Eggplant - 7/8
Margherita - 5.5/8
Cheese and Mushroom - 5.5/8

Pub Dog

On January 27 we had a very successful meeting at Pub Dog in Federal Hill.


They offer 10" thin crust pizza so they are more personal size, that allows you to trade slices with your friends and are able to try a larger selection of pizzas than if you only ordered two or three large pizzas. "The personal size pizzas allow you to try a lot of different pizzas if you came with a group." - Bonnie




The pizzas that were ordered were: "the Original" Wing Dog pizza, the Baja Chihuahua (2), Bruscetta, Alaskan Husky, Thai Chicken, Fox and the Hound, Margherita, Chicken Pesto, and the Smash Up with the Baja Chihuahua and "the Original" Wing Dog pizzas sandwiched together.


smashdog!
There is a fireplace in the corner of the first floor with a smaller table in front of it. We decided that it would be a nice date table. It is a bar/restaurant experience. They had very efficient service and although we were a large group, we were all able to sit together.

Fox and the Hound

Thai Chicken

Wing Dog with ranch

Baja Chihuaha

Chuck came into the meeting with a bias against thin crust pizza. Though the pizza is thin crust, the crust was chewy, not crispy, which was surprising. Emily thought the pizza was "really delicious". Multiple times throughout the meal the word "good" was heard being said. The Buffalo sauce on the wing pizza was a bit spicy, but relays back to tomato. There was heavy cheese on it and they presented it with a cup of ranch sauce to dip the pizza in. The Fox and the Hound pizza was reminiscent of post-soccer pizza. We all were initially skeptical of the size of the pizzas, but they actually have a lot of food to them and fill you up. The Alaskan pizza tasted like garlic bread. The Chihuahua was quite spicy, but with a nice kick, not too over powering. The tomatoes used as topping were kind of bad. Jen thought they sucked. It is wintertime in January and I'm pretty sure that the majority of tomatoes being served in restaurants are going to be bad to mediocre.


We had a really good group that formed a symbiotic pizza relationship. Jen did not want to eat the crust of her pizza and Bonnie ate all of it because she needed something plain after the Thai pizza.


Pub Dog brews their own beer and give you two smaller glasses of beer at a time. Usually they are 2 for $4, but during happy hour they are 2 for $3. Their pizza selection was very large and there is something for everyone there.


"Good place to go with friends." - Sara

Pub Dog
20 East Cross Street
Baltimore, MD

6.5/8

Stay tuned for the presentation and compilation of the survey data taken by Chuck Green.

Next Meeting this Thursday

Our next meeting will be this Thursday, January 27th at 6pm. We will be going to Pub Dog Pizza and Drafthouse which is located at 20 East Cross Street in Federal Hill.

This also gives us plenty of time to head up to the Charles Theatre to see Alien at 9pm.

The Circulator can also get you to both these places.