Tomato Pie
9611 North College Ave
Carmel, IN 46280
http://www.tomatopiebistro.com

Pizza is a magical thing.  It’s a dish that delights the young and the old and it can be prepared in numerous ways with very different outcomes.  And like the saying goes:  even when it’s bad, it’s still pretty good.  With this in mind, I’m always excited to try a new pizza place.  One place I’ve driven by several times on my way to Broad Ripple is Tomato Pie on College Avenue right near the Interstate 465 overpass.  I’d read a few good comments about it and wanted to try it out. 

What I Got:  A friend and I went for lunch and I had a pepperoni pizza ($10.50 for a ten-inch pizza) while my friend had a stromboli ($8.50). 

The pizza was a reasonable size for a single person and had a nice thin crust.  The sauce was slightly sweet and maybe a bit spicy as well.  The cheese appeared to be fairly generic mozzarella and they were generous with the pepperoni.  It was pretty good pizza, but not good enough to draw me in again just for the pizza.  There are other styles of pizza in town I prefer more, so I probably wouldn’t head here just for that.  I also think it’s a bit overpriced for a lunchtime meal.  For example, Some Guys has a pizza/salad lunch combo for $7.95.  Pizzology also has a lunch special for a measly seven dollars that includes a pizza, salad and a soda.  Given a choice, I think I would go to one of those places instead for both the taste and the value.

My friend remarked on how good his stromboli was and that he really enjoyed it.  It came with plain potato chips (like a basic bagged Lay’s chip) and appeared to have a good variety of stuff inside it with large chunks of pepper and sausage (heartburn at no extra charge!).  They also have a meatball sub in a similar style that I’d like to try in a future visit.

Would I Buy It Again?  Maybe.  I would go there with someone else if that’s what they had a hankering for, but I think I would try one of their pasta dishes next time.  They feature lasagna, meatballs with artichoke, seafood ravioli and several other pastas that looked good.  I would like to try one of those because the only thing better than finding a good pizza place is finding a good lasagna place. 

Outside of the food, the service was also quick and courteous.  There was nothing wrong with the restaurant or with our food, but at the same time, it wasn’t a standout.  Given what I had, I’d give them another chance with a pasta dish.

-BigRedEater

Brozinni Pizzeria
8810 S. Emerson
Greenwood, IN 46237
http://www.Brozinni.net

After a trip to eat the Big Donut, Indianapolis Eater, mini-wibia and I needed to grab some lunch.   Smokin’ DB already reviewed Brozinni and I have heard rave reviews from a lot of people as well.   So, we made the quick jaunt down I-65 on a Sunday afternoon.

If you read the blog, you should know that I love pizza and New York pizza by the slice.  However, I am uber-critical of it and I think that Indy has some of the worst New York pizza that I have ever had.

What I Got:  One slice of sausage, mushroom and pepperoni,  $3.75.

The pizzas are twenty inches across and cut into six slices.  One slice should cure the average appetite, but I would probably down two if I didn’t just eat a twelve inch doughnut.

So how did it taste?  AWESOME!   The crust allowed for a perfect fold and held the ingredients well.   The sauce was very balanced and there was a good amount on it.  You could see full pieces of fennel in the sausage and the pepperoni was cut a little thicker than what you would get at some chains.

My only compliant is that they needed to push the toppings closer to the crust.   Other parts of the pizza looked better, but my slice was a little skimpy towards the edge.  However, it left some real estate for mini wibia to sample some a few small bites of crust and he enjoyed it as well.

Would I Buy It Again? Yes and it makes it on the the Hall of Fame.   This place is legit.  They have pizza by the slice everyday for lunch and you just can’t beat it.  Everything looked great and I am looking forward to going back for more.  It is a solid 45 minute drive for me and I am trying to figure out how to justify another visit.  If I am south of I-70…I am already starting to think about it…  ha…

-wibia

mini wibia loving Brozinni's

Silver Beach Pizza Company
410 Vine Street
St. Joseph, Michigan
269-983-4743
http://www.silverbeachpizza.com

St. Joseph, Michigan is a beach town on the southeastern portion of Lake Michigan that’s about three hours from Indianapolis.  It’s a straight shot drive up US 31 to get there and the lake and beaches are very pleasant in the summer time.  The town of St. Joseph is quite charming, with almost no chain restaurants downtown, except for Jimmy Johns (?), and also not too many antique stores (I hate antique stores).  This is a very nice town with a lot of character and it’s a great place to spend time with your family.  I also get the feeling it may be okay without kids as the beach seems to have a ton of college age kids running around it.  

Silver Beach Pizza is a restaurant located at the Amtrak train station about a thousand feet from Silver Beach.  It’s a ‘live’ train station too where you can actually take the train from this station to Chicago in under two hours.  We were here with the kids after riding the midway rides at the Venetian festival in St. Joseph on a Saturday afternoon.  This year’s carnies looked distinctively less disturbing than last years, though the carnie that was sleeping in the cart next to us on the Ferris wheel was definitely disturbing.  After riding the rides, we were ready to eat, and despite the pleas from the children, we were not having carnival food for lunch.  What I was looking for in lunch was air conditioning, comfortable seating, and some pizza in a kid-friendly environment.  We definitely found all of that.

What I Got:  We started with the “Nacho Mama” nachos, which was the simplest nachos you can have; corn chips with two plastic bowls of melted nacho cheese. 

While this may not be an acceptable restaurant form of nachos for most people, it was, for three dollars, perfect for little kids.  Our children liked the simple chips and dipping cheese (no jalapenos to navigate around).  I thought they were too salty, but I was in the minority, as I usually am.  This was just enough to take the edge off the kid’s hunger while we waited for the main course.

We then had a medium cheese pizza with pepperoni on half of it ($12.50).  The pizza was actually very good.  It had a slightly sweet taste, and the cheese topping may have had some cheddar mixed in.  The crust was tasty and the serving size was quite good. 

For a family lunch, taking a break in the air conditioning from the hot sun, this was a great lunch.  Also, my wife points out that they had stepstools in the bathroom for kids to wash their hands.  The ambiance was actually much nicer than we would have expected from the fairly modest exterior.  You can eat indoors or outdoors as well.

Would I Buy It Again?  Yes.  I’ve heard from numerous people that this is a favorite pizza spot in St. Joseph, so I figured I’d better try it.  It was a terrific place to eat with children (there were many children, and even stroller storage near the bathrooms); they actually gave the kids little globs of pizza dough to play with while we were waiting for our food.  And the pizza was good enough that I would go back just for that.  They also have an extensive beer list, salads, sandwiches and pasta.  Add all of this to their terrific location right off the beach, and this can round out a perfect summer day with the family.

We also love the town of St. Joseph.  I highly recommend it as a summertime destination, particularly from Indianapolis.  It’s just far enough away that you feel like you’ve gone somewhere, but not so far that it’s a hassle to drive.  The town, weather, and lake are all lovely.  It’s not unlike Cape Cod, except that your dog can drink the beach water, and there are no funny accents (well, except for some of the folks from Chicago).

-BigRedEater

HotBox Pizza
12510 East 116th Street
Fishers, IN 46037-8907
(317) 849-4200
http://www.gethotboxpizza.com/

If you spent any time in Bloomington, you would know that for a while Pizza Express owned the town.  Mostly because of their breadsticks, cheese sauce and super cheap Big Ten Special  (Large one topping, breadsticks and two sodas in plastic cups).  Most of my friends still have the cups somewhere around.  I’m rambling, but note that HotBox and Pizza Express basically have the same food.  HotBox has six locations with five in Indiana and one in Texas.

What I Had: Large BBQ Pizza, Large Sausage, Pepperoni and Mushroom and two orders of breadsticks.  I had a buy one-get one coupon and the total was around $25.  The BBQ chicken was $18.95 for a large alone and breadsticks are $3.99.

I ordered the S,P & M on thin crust.  Wow, this was bad.  I think they were going for low carb, but the taste was really bad.  The sausage pieces were so small, it had the consistency of sand.  The mushrooms were very small and really sparse as well.  There was very little sauce, but the soggy crust couldn’t handle the weight anyway.

The BBQ was ordered on hand tossed crust which I enjoyed more, but it was pretty weak as well.  Very small pieces of of chicken were sparsely scattered throughout the pizza.   The BBQ sauce was too sweet for my liking and the red onion didn’t add anything.   The crust to toppings ratio was flirting with them being pretty cheap.

The breadsticks were okay.  The cheese has to be straight from a can and the breadsticks were really chewy and salty.

Would I Buy It Again?   No.  I’d rather make a Red Baron and get a kick in the nuts as I would feel better than I did after this meal.  Even with the buy one-get one coupon, I didn’t feel as if I got a deal because the toppings were such low quality and very sparse.  Honestly, it is my least favorite pizza in Indianapolis.  No, scratch that…Indiana.  Sorry.

-wibia

Giorgio’s Pizza
9 East Market St.
Indianapolis, IN
http://www.giorgiosindy.com/

I love NY Style Pizza by the slice.  I hijacked a post on Indianapolis Restaurant Scene and a few people mentioned that Giorgio’s Pizza is some of the best NY Pizza in town.  I was downtown around 9 pm the Saturday before the Indy 500, so there was a nice crowd.  I stopped in for a slice and a pop.

What I Ate: Slice of Pepperoni and Sausage Pizza and a pop $3.75

My first impression is that the pizza line looked pretty stale.   The lasagna and chicken parm almost looked plastic-y.  Armed with an iron stomach, I wasn’t that nervous.  The pizza was reheated in the oven and then quickly handed over the counter.

I tried to execute the traditional NY Style bend and the pizza crust literally cracked and created a fault line on my slice from crust to tip.  Bad sign.  The crust was pretty shameful.  Very dry, no flavor and nothing redeeming about it.  The ingredients were sub standard.  The rabbit turd sausage added little flavor and the pepperoni was an after thought.  They had a little dish of pepperoni sitting out on the counter so they can add it to any slice.  I hate that method.  All ingredients need to be added with intent.

Would I Buy It Again?  No, I would rather go see Barry Manilow with my mother. Honestly the worst slice of NY pizza that I have ever had…including Sbarro and mall pizzerias.   Maybe I need to go back at lunch when things are fresh, but there was so much sloppiness here, I would never do it.  Plus, their pizza should be good regardless of what time of the day it is, so I can’t say that I would entertain that excuse.

Also, I can’t say I understand the decor here.  Rotting vegetables right on the edge of the pizza serving station?  DISGUSTING.

To be fair (as if I usually care…), read this entirely different review.   The place looks clean and the food actually looks ok.

-wibia

Shebella’s Pizza & Deli
7035 East 96th Street
Indianapolis, Indiana  46250
http://www.shebellas.com/

For what seemed like an eternity, I had been driving by this place on my way to and from work seeing a Coming Soon sign.  Finally on June 17th, Shebella’s opened for business announcing that they had a daily pizza, pasta and salad buffet in addition to their regular menu.  Within a week after their opening, I was feeling particularly gluttonous, so I decided to give it a shot and what better way than a buffet is there to try out a variety of foods at new restaurant?

Based on my horrid experience at Luca Pizza, I tried to time up this visit around the dinner rush so that I would not have any problems with the buffet not being replenished.  Despite this, Shebella’s still had problems keeping the buffet stocked and the food warm, but I’ll give them a pass on that one since they had only been open a week at the time and they specifically told me that they learned a lot that night and were going to implement changes.

What I Got:  Pizza, Pasta and Salad Buffet $7.99.

I tried as much as I possibly could in order to do a variety of tasting of their sizeable menu, so let’s start with the pizza:

I should have put up a sugar packet as a frame of reference, but these pieces of pizza were cut small like your traditional buffet pizza cuts.  On the buffet, they had the common pizzas like cheese, pepperoni, pepperoni/sausage, supreme pizza, as well as my hated Hawaiian pizza.  Later, they also threw out a dessert pizza consisting of cherry topping and icing  (didn’t try it) and as far as taste was concerned, this wasn’t all that great.  Don’t get me wrong, it was edible enough and the sauce used was tantalizingly sweet, but the crust was spongy/soft and the cheese was just one gelatinous, glue-like mess.  Honestly, this tasted like school cafeteria pizza and that’s not a compliment.

Also on the buffet were multiple kinds of pasta ranging from tri-color rotini to fettucini to macaroni and cheese to cheese ravioli.  To compliment your pastas, they also had meatballs and two kinds of pasta sauces (marinara and alfredo; didn’t try any of the alfredo because I am a marinara junky).

First on my plate was the fettucini topped with marinara sauce and also macaroni and cheese.  Taste wise, it would appear that they used the same sweet marinara sauce as they did for the pizza and I already said that I was a fan of that.  The macaroni and cheese was exceptionally cheesy and gooey, but mostly bland.  If they wanted to make this a little better, they should start using sharper/stronger cheeses.  The meatballs also suffered from the same affliction:  blandness.  They lacked any real flavor other than chewy meat (they were tender).  If they mixed in some extra Italian spices like garlic, basil, etc., they may have winners here because they were sizeable.

Next on the pasta adventure was the stuffed ravioli and yes, more meatballs (I’ve had a meatball craving recently and even though these were bland, I kept eating them).

I will say that the ravioli was the best out of all the pastas that I tried.  It needed to be cooked a little longer so that the cheese would melt a little better, but all in all these were pretty solid tasting.  They were stuffed with ricotta cheese and then baked in the aforementioned sweet marinara sauce.  Like most everything on the buffet, they could have used a little bit more Italian flavoring to give them some kick, but these like I said, not a bad taste at all.  Also, each of these ravioli shells were quite large.

Finally, let’s take a look a the breadsticks and salad bar (they also had two soups available).

The breadsticks were just standard breadsticks although they were dusted with garlic butter and parmesan cheese and I found that to be a good thing as I liked these breadsticks.  I didn’t try any, but they also had nacho cheese sauce available as a dipping sauce for the breadsticks.

As for the salad bar, it was stocked with your general collection of salad toppings, macaroni salads, pasta salads, fruits, puddings, etc.  In terms of selection on the salad bar, I will say that Shebella’s did a good job here because they had just about everything that you would ordinarily want on a salad bar and everything was fresh.  This may seem like somewhat of blasphemy, but I would say that their salad bar was nearly as good as the Ruby Tuesday salad bar (the king of all salad bars).

Would I Buy It Again? Well, if you are asking about the Pizza, Pasta and Salad buffet, I would say no.  Everything here was edible and the price wasn’t too bad, but it wasn’t good enough to make me want it again.

As far as future visits to Shebella’s, I’m still undecided.  I would definitely stay away from the pizza and pasta items on the menu, but since this place is also a deli (not a true deli like Shapiro’s and the like, more like a pre-made sandwich kind of place), I will admit that I’m kind of intrigued by some of the sandwiches on the menu, so I may try one of those in the future.

Still this is a locally owned business with a staff that was obviously trying their best by putting a lot of work and pride into what they were doing, so that alone may be enough to get me to go in and give the sandwiches and this place one more shot.

-IndianapolisEater

To see my previous post of my tour through the San Francisco Bay area, click here.

Sunday was Mother’s Day and I was wanting to go to a solid Indian place as I had my reservations that Indian food in Indianapolis was sub par.  I was partially right.

Amber India
http://www.amber-india.com/

Buffet during the week at Amber is $16, on Mother’s Day it was $30.   $30 was a little pricey for a buffet, but I thought that I would give it a try since I can easily eat $30 of food.

The interior was slightly modern, but still comfortable.  The buffet was a nice size, smaller than Vegas but a lot bigger than Ci Ci’s.   Did I just say Ci Ci’s?!   Ha.   Anyway, here are a couple of shots:

They had smoked salmon and a guy that was making the mini pancakes that are in the center that had green onion and veggies.   I wish that I had more details, but I was extremely hung over and hungry, so I didn’t take many notes.  Sue me.  I feel like I am writing reviews for the IBJ

The butter chicken was liquid gold and I found a few items that I liked more than I thought.   Everything was good at Amber.  I found everything here to be a touch more refined and tastier than Indian buffets in Indiana.

Would I Buy It Again?   Nah. Everything was good, but the next time I go for Indian in SF, I think that I want a more hole in the wall experience.  However, if I worked close to it, I would be really fat.

We then decided to head over the bridge to Berkeley to kick around, etc.  Since we just had a full Indian buffet, we were not that hungry, except you can always find room for tacos and…pizza by the slice!!

Gioia Pizzeria
http://www.gioiapizzeria.com/

Guess what?  They are open on Sundays!   Anyway… (Btw, take note of all the different colors of garbage cans in Berkeley.  I really didn’t know how to throw anything away there….is this compost….who knows?!)

$3.50 a slice and I went with the standard pepperoni and then tried a combo with spicy sausage and spinach.  Both were outstanding.  I liked the larger slices of pepperoni and it had great coverage.   The spicy sausage was heavy-handed with paprika and reminded me more of chorizo than a fennel-y Italian sausage.  Who cares, it was mighty tasty and I cashed out both slices.  Keep in mind that we are eating this forty minutes later than the Amber India pictures above.  Me = eating stud.

Would I Buy It Again?  Sure. Not on my must have list, by a darn good pizzeria when you are in the area.

Beard Poppa’s
http://beardpapasf.com/

So, I needed dessert at this point so I stopped in at Beard Poppa’s.  It was my only chain during the weekend, but it was odd ball enough that I had to try it.  The blue and yellow branding reminded me of IKEA and the minimalist interior extended that thought.   It was interesting because they had the puffs lying around in an open bin and then they pick one out for you and fill it with creme with this huge machine.  I had to giggle thinking about the metaphor here and was this part of their marketing scheme.   Yes, I am inmature.

Would I Buy It Again?  No.  I felt violated and it wasn’t that good.

At this point I was in a food coma and headed back to SF for a nap.   When I woke up, we wanted to try a new SF hotspot:

Flour and Water
http://flourandwater.com/home/

They open at 5:30 and half the restaurant is reservation and the other is first come, first serve.  At 5:05, there was a line of twenty people.  I thought to myself, would this happen in Indy?  Doubt it.  The majority of people just don’t get that excited about food here.  Need proof, we only have 285 people following us on Twitter!   We would be huge out there.   Ha ha.  Back to reviewing…

Home made pasta, thin crust pizza all made by extreme hipsters.  You have to check out their website.

I started off with the above sardine app $11.   Sardines are pretty popular in SF and if you are into salty oily fishes, you might be a bigger fan than you think.  The bad news here is that they left some scales on the fish.  I quickly sent that back and got a new one.   The fennel salad and lemon aioli brightened up the fish, but honestly I didn’t like this.

Next up was (without a picture) Bone Marrow Pizza with fontina, rabe leaves, and horseradish $16.  I love all of those ingredients, but put together on a pizza and it was flat out awful.  It just didn’t work and I couldn’t put my finger on it.  I did like the extra layer of fontina.  It is a great pizza cheese.

The main course was mixed roast pork with roasted asparagus, and morels $24.

The roasted pork consisted of pork belly a pork rib and loin.  This was so salty I almost sent it back…and I like salty food!  I expected the pork belly to be salty, but everything else was as well.  This dish confirmed that they are a jack of all trades, master of none.

Would I Buy It Again?  No, never. One of the worst meals that I have had in SF.  It is amazing they are booked solid for eight weeks straight and a thirty minute line out the door considering the food was so bad.

Overall, a pretty average day for SF food.  I didn’t find anything that I loved and I ended the night on a sour note from Four + Water.

For the next installment, I head to Napa.

-wibia

Apezza
10122 Brooks School Rd
Fishers, IN 46037
http://apezzapizza.com/

A new entrant to the Geist area is Apezza, which is located in the same strip shopping center as Scotty’s Lakehouse.  This place prides itself on its homemade pizzas and says on their website “Our pizza takes a little longer…but it’s sure worth the wait!”  I’m always a little leery of a pizza place that hypes up its gourmet factor, but I was willing to give this place a shot.  Apezza is a delivery and carryout only business, so it has to be approached as such.

What I Got:  Large Meat Lovers Pizza ($18.95) and an order of Garlic Butter Breadsticks ($3.95).

First things first, the menu says that this large pizza can feed four to six people and I will say that is definitely the case if you have a group of “normal” eaters.  We had a group of six heavy eaters and we only needed a small pizza on top of this in order to fill ourselves up, so that gives you a indication of the size.

Taste-wise, this was delicious.  The sauce was fresh and sweet and it was overloaded with meat and that’s always a positive.  The fact that I have to point that out when ordering a meat lovers pizza just shows how careless some other places get with their “meat lovers” pizzas.  The meats included sausage, pepperoni, bacon and ham and all of them seemed fresh too, so that was a positive as well.

Apezza also claims that they use three different cheeses on their pizzas and while I don’t have a sophisticated enough pallet to tell you what those three cheeses are, I could definitely tell that they had more than your typical mozzarella on top of this pizza.  All of the cheeses were melted perfectly and that is another positive, especially when comparing it to other delivery pizzas.  What made this good was that the cheese tasted like real cheese and not some plastic composite because and that’s got to be because it was fresh cheese and not something that was frozen and shipped across the country from a warehouse.

We got a regular crust (thin is also available) and my goodness, it was also perfect.  It was cracker like and crunchy and admittedly, I’m not a big fan of that type of crust but I was a big fan of this crust.  Again, not something that you would get from a typical pizza delivery joint and I think that is what made it so wonderful.  Also, even though this was a regular crust, it was still somewhat thin.  I can only imagine that the thin crust must be super thin!

The breadsticks were also delicious.  They were large, doughy and if you like garlic butter, you’ll love these because they were slathered in it.  The funny thing about these breadsticks was that even tough they were doughy, they weren’t heavy.  They were huge, yet actually kind of light.  That was definitely interesting, but it made them taste all that much better since it didn’t feel like you were eating a big block of bread going all the way down and I can certainly appreciate that.

Would I Buy It Again?  Absolutely yes. It costs a little bit more than your typical delivery pizza (especially with the $10 pizza wars going on) and you’ll probably need a few friends in order to finish it, but the extra cost is definitely worth it because the taste of the pizza and breadsticks more than make up for it.  I’m glad this pizza place has moved into the Geist area because now we not only have a place that is delicious, but we also have someplace else to get our pizza other than Domino’s, Papa John’s, Hot Box, etc.  Thank goodness.

They also swear by their wings, so next time I order from here, I’m definitely going to try to give the wings a shot as well because if the pizza and breadsticks are any indication, I’ve got to believe the wings are going to be pretty good too.

-IndianapolisEater