I’m a Philly guy, which among other things means I grew up around a lot of spectacular pizza.
I took pizza for granted until I left for college in Washington, D.C., and encountered pizza as casserole, pizza
as poofy-bread-and-cheese-disc, pizza as wedge-of-insipid-sauce.
Since then I’ve lived all over the place, and I’ve tried a lot of pies. Albuquerque and Minneapolis probably are tied for the worst. Denver beats them, but it’s no Baltimore or South Florida (neither of which approaches Philadelphia).
New Yorkers, naturally, will scoff at Philadelphia pizza. And certain Nutmeggers (people from Connecticut) seem to think they are above it all with their clammy pies.
I’ll stick with the stuff of my youth, which brought me to Boulder, where at O! Pizza a guy from Philadelphia is stretching the pies thin, glazing them with savory sauce, and sprinkling them (and not mounding them) with cheese. And it being Boulder, much of it is organic, too.
He’s also using the all-important rolls from Amoroso’s Baking Co. in Philadelphia for his meatball subs and his sausage sandwiches, his hoagies and his hot-roast-beef subs.
He’s doing the right thing.
We recently bought several different pies, a stromboli, a meatball sub, a veggie hoagie, and had a picnic.
Of the bunch, the only thing I’d skip next time was the veggie hoagie. It was a leaden tangle of cheese and vegetables.
First, the pizzas.
Thin, of course. Charred on the bottom. A slick of sauce that balanced sweet and tomato-acid, a lacework of cheese.
Nice.
Were the place in my suburban hometown, it wouldn’t stand out, but most “standouts” where I grew up drew attention to themselves for their poverty, not their wealth, of pizza goodness. Most pizza, it seemed, was a variation on a theme of excellence.
Which is how I’d rate O! Pizza.
The meat-lovers combo came spangled with Italian sausage, meatballs, pepperoni and salami. The pepperoni stromboli, which is sort of like a pizza pie folded in half and baked, transported me to the food of my adolescence. The white pizza – mozzarella, garlic, olive oil, spinach, Roma tomatoes – was hoardable. The kids inhaled the basic cheese pizza, and they loved the meatball sub, too, a sandwich I highly recommend. They know what they’re doing with meatballs at O! Pizza.
It’s not the coziest space in the world – definitely no place to hang out for a big celebration – but that’s beside the point in many great pizza joints.
We’ll be having another O! Pizza picnic, although next time I’m trying the hot roast beef sandwich, another staple of a certain slice of Philly.
Staff Writer Douglas Brown can be reached at 303-954-1395 or djbrown@denverpost.com.
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O! Pizza
Italian|3980 Broadway, Boulder 303-444-9100|$$3.95-$14.95|Monday-Saturday 11 a.m.-9 p.m., Sunday noon-7 p.m.; Visa, MC; parking.
Front burner: Great renditions of Philadelphia pizza, meatball subs, strombolis and more. Much of it is organic.
Back burner: Veggie hoagie was poor and ambience isn’t for hanging out.
