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| - After 5 hours of walking and shopping at the LV Premium Outlets, we worked up a big appetite. On the drive home it was decided that tacos and guacamole from Chipotle could be a quick & easy dinner, but as we passed by the newly opened (1 month ago?) Grimaldi's in Boca Park, we made a last-minute decision to give their pizza a spin.
We order a small house salad ($5) and it is large enough to feed 3-4 people, so the two of us have plenty of green to eat. The house vinaigrette is not very vinegary, but the tomatoes and mushrooms are fresh and the whole green olives are good quality. We order a large, traditional Grimaldi's pizza with onions, garlic and jalapeños ($15 + $2 per topping = $21). As we wait for our pizza, a quick survey of the pizzas on other customers' tables make me a little nervous that the coal-brick-oven at Grimaldi's is over-baking their crust. Every pizza I see in the restaurant has dark-brown/black burnt crust edges. (Thinking that it will take a really resilient dough recipe to withstand that level of scorching, I will be very impressed if their crust is actually chewy/crispy!)
Our pizza shows up. The cheese looks great - it has that stark white color of good Buffalo mozzarella. Bonus fresh basil in the middle of the pizza! No visible grease puddles on or under pizza! Overall the topping quantity isn't terribly generous, but compared to Settebello's 'authentic' (i.e. totally skimpy) pizza topping distribution, I find no reason to complain. With the first bite of any thin crust pizza, I pray to the pizza gods that the crust will be perfectly 50% crispy and 50% chewy. Unfortunately, Grimaldi's crust is 80% crispy and 20% chewy, and by the time the pizza is half eaten (4 slices left) it stales and becomes 100% crispy, much like the crust texture of a Tombstone frozen pizza. How did this happen?!
The edge of the crust is unacceptably crunchy and flavorless (and burnt!) and the second half of the pizza left me wondering what went wrong with this pizza - how does a pizza crust take a total turn for the worse after only 10 minutes into a meal? We could have easily left 2 pieces for a togo box for next-day's lunch, but found ourselves in a better-eat-it-now-because-it-will-get-stale situation as the crust was already surprisingly stiff. I actually heard the crust *snap* all way down the middle when folding the last slice!
My favorite pizza experiences in North America have included a few special pies at Lou Malnati's (Chicago), Pizzeria Bianco (Phoenix), John's Pizzeria (NYC), Frank Pepe's (New Haven) and Pizzeria Rustica (Miami). In Vegas I have had good luck at Metro Pizza and at Rocco's NY Pizzeria, and the pear/gorgonzola/arugula/proscuitto pizza at the Sammy's location on Sahara is a consistently tasty choice. With respect to Grimaldi's, I could say "maybe we got a bad pie" but judging from the dozen other over-baked pizzas I saw on customers' tables, I think a baking-time or yeast adjustment could really help - the flavor is all there - the crust just needs a little chewy tweaking! Service is friendly and very attentive. Apparently, the cheesecake at Grimaldi's is homemade and as good as NYC Stage Deli's...
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