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| - Benny Fierro's is a chain of pizza shops from Virginia who has recently opened up a location on the bad pizza gauntlet known as East Carson Street. You probably won't recognize the name Benny Fierro's because each location that they open is given its own specific generic Italian mobster last name. This place is definitely new and it shows..I tried to call in an order but "the ringer was broken". When you walk in the door you are greeted by a really hilarious mixture of bad art motifs...on one side there is a huge mural or what if I can remember correctly was some kind of crazy animal, I an not sure if the mural is unfinished or just bad. On the other wall they seem to be going with the random antique/tin sign on the wall motif...the cross country skis and canoe must be on back order.
When browsing the menu at Benny Hoffa's a certain question comes to mind which is "where is the menu?" There is no menu because Benny only offers pizza...which only comes in one size...which is comically over-sized....cut in 8.....which costs 30 dollars for a cheese pie. Unfortunately this is a gimmick pizza shop, which is a shame because the pizza is actually pretty close to being good were it not so terribly inconvenient.
The pizzas at Benny Bagadonuts are made in a brick deck oven but unfortunately they use screens underneath them while cooking so the dough ends up a bit raw in spots underneath the sauce. The middle of the pies are so paper thin that the dough can't really hold the toppings so you end up pretty much being forced to eat the pizza with a fork and knife or to fold it in half. At about halfway up the slice the dough starts to even out to an appropriate amount. The crust of the pies are super thick and puffy and almost hard to eat...I almost didn't eat the crust, which is usually one of my favorite parts of a pizza. The cheese distribution on the pie would be perfect if the middle wasn't as thin, the cheese was evenly distributed and pulled all the way to the edge of the crust. The sauce was somewhat ample and distributed pretty well across the pie as well. The pizza could have been cooked a bit longer and was still pretty soft on the bottom. If they didn't insist on having such a puffy crust than they could flatten it a bit and actually have a bottom thick enough to support everything.
One thing that stands out about the pizza here is the dough, which I think has a lot more fat in it than most Pittsburgh shops. Benny Buttafuoco's dough has a nice bready fatty salty taste to it which helps it achieve some sort of crunch despite being made on screens. I'm not sure if they are using shortening, butter, lard or what but it definitely is a lot more rich than the dough found in most shops around here. The dough has a somewhat medium density, not too dense but definitely lacking the fermentation to make it nice and bubbly. I would be super curious to try their dough cooked directly on the brick but I can't imagine anyone that works there being able to slide a pie that large off of a peel (or a peel that big even existing). In general the dough has a great taste with a mediocre consistency.
I think Benny is using mostly mozzarella cheese although it almost tastes like there is a hint of muenster in there too. The cheese is high quality and melts well without charring.
Benny Mascarpone's sauce is fine. They are using decent tomatoes and the consistency is a medium thickness which is pretty desirable for me. The taste is slightly one dimensional...and the dimension is garlic. It's not an offensive amount of garlic I just wish that I could taste the tomatoes more. There seems to be some herbs in there too but the garlic is taking over.
In general this pizza is still pretty good by the standards of this city and I will probably continue to eat a slice here once in a while but overall the pizza is not good enough to justify its own ridiculousness. Pizza is supposed to be easy, convenient and cheap...you aren't supposed to have to tilt it to fit it in your front door, somewhere along the way Benny Lemonjello forgot that. This place is a fun gimmick for drunk people who want to marvel over an excessively large slice of pizza. The menu would make it seem they have no interest in selling pizzas to families or businesses, only to drunks. If they would take the same ingredients and offer an 18' pie it would taste much much better than the pie they make now because it would be made better and would cook the whole way. E. Carson Street has seen shops with better pizza than this close (pizza sola for example) so if Benny Piscopo wants to make it in this city he is going to have to step his game up.
Overall Rating: 6.5 out of 10
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