Jeff Edelstein: Welcome to the Trenton Tomato Pie pizza crawl
Once again, Dave Portnoy - the Barstool Sports guy has influenced the pizza world in Mercer County. If you remember, Portnoy - who has a side gig in the company he founded as the nation’s top pizza reviewer (seriously) - visited both DeLorenzo’s Tomato Pies and Papa’s last year and gave both places some of the best scores he’s ever bestowed upon a pizza joint.
As a result, Portnoy immediately endeared himself to every Mercer County resident and expatriate, no matter what your opinion of the guy was beforehand. I mean, when an outsider comes in and realizes what a special thing we’ve got here, pizza-wise, well … they immediately become honorary members of the Mercer Tribe. (Of course, you come in here as an outsider, go to DeLo’s and say, “Ehhk, why is it burnt?” there’s a good chance I’ll never forgive you for as long as I live, Dad.)
Anyway, because of Portnoy, I think Brian O’Reilly, a Lawrence resident, has invented/stumbled upon the ultimate idea: The Mercer County Tomato Pie Tour, which is not trademarked yet, but get on it, O’Reilly.
“The plan was hatched at the Lawrence American Legion,” O’Reilly said. “We were watching the Eagles-Seattle playoff game, there were 10 or so of us there. The legion does their own tomato pies, and we got to talking about the best tomato pies, and of course Portnoy comes up, and we started arguing about which place was better, we all had opinions, and then we decided to put it all together and have a contest. To make it a pizza crawl.”
And that’s exactly what happened a few weeks back. O’Reilly - along with 23 other tomato pieloving souls - spent the day hitting a quintet of what they decided are the Mount Rushmore +1 of Mercer tomato pies: DeLorenzo’s Tomato Pies, Papa’s, Conte’s, Jojo’s, and Wildflowers. They started at noon, and went all day.
“All the wives were on board, and a lot of them ended up being the drivers so we could drink beers freely,” O’Reilly noted. “They were kind enough to tote us around. We started at Jojo’s at 12:15, then Papa’s at 2. We got to DeLorenzo’s before they opened so we could get a table - have you ever been there on a Saturday before they open? - there must’ve been 35 people ahead of us waiting. So we tailgated before we got in. After that, we went to Conte’s, but there was a long wait there also. Pete Carrill, the former Princeton basketball coach, was there. He also wasn’t seated. I mean, if Carrill had to wait, then of course we were going to have to. We finished up at Wildflowers.”
Two things: One, awesome. Just awesome. And two: Why didn’t I think of this first? There were scorecards involved, a deep dive into which place served the best tomato pie …
“We rated the sauce, crust, cheese, and service, and then gave a Portnoy-style 1-10 rating on each place,” O’Reilly said.
And the winner … “DeLorenzo’s came in first,” O’Reilly said.
He then told me the order of the rest. I’m tempted to print them here but … maybe we’ll leave a little mystery on the table.
O’Reilly did say all the places were thrilled to have them, thrilled to know what they were doing. He also noted the staff at DeLorenzo’s and Papa’s were both … well, “not surprised” might be the term.
“One of the waiters said both places are even busier than before because of those Portnoy reviews,” he said. “But I understand. It’s a civic pride we have in the tomato pie, and it’s also good to know when someone who’s never tried it before likes it.”
O’Reilly said he and his crew aren’t done. More pizza crawls will probably happen in the future, but right now, the gang seems to be arguing a lot about Buffalo wings …