Brickside’s small shop makes a big splash
When The Day’s sister publications at Shore Publishing in Madison revealed the winners of its inaugural Best of the Shoreline Awards, I discovered a huge lapse in my extensive pizza coverage of the region. There, listed as the firstplace winner in the pizza category, was Brickside Pizza in Ivoryton, a small shop less than five miles from my abode. We’ve literally been to every other restaurant in the vicinity — on the Ivoryton Green and across the street from the beautiful Ivoryton Playhouse — and yet, we’d neglected to sample the goods at Brickside.
We’ve since completed two tasting missions at Brickside, and here’s one thing that I love about the place: The menu is pretty much entirely pizza. No dithering with apps and salads and cheese fries — you get a choice of about 20 types of pizza or you can build you own calzone or stuffed bread. The only other item is the equally carbtastic Garlic Parm Bread ($5), which, despite the plethora of great options on the pizza menu, we recommend. For $5, you get a hearty portion of crispy, puffy, parm-, garlic-, and herb-covered bread with a light coating of olive oil to lock it all in. The side of house-made sauce knocked our socks off almost as much as the tasty bread. It tasted of excellent tomatoes and sunshine. That’s it. One could easily make a meal out of the parm bread and be quite content.
We’re pros, so we saved half of the parm bread for the next day (and it held up beautifully) to save room for our first pizza sampling: one Mashed Potato pizza ($15 for a small; $20 for a large; smalls are 12 inches and larges are 16 inches) and one Sunday Dinner pizza ($15, small; $20, large). You’ll be shocked to hear that the mister and I have tasted our share of mashed potato pizzas. For us, BAR in New Haven makes the one to beat, but I’m hereby placing Brickside’s in a close second place. What sets Brickside’s apart is the addition of smoked Gouda cheese to the usual mix of potato, mozzarella cheese, garlic and spices (Brickside Cuisine: Atmosphere: Service: Prices: MARISA NADOLNY adds Pecorino Romano, too). Typically, mashed potato pies come with bacon sprinkled throughout, but the gouda accomplishes the same savory, earthy task as bacon but with less grease and salt and more smooth consistency.
We liked the Sunday Dinner pizza well enough, although it fell a little short of (high) expectations. Check out the ingredients: Home-made tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, homemade meatballs, ricotta, garlic, Pecorino Romano and olive oil. Ricotta and meatballs? Yum! And yes, indeed, the medley of toppings blended well to create a great tradeoff of texture and flavor balance. We just expected a little more … something. Maybe more spice kick to the meatballs? More gooey mozz? Less creamy ricotta? We’re not sure, and we could be wrong. Regardless, the quality of the ingredients was spot-on, and the crust hit that perfect soft-interior-to lightly-crisp-exterior ratio perfectly.
Come round two, we labored to pick a few more pies that, to us, represented the impressive variety of specialty pizzas available. It’s a wide swath of creative and curious options, but I settled on a Chicken Bacon Ranch pizza ($15, small; $20, large) and a pesto-tomato-mozzarella pizza off the build-your-own menu ($12 for a small red-sauce and mozzarella pizza, plus $1.50 for each topping).
Do not balk at what sounds more like a tasty wrap than a pizza, because you will miss out on a really great creation. Observe the ingredients: Cheddar Jack cheese, balsamic marinated chicken, bacon, fresh tomato, Ranch drizzle, Pecorino Romano and olive oil. And not only is the chicken brightened by balsamic dressing, it’s also pulled and piled throughout the surface of the pizza in a most palatable fashion. The Ranch drizzle might seem an intruder on a pizza, but when applied by an expert, it complements the bacon and tomato beneath beautifully. Try. This. Pizza.
The pesto pie did not disappoint, thanks in part to a very good pesto sauce that was applied generously. I don’t know about you, but I love when cheese, pesto, and tomato essence merge together to create