Back to Vinny's

With, I don't know, 200+ pizzerias around Rochester, and new ones opening all the time, it's often a long while before I get back to some of the places I love.
One such is Vinny's Bakery & Deli in Fairport, which I last visited in January 2012. Over a year is too long not to return to Vinny's, which turns out great pizzas in both Sicilian and American styles.
I do love Vinny's Sicilian pizza, but on this occasion, I was just after a plain old pepperoni pizza for dinner. 
And that's what I got - a simple pepperoni pizza, and yet as I was sharing it with my wife and daughter, it struck me that as ordinary as this pizza seemed on the surface, it was really very, very good, in subtle ways.
What I mean is that this was just fundamentally good pizza, prepared in a straightforward American style. It all starts with the crust, and I did enjoy this crust. It was bready and flavorful, with a slightly crusty bottom. Unfortunately my camera's flash tends to wash out the undersides of pizza slices, so the picture doesn't do it justice, but the bottom surface of this pie was dotted with char spots from the oven deck. It had a slight surface "bite" but was pliable, with a nice, weblike interior from the risen dough.
The crust was on the thin side of medium thick, and was proportionately topped with a flavorful tomato sauce and aged mozzarella cheese. The pepperoni was just slightly crisp along the edges.
All of that sounds so ordinary. So why was this a great pizza?
Well, this pizza showed me that a pizza can be more than the sum of its parts. At its most elemental level, yes, it was a basic American style pizza. But it almost perfectly embodied that style. I couldn't find a fault with this pie. The crust was good, the sauce, the cheese, the pepperoni - it was kind of the pizza equivalent of a world-class pianist tossing off Beethoven's "Für Elise," which is famous but relatively easy to play. Impressive? Not really. But flawless? Absolutely.
So while Vinny's Sicilian pizza remains its forte, by no means should you overlook their "regular" American-style pizza. And of course there's the potato pizza that I've reported on before. For that matter, I should mention that Vinny's also offers stuffed breads, arancini (fried rice balls), and homemade panelli wraps, as well as all the other treats you'd expect from a good Italian deli and bakery, from bread to subs, soups and sweet treats like cannoli, biscotti and cookies. It's a local treasure, and its only drawback, from my perspective, is that it's not closer to my home or office.
Vinny's Italian American Bakery & Deli, 1350 Fairport Road, Fairport
585-377-4200
Open daily 8 a.m. - 8 p.m.

The Coach, Webster

As I continue to make the rounds of places that aren't pizzerias but that sell pizza, I stopped not long ago at The Coach in Webster. As you might suspect from the name, it's a sports bar, and it's a fixture in Webster - it's operated as The Coach since 1991, but it can trace its roots back to 1812, as you can read about here.
Unless they specialize in pizza or I have some other reason to think otherwise beforehand, I'm never expecting much when I order pizza at a bar or restaurant. Too often you get something that looks as if it came from the warming tray at your local convenience store.
But I was pleasantly surprised by my personal-size pizza that I got at The Coach. I'm not saying that it blew me away or anything, but it was pretty decent pizza.
That's partly because they make their own dough here, so this isn't just some premade pizza shell with some toppings thrown on. And the crust was in fact pretty good. It was thin, overall, although a little uneven in thickness. The underside was a deep shade of golden brown, with some floury areas, and some surface crackling, which is a good sign. It had a fresh-bread aroma and appeared to have good gluten development inside. On the downside, it was a little unevenly baked, with some very dark areas along the edge in spots, but much lighter in others. And it didn't quite have the crustiness of the very best pizzas I've tried - the kind of exterior crispness that you find with a great loaf of hearth-baked bread. All in all, though, this wasn't bad at all.

The crust was topped with a thin coat of orange-red sauce, which had a mild, middle-of-the-road flavor. Above that was a relatively heavy layer of well melted, gloppy cheese covering the pie, except for one big bubbled-up area. I photographed the pizza while the pie was still hot, and the cheese naturally did tighten up a bit as it cooled. The pepperoni was pretty good, a little crisp along the edges, but a bit unevenly applied.
The Coach offers pizzas in two sizes, with your choice of red sauce or garlic white pizza, as well as ten toppings to choose from. And the menu includes all the bar-food staples like wings (8 sauces), burgers, hot sandwiches, and plenty of fried sides.
I'm giving this pizza a C, which might not sound all that great, but it's not meant as a putdown. There was plenty to like about it, but it was a bit generic, and it had some imperfections too (a little heavy on the cheese and a little light on the sauce; a little uneven in thickness, the doneness of the underside, and the distribution of the pepperoni). Nothing major, mind you, but when I tally up the mental score, I'd say this was, for this area, an average pizza. Quite acceptable, though, and definitely worth ordering if you go and you're in the mood for pizza.
The Coach Sports Bar, 19 West Main St., Webster
872-2910

Mon - Sat: 10:30 am - 2:00 am
Sun: 12:00 pm - 10:00 pm

New Pizzeria Report: Hoagies, Scottsville Road

Not a full-blown review here, just a quick report. There's a new pizzeria/deli on Scottsville Road, just north of Jefferson Road (252), Hoagies. It opened around the beginning of this month, so while I did wnnt to check it out, I think it's too early to do a full review.

I got two slices of pepperoni from a pie that had just emerged from the oven. The crust was quite thin, even along the outer edge. It was pale underneath, with some flour visible.
The slices were saucy, with a good tomatoey flavor, and a few scattered dried herbs. On top was a proportionate layer of well-melted, stringy mozzarella and a few slices of thin, chewy pepperoni. The overall flavor was good, and the components were well balanced.
I could see, during my few minutes there, that the staff and management were still working on getting everything right. Not that anything went wrong, but their communication showed that they were learning how to work together and how to get things right. And everybody seemed to be united in that goal.
Hoagies is a fairly small place, and they offer a basic but complete menu of pizza, subs, wings, grilled items, hot dogs, salads and sides. As of now, they have four specialty pizzas on the menu, including "Mama D's Favorite," which comes with anchovies, onions, mushrooms, olive oil, garlic and parsley. I hope the mushrooms aren't an integral part of that pie, because apart from them, that sounds very intriguing.
I'll certainly stop back at Hoagies at some point, and do a more comprehensive review, but for now I wanted to give readers a heads-up that it's there, and a rough idea of what the pizza is like. It's worth a stop if you're in the area. Long-term, it's got some competition - there's a Salvatore's and Sylvio's just down the road - but if they can turn out consistently good pizza, subs and wings, there's no reason they can't succeed, and here's hoping they do.
Hoagies, 1615 Scottsville Road
436-SUBS (7827)
Mon. - Thu. 10 a.m. - 7 p.m., Fri. & Sat. 10 a.m. - 8 p.m.