Featured Pizza Place

Mario’s Pizzeria and Ristorante Albuquerque New Mexico

My daughter and I arrived at Mario’s around 7:30, late enough to avoid what is usually a busy dinner time there, even on weekdays.  Mario’s is more than a pizza place.  They have an extensive selection of pastas, sandwiches, beers and wines and desserts as well as the pizza I came to sample.

We ordered, after a bit of a wait, a 15″ pizza, supposedly in the NY style, half cheese, half pepperoni and mushrooms.  The atmosphere of the room was casual, as was the service.  The pizza arrived and it’s appearance had me anticipating it to be a quality pie.  The sauce and cheese were pushed close to the edge, leaving most of the crust at about an inch or so, to my satisfaction.  I prefer much of  the crust be accompanied with cheese and sauce.  The toppings on the pepperoni/mushroom side were generous and thinly sliced, also to my taste for those particular ingredients.  My daughter started right away on the cheese side, and I grabbed a slice of each.  The crust was not at all thick, but I could not say it was thin.  There was a lighter shade of gold to the bottom, and the crust above just a thin layer was softer and chewier.  It was firm, but too soft and doughy for this style.  Maybe if it had been cooked a little bit longer the crust could have been much better.

The first bite was a mild disappointment, as there was a sprinkle of oregano in the middle of the pie.  Had oregano topped the entire pizza it would have ruined it for me, but the first bite of each slice wasn’t too much.  The cheese was obviously of a higher quality, and was not thick but still generous.  The sauce was subtle and lighter and did not suffer from the unfortunate spicy quality many pizzas in Albuquerque posses.  It was on the order of a light red and more like a traditional marinara.  After a few slices, it was the sauce I was enjoying the most.  It didn’t taste like they put in dry herbs into the sauce at some later stage as most places do.  Whatever spices inside were cooked, excepting said oregano sprinkle.  My daughter is not picky, but tends to eat less when the quality is less, and her eating as much as she did was another good measure of the taste.  Overall, the pizza was not in any substantial way deficient, and was above average, but not by much.  Mario’s Pizza in Albuquerque gets 5 out of 8 slices.  This experience will have me coming back, but perhaps not for a while.

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