There's no such thing as BAD PIZZA. Really?

We went to dinner last night at a pizza place here on Nantucket. My son and daughter-in-law are visiting and they had experienced the Choudah and Lobstah scene and were in the mood for a good old italian-american PIE. We drove to the restaurant and saw people waiting outside. We gave the host our name, got a couple of glasses of wine, served in what looked like a grapefruit-juice glass, and sat at the aluminum lawn-furniture table outside. It was a cool and bug-less night and we did not mind the hour wait anticipating a lovely dining experience. When we were finally ushered in, we sat at a corner table that was in the process of being ceremoniously cleaned with what seemed like the dishrag they bought when they opened the restaurant years ago. A waitress came to the table anxious to ply us with drinks or sparkling bottled water, but we declined and opted for tap water since we had a bottle of wine before we left our house and drinks while waiting at the outside table. She could not hide her disappointment. We asked if they had bread and she said "Yes we have garlic bread." We asked her to bring us some and we ordered Chicken Parmesan with a side of SPAGHETTI and a large onion and green pepper pizza with extra cheese. We might have ordered more but it was already quite late. Traditionally, it is during this hiatus between ordering at 10 pm and the actual serving of the food that restaurants bring people who have not eaten anything for 8 hours "the bread." None arrived.

A while later she brought the "dwarf" chicken parmesan in a small plate with a side of PENNE. We divided the meal into what was basically 1 bite of chicken and 6 noodles each. Sometime during the mastication process, a pizza arrived. It had no evidence of anything but a crust and melted cheese. We asked her what kind of pizza that was and she said "Plain Cheese." We reminded her of our order and she said "Oh." and disappeared for another long while, still no bread, and eventually returned with what looked like the same pizza with almost no peppers and onions in it. We waited the appropriate time so we would not burn the roof of our mouths. My daughter -in-law, who is a professional foodie tried to separate the slices. It was immediately apparent that they must use the kind of cheese that never hardens and onion and garlic powder as there was no evidence of vegetation anywhere in this pie. The cheese slid off the uncooked crust into a small pile on the tray. Subsequent slices, regardless of time elapsed did the same. And once the liquid cheese slid off, the crust glared at us saying "cook me."

As is customary, employees of the restaurant came by the table and asked "How is everything?" to which my son said..."Not so good." and recited a litany of deficiencies that included the no bread, the wrong pasta, the wrong pizza, the cheese avalanche fondue-like pizza with no evidence of either onion or peppers, and so on. The manager then came by. He asked us which pizza we ordered and we revealed that we had the audacity to ask for extra cheese and he said "Ah Ha!" that's what happened. The extra cheese kept the crust from baking and made the vegetables disappear, the cheese never congealed and it is basically a fondue on a raw crust because we ordered extra cheese, so there...it's your fault. To which I replied that I was 66 years old, had travelled the world, eat pizza an average of once per week (66 years x 52 is a lot of pizza) and that this is not my first pizza-rodeo. And politely implied "Are you F'ing kidding me?" He offered to "buy" my pizza (which I guess means "comp") and asked if he could bring us some salad as a peace offering. Not wanting to try the salad which could have been grass clippings based upon the pizza-experience, we declined.

So that old saying, "there's no such thing as bad pizza or bad sex." I must comment....We went there for pizza and got F'd. I wasn't going to Blog about the pizzaster of last night but the experience was just too "memorable" not to share.