The Food Snob

Whenever one of my Without Reservations colleagues proposes reviewing a pizza parlor, I try to veto, delay, sabotage or otherwise prevent this from coming to fruition. Pizza is the most subjective of all everyday foods, and our always-contentious group tends to go ballistic debating the merits of pies. Thick vs. thin crust? Veggie vs. meat-laden? Traditional vs. fusion? Lots of cheese? What kind? On and on and on.

Like water torture, the Cheapskate chipped away at my defenses, so I swallowed a Valium and prepared for the battle royal. The décor was a pleasant surprise and the brother/sister duo on duty couldn’t have been nicer. We squabbled over what to order, finally settling on an eclectic combination. We had a Thai pizza - half broccoli and half chicken; a sausage and mushroom, and an Eden pizza with white sauce and loads of onions and peppers. We rounded off our lunch with a platter of cheesy garlic bread and a dessert pizza loaded with cottage cheese and chunks of fruit.

Disclaimer: What follows is my opinion only and does not reflect the views of Without Reservations’ writers, family members or friends; nor the Monitor or anyone else. Just me.

Eden’s crust is good, thin and crispy. The red sauce is marred by too many dried herbs and cheese is ladled on too thick. The Italian sausage was delicious, but there wasn’t enough of it. The Thai pizza was very saucy but quite tasty and carrots were a nice addition. The Eden Pizza is good if you don’t mind blue cheese in your white sauce. The dessert pizza had a heaping helping of cottage cheese - too heaping for me. Finally, the garlic bread should be spread with real butter, not margarine.

With those remarks, I formally retreat, crouch down and wait for the artillery blast that is sure to follow.

The Bachelor

KABOOM!!! Yes, whenever anyone - the Food Snob in particular - speaks in disparaging terms about the greatest gift ever given to mankind - I’m talking about pizza of course - I feel the need … an obligation really … to open up with a volley of verbal Howitzer blasts.

But before I fire at will, I thought you should know that I’ve recently been thinking of opening a pancake shop in my kitchen. Really, it’s the perfect plan. Each morning I’d stumble out of bed in my threadbare pajama pants and vintage Motley Crue T-shirt, wander over to my kitchen and start flippin’ flapjacks for any confused neighbors or errant food reviewers who happen to wander through my kitchen door. Think about it. The commute would be about 8 feet. The overhead costs would be limited to Aunt Jemima and Bisquick. And my neighbor’s 13 cats could lick the dishes clean. Like I said, perfect!

The owners of Eden Pizza are the inspiration for my newfound dream. They own the building (a house really) and live upstairs from their shop. The eating area of Eden Pizza has about as many tables and square footage as my kitchen, so why shouldn’t I follow their example?

Well, for starters they know how to cook (and apparently have some semblance of a work ethic). So that’s where we differ. For example, they demonstrated some genuine culinary creativity with their Thai pizza. Although your precious Bachelor was too overwhelmed by the Thai sauce (whatever that is) to taste much else, I couldn’t help but give them credit for their adventuresome spirit.

The Eden Pizza was almost too pretty to eat. And for the Bachelor to say that about a pizza, you’d think this pie rivaled a Monet. The selection of purple onions and green apple chunks and other brilliantly colored peppers almost seemed to glow on top of the white cheese and sauce. Although I typically have an aversion to blue cheese (you know it tastes like vomit!), I snarfed down four or five slices with greedy abandon. My only issue was that those slices were a wee bit soggy and limped sadly in my hand when I tried to steer them into my mouth.

All in all, you can’t beat Eden Pizza for a cozy, homey atmosphere. And if you see one of the owners dash upstairs for a quick nap, know that you are not alone as you seethe with envy.

The Chowhound

I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter!® Dang, it’s only now that I come up with the perfect retort for the Food Snob when she began criticizing the garlic bread for using some fake butter spread. Seriously though, it tasted good to me, and I can’t help but think that our snobby counterpart was being just that, snobby.

I also can’t believe that up until this point no one has mentioned the delicious Rice Crispy treat that we shared before the garlic bread. It may not have been as gooey-good as the kind Mom made for my 14th birthday at the roller-skating rink, but it was pretty tasty. And while I prefer most of my treats to be sans-chocolate, the addition of M&Ms was a nice surprise.

Of the different Eden varieties, I was most impressed with the Thai pizza, which had a perfectly cooked crust and a nice slathering of tangy Thai sauce. I was delighted to find Snobby focusing on the sausage pizza and the Bachelor on the Eden pizza; this meant the Thai leftovers were all mine.

But before we were done, our dessert pizza came. This time I had a flashback to an even earlier childhood memory, the time Dad served canned peaches topped with loads of chunky cottage cheese. I nearly gagged on the first bite and after making a huge fuss I was told to eat it or go to bed hungry. Well, Eden’s apple and cottage cheese pizza didn’t evoke the gag reflex, but I’m still a bit scared of the fruit and cheese combo. So I took my “no-thank you” bite and instead of making a huge fuss I politely said I was full.

The next day at work I put my Thai leftovers to the true test: I popped it in the microwave for 45 seconds and ate it for lunch. It passed with flying colors.

The Cheapskate

I can’t tell you how delighted I am to have Eden Pizza open up in my own backyard. Having practically shared a phone number (different only by 1 digit) for eight years, first with their predecessor Cheney’s Midway Pizza and now with the delightfully fresh and homey Eden Pizza, I feel a certain sense of ownership, and I couldn’t be happier. Mr. Cheapskate and I have enjoyed several takeout pizzas and look forward to many more over the course of the cold winter, when having a steamy hot pizzeria within two blocks of home is a great stroke of fortune.

Pay no attention to the Snob and her issues—just follow along with the Bachelor, the Chow Hound, and the Cheapskate. And by all means let the good people at Eden Pizza know what you like and how you like it, so they can do more of it. They are full of goodwill and energy and youth, and you are bound to catch some of that with every disc of cheesy, saucy goodness.

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