Tavanello and Sons: It's Good To Have Choices

As much as I love Marie's Pizza located in my hometown of Wadsworth, Ohio, there is a lesser known pizza purveyor that I feel I should give a chance. It's on the extreme west side of town out by SkyPark and most of us "townies" don't really even know about it. The only reason I knew about it is that a good high school friend of mine lived out in that area and he would get it on a regular basis. It just so happened that I was in town and out driving around thinking about my dinner options (because it was SUCH a gorgeous day) when I decided that I would stop in and order a pie.

Tavanello and Sons is located at 2985 Greenwich Road in Wadsworth, OH and can be reached at 330-336-6581.


Having never been inside the store before, the only thing I knew about it was that this was a take-out place; there are no tables inside. That was okay with me though because there is a park not five minutes away where I could sit out in the sun at a picnic table and enjoy my dinner.

The place is quite quaint and I discovered upon walking in that the pizzeria shares the interior space with a very small general store. They have DVD rentals in the rear of the store and a refrigerated case where you could pick up beer and bottled water and soda. The right side of the store was where the kitchen was. It always fascinates me to walk into a place and order a pizza (as opposed to calling it in) because then you get to see the entire process from start to finish. This isn't fancy pizza. What this is, however, is pizza made by people who care. I could tell that the couple (Mr. and Mrs. Tavanello, I believe) taking orders, making the pies, and ringing up customers were there because they love what they do and take pride in what they do.

The menu is pretty simple: pizzas, calzones, and subs. They have some other sides, like garlic bread, etc., but the majority of the menu is about how to combine dough, sauce, meat, and cheese.

All the dough and the sauce are made from scratch. Tavanello's has a pizza oven with two columns of doors. On this particular Friday night, only the left side had been heated up. In the back corner was the industrial stand mixer for the dough and next to that the sheeter, used to initially flatten out the balls of dough before being finished by hand. Toppings are fairly standard, but I did notice that they offered meatballs as a topping (a nod to my good friend Nancy). Unfortunately, when I asked about the meatball option, they were all out.

Once the pie had been sauced, cheesed, and topped with your choice of toppings (mine was pepperoni), into the oven it went. No timers were set. No alarms ever went off. Mr. Tavanello knew by how brown the crust was and how caramelized the cheese was exactly how much time each pie had left in the oven. Once the dough had set in the pizza pan, the pie was removed from the pan and finished directly on the floor of the oven. This ensured a nice golden brown crust. It probably took about fifteen minutes from the time I ordered to the time I paid for my pie and left.

Right before cutting and boxing up my pie, it was brushed with garlic butter, just to "guild the lily" a little bit.

Here's what I brought out to my car (this is a large, they also have extra-large):


And a shot of the pizza in the box:


I was going to try and actually eat a piece before I even got into the car, but the Molten Cheese Conundrum came into play: The fresher the pie, the more likely the cheese will completely slide off if you try and pick up a piece. I quickly realized that a 3-5 minute ride in the car to the park would do the cheese a world of good. And it did.

Once I got to the park, however, all bets were off. A closer shot of the uneaten portion of my pizza:


Now let's talk about taste. If you like thicker crust pizza, this was an excellent example. The crust was nice and toasty from the oven, wonderfully chewy, and cooked completely through. The crust had a nice flavor, most likely from the garlic butter that was brushed on right at the end, but it wasn't overpowering. The homemade pizza sauce was quite good and seasoning was spot on. In terms of a quality sauce, I'd put it right up there with Marie's sauce. I immediately got the taste of the richness from the tomatoes, a strong oregano/marjoram essence, and just a hint of garlic. Honestly, my first thought when I tasted the sauce was the herb being used was marjoram, but that would be such an unusual ingredient for a place like this to use. And since marjoram and oregano have similar flavor profiles, I'm willing to bet it is probably the latter. Next time I go, I'll find out for sure.

The cheese was plentiful and had a nice rich flavor to it. The pepperoni was nice, but the only criticism I could levy was that I wish it came with just a bit more of the topping. I suppose that's what double-toppings are for, right?

My large one topping came to $9 and had 8 slices, so it really only cost about $1.13 per slice, which is pretty economical. Two hungry adults could definitely finish off one of these guys. Next time I go back, I'll have to verify the answers to some of the questions I posed in this blog entry with the owners and try a pizza topped with meatballs instead of pepperoni.

If you happen to be in the Wadsworth area and are in the mood for a local pizza you can enjoy out in the fresh air at the park, definitely check out Tavanello and Sons.

Skin Is In

For lunch today I decided to go to a little diner-esque type restaurant that I started frequenting every now and again since I have been working in Canton. Nicole's is a cute little place, with the daily specials on the wall, the pies safely tucked behind the glass case. The restaurant is located on Rt. 30, east of downtown and has a storefront that looks like this:


Normally, I have the double cheeseburger. While their burger is exceptionally juicy and good, today I decided to go with another menu item that has been calling out to me lately, fried chicken. Well, technically it is broasted chicken. I decided to go with the two breast/two wing combo, which included dinner rolls and two sides. I choose the mash potatoes and gravy and the vegetable of the day, green beans.


The dinner rolls were your standard fare, although it was nice that they came out warmed (and the butter cups softened). Nothing noteworthy flavor-wise, but not out of place in a restaurant like this.

My lunch took a while longer to prepare than normal, but it was well worth the wait.


I could tell that the mashed potatoes were homemade because there was the occasional lump (which I actually like). The gravy was just a bit too thick and gloppy. The green beans were canned, reheated and held for service. To be honest, the thing that struck me about the meal overall was its lack of salt. I don't know if this was intentional or not. The only thing that was seasoned properly, if not a little too aggressively was the gravy. Which, when eaten together with the potatoes, "fixed" the potatoes.

Now, on to the star of the plate, the chicken. It was hot. It was juicy. The fried chicken skin was a total revelation. So many times the skin just isn't done right and it's far more preferable to simply discard it. Today is one of the few times that I not only ate all of the chicken skin that was on my plate, but actually thought it would be great if there was more for me to eat. The only problem with the chicken was that it, too, was underseasoned.

Here is a shot of one of the chicken breasts after pulling some of the meat off the bone.


As I got up to leave, the lunch rush had pretty much come and gone, so I had a chance to chat with the cook. I had presumed that broasting was simply pressure frying. But apparently, the chicken is marinated first before frying. I was going to suggest that maybe they brine the chicken before cooking it, and maybe she was equating brining with marinating, but I did mention that the chicken, while hot, juicy, and crispy, was a bit underseasoned.

Nicole's is pretty decent. They have some things I really like there. They also have some things that I will pass on. They do make a lot more of their menu items from scratch than not, but clearly the green beans I was served today more than likely came from a large Sysco-esque type can. Check them out if you happen to be in the area.

Hometown Favorite

Whenever I return to my home town of Wadsworth, OH there are two places that always sing their siren song to me. One of them is a submarine shop called the Sub Station. The other place is a mom and pop shop that has been around since 1970 that has seen itself expand from a small restaurant capable of seating maybe 25-30 to a ginormous place on the busy end of town that now seats well over 100 in the main restaurant and has a banquet room as well. I speak of the beloved Marie's Pizza restaurant.

Now, make sure you go to the address in the link given above. Both Yahoo and Google searches on "Marie's Pizza Wadsworth" came up with a link to their OLD address. They are actually right off of I-94 just north of I-76, right across the street from the National City Bank.

In their old incarnation, it was simple food, prepared well. A favorite has always been the pizza. In fact, it won the best pizza in Akron award in 1976, I believe. Other favorites were lasagna, spaghetti and fabulous garlic bread. When they moved into their new location, they decided to revamp the menu. While keeping that which made them a local favorite, they also added additional menu items. Now, I'll have to be honest and say that I don't go to Marie's for their honey teriyaki chicken (which sadly, they did add). However, some of the new items like the chicken parmesan sandwich are a real hit with me. It is unfortunate that they feel that in order to compete with all the "TGI McChilibees" in the world, they felt like they had to diversify. At least they didn't take the good stuff off the menu.

I decided to go with an old favorite, the simple pepperoni pizza. I got a medium for $10.29. This is a pie adequately sized to feed between 2-3 adults. The thing I like about Marie's pizza is that the crust is somewhere right in the middle between thin crust and deep dish. While Marie's does source some of what they serve in the restaurant from Sysco, I verified with my server that Marie's makes their own dough and their own sauce from scratch. Honestly, you can really tell by just looking, smelling, and finally, tasting the finished product.

First off, a whole pie shot as delivered to my table:


And the obligatory shot of a single slice with red pepper flakes (added by me):


The one thing that Marie's has improved upon since moving into their new home is the absence of the layer of grease that used to float on top of the pie. You never really thought about it when you were eating it hot, but trust me that the next day when seeing it cold, the sight could be off-putting.

Here's what I like about Marie's: it tastes DAMN good. It also tastes like home. The sauce is fresh, the toppings are nice, the bread is crusty and soft. It's just a well integrated pizza: not too much or too little of any one component. It's a slice you could eat with your hands or with a knife and fork. I especially like the crust. While certainly thicker than a crust you are going to find at Bar Cento or Lolita, it really does have that great interplay between the crispy exterior of the edge of the pie (and the bottom of the pie, too) and that wonderfully soft chewy interior just below the crispy surface. And for not being baked in a traditional stone oven, the crispiness of the crust on the bottom is surprising, but certainly welcomed.

From the next photo, you can kind of see how the crust looks from the side:


Finally, a shot of what I walked away with since a medium is WAY more than one person could eat in a single meal:


I plan to warm up the leftovers tomorrow for lunch. While this is neither a NY style pie nor a Chicago style pie, I honestly think this is the pie I would prefer to have most often given the choice. But, I suppose I am biased since this is what I grew up eating.

I will also caution you to either go at an off-time or be prepared to wait. I went today (Sunday) at 4 pm and the place was half full. If you're thinking about going on a Friday or Saturday night for dinner, go before 5 pm or after about 8:30 pm or so. They also have a full bar and a patio for when the weather gets nice. And stick with the traditional stuff ... it's what they do best.

Wonton Gourmet: Fab-u-lous!

To me, Wonton Gourmet is like sushi. I can go for months without even entertaining the thought of sushi and then one day, WHAM! I can think of having nothing else but sushi. In very much the same light, when I get a craving for really good, authentic Chinese cuisine, I have found nothing better satisfies that craving than Wonton Gourmet, located on the corner of East 32nd and Payne near downtown Cleveland. Their particular cuisine is Hunan style, so nothing is overtly spicy, although there is always chili flakes in oil on the table as a condiment.

Last Sunday, having finished my lovely gelato, I suddenly got such a craving. I called up a few of my Cleveland friends and suddenly we had a lovely dinner party for five people. We descended on the restaurant around 6 pm and were warmly greeted by several members of the staff who recognized several members of our dining group. Normally when a group of non-Asians walks through the door, the first thing they normally put down on the table are forks. For us, they put down the standard chopsticks. While you can simply go by yourself, it is much more fun for a group because of all the dishes you can share.

There are actually three menus from which you can order. Two of them have English translations, but the third one, the daily specials, are written on placards that hang on the wall. For those, you must ask for the translation (or as my smart friend Stuart did, take a photo of the characters, post the photo on Flickr, and invite people to actually post notes on the photo with the translation). Since our group had gone at a very slow time during the day, it wasn't too big of a deal to ask for their time in translating whatever we needed.

We ordered dishes from all three menus. First we started with a fish maw and conpoy soup, served with red vinegar.


I have had this before and it is really, really delicious. The soup all by itself is really a well balanced soup. The red vinegar adds a touch of acidity and sweetness (kind of like a balsamic vinegar would). I was actually thinking of having a second bowl of soup when this arrived:


These are fried rice noodle rolls with soy sauce. Incredibly delicious, they are crispy and warm and soft all at the same time. Eaten with some chili oil (which is to the left of the photo), our table quickly gobbled these up. Next up were the house made turnip cakes, which unfortunately I did not get a photo of. I think there are two things I would ALWAYS order if I have a meal here: the turnip cakes and the chive potstickers, pictured here:


These are probably some of the best (and most consistent) potstickers I've ever had at any restaurant. And so fresh. So, at this point, the soup and appetizers are out of the way. Now come the main courses. First up, clams with spicy black bean sauce (towards the back of the photo):


This was spooned over white rice and was quite good. Another member of our group who had eaten the black bean sauce before said this one wasn't quite as good as she remembered, but I thought it was delicious nonetheless. Next up was was a dish that was hanging on the wall menu, braised pork belly with pickles.


This was very soft and tender and the pork did melt in your mouth, but this wasn't the best preparation of pork belly I've ever had. The "pickles" were nice though. If that weren't enough food already, we placed an order for the fried pork chops.


The pork was nicely fried (it wasn't greasy at all), but to me the pork was a little dry. It was served with slices scallions and chilis, but it didn't have a sauce, per se, so it didn't make too much sense to eat this over rice. Finally, (getting full yet?) on the recommendation of our server, we placed an order for fried fish and Japanese tofu. The "scallops" in the photo are actually the tofu, which they somehow managed to sear. I thought this one was good, but it didn't blow me away. Perhaps because we had all reached our gustatory limits.


Now, you might be thinking to yourself, how much did this ravenous feast cost? After filling your belly with the most amazing food, you can now fill your brain with the wonderful thought that all of this food, without tip, was a mere $14.40 per person. And we had leftovers to take home. Truly, truly amazing.

Needless to say, my craving for Hunan style Chinese cuisine has now been quenched. I'm kind of glad I live far enough away to make it sort of an effort to get to Wonton Gourmet. I think if I lived in Cleveland, I'd be eating there ALL the time.

The Fractured Prune and other magical fruits

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Fractured Prune:


Located at 8254 High St. N.E., Warren, OH 44484, I found out about this store from a post on the Cleveland Food and Wine Forum hosted by the Cleveland Plain Dealer. There has been much discussion about finding a place where the donuts are made fresh and served hot. Nerve44 was good enough to post a link to the Fractured Prune's website. It was here I discovered that not too far from my house was an actual location. Thinking to myself that it would make an excellent day trip (is 45 minutes each way too far for a fantastically good donut?), I resigned that I would try them very soon.

As it turns out, I have the day off of work today ... and absolutely nothing on my schedule. No gifts to return, no malls to visit, no family obligations. At around 9 am it dawns on me: TODAY would be an excellent day for a food outing. In addition, the Fractured Prune was also on my way to another restaurant that I've been dying to get to in the last six years in Buffalo, NY. More about that in my next post.

So, I downloaded all the maps and contact information onto my G1 and headed out the door around 10:15 am. Everything went pretty smoothly on the drive over until I missed my exit onto Route 46. Oops. And of course, the next exit was another 5 miles down the road. But, in the end, I got there around 11:10 or so and was duly rewarded for my patience.

From what I had read, the place was always swamped with regulars, so I kind of figured that I wouldn't be able to get the face time with the person behind the counter to talk about their product. But I was fortunate to hit them exactly at a window where I was the only one in the store. The store's owner, Wendy, warmly greeted me and when she found out that I had driven all the way from Akron just to try them out quickly offered me one of their signature glazed donuts on the house.

Before I get to the donuts, a little bit of what I observed when I walked into the store. First, there are maybe 2 or 3 tables, not many, but most people are probably taking their donuts on the go. Behind the counter on the left is where the donuts are deposited into the oil, move along and come out the other side. I was surprised at how quickly this happens. From start to finish my donut was ready within about 1-2 minutes. I realized that to get this speed, the donuts are smaller than other competitors, but they are still a decent size (you'll see in the photos). To the right is the dipping and topping station where you can choose from 15 glazes, 7 toppings, and 3 sugars. If my math is correct (and it *always* is), if you choose a glaze, a topping, and a sugar, that's 315 possible combinations.

Besides donuts, they also offer bagels and breakfast sandwich combinations as well as a more decadent scoop of ice cream on top of your hot donut type dessert. While they all sounded good, I was here for the donuts.

Now let's get on to the good stuff, the donuts. First off, the glazed donut.


This was SO good, and in my opinion the best of the three that I tried. Crispy on the outside, hot and creamy on the inside, with just enough sweetness from the glaze. All of the donuts they offer are based on the same cake donut batter, so don't bother asking about any yeast-raised donuts. The paper plate it was served on was just your standard small paper plate you can get at any grocery store ... just to give you some perspective on the size of the actual donut.

Next up, the Chocolate Covered Cherry donut.


By the time she brought over the finished donut, the mini chocolate chips had started to melt. They were in that state between hard and soft. Also quite delicious. Although I discovered that with any of the donuts with the glazes that they could get a little messy when they were still hot. But OH so worth it.

Finally, I asked Wendy about one of their other popular donuts on the menu. She indicated that the Blueberry Hill donut was very popular. Consisting of a blueberry glaze and powdered sugar, this one looked like:


I thought it was better than the chocolate covered cherry, but not as good as that stellar glazed donut that I started with.

I did ask Wendy about the type of oil they used to fry their donuts in and she told me that they used vegetable shortening for now. However, the franchise is currently in the process of finding a trans-fat free oil to use in its place in short order.

Overall, I had a great experience at the Fractured Prune. The counter service was friendly, helpful, and willing to answer all my questions. Not to mention, the product was incredibly delicious. And because the donuts themselves aren't overly large, you can try several and see which one is your favorite.

Going all the way

In this world of shortcuts and cheap substitutions, every now and again you'll find someone who decides that making a product from scratch, using real ingredients will deliver a stellar product that is worth going out of your way for and possibly paying more of your hard earned dollars for. To find a breadmaker who is using starters and pre-ferments in their doughs, a pizza maker who makes his or her sauce from scratch, a home cook that realizes that while it's okay to take shortcuts during the busy year, once or twice a year, you need to refamiliarize yourself with how something is supposed to taste: these are the people I try and find and support.

The problem is though that you need to go all the way. You can't make one component of your dish from scratch and then skimp out on the other parts. Today, in the cafeteria where I work, it was advertised that there was a turkey casserole with homemade egg noodles. So, I decided to give it a try. After talking with the lunch lady (good lord, I haven't used that phrase since 4th grade), I was convinced that the noodles were indeed made from scratch. And unfortunately, that's where the from-scratch-goodness ended. Along with the lovely noodles (which were indeed lovely), came a sauce consisting of cream of mushroom soup (the casserole chameleon as it were), cut up cubes of what had to be the worst tasting, most chemically treated deli turkey meat, and topped off with Stove Top stuffing.

I basically picked out all of the turkey and ate the rest. Noodles? Good. Stove Top topping? A little too herbaceous and not quite as crispy as it should've been. The CoM glop holding it all together? Not so good. It just strikes me as odd that you'd even bother making homemade noodles with the rest of this concoction.

This just reminds me too much of that horrid casserole monstrosity, GREEN BEAN CASSEROLE. A nemesis if I ever had one. Over salted, over processed, over hyped. Granted I don't make my own version of GBC very often as it does take more time to put together than opening a can of this and a can of that. But when I do make it, I make every component from scratch. And you know what, it's good. So good that my grandmother actually asked me for the recipe the first time she tried it and she is the queen of the Campbell's Cream of ... soups.

Not just the goodness factor, but there is also the love factor. I know that when I make this dish, it is hearty, healthy, and delicious. It goes to show to those I serve it to that I am expressing my love and caring for them. That I have their well-being in mind as well.

So, if you're going to do it, then DO IT. Go all the way and you will be rewarded. As the great wise and all-powerful Yoda once said, "Do or do not. There is no try."