Late at night
I wanna see you
Well my eyes
they begin to fade
Am I just living in the space between
The beauty and the pain
Another Tuesday, another Taste! It was quite an eventful weekend here at HQ, filled with softball games, crazy sunburns, lakeside adventures and an absurd amount of delicious food and drinks. Alas, a return to Toronto and the reality contained therein was inevitable... so to ease that transition (and to take a break from all the burgers and chicken of the weekend) I decided for the review this week to revisit an acclaimed pizza place I hadn't been to in multiple years. Yep, at long last, the TT finally meets Maker Pizza.
I'd been to Maker twice before, both times in 2018. The first visit may very well have inspired my first pizza quest later that year (I went with a friend and our conversation steered towards listing other pizza places we wanted to try... little did she know how far I'd eventually take the idea). Maker was still somewhat fresh on the T.O pizza scene in 2018 (pardon the rhyme), having just opened their second outpost up at Avenue Road and Lawrence earlier that spring.
Their original location, operating out of a narrow building hidden on Cameron Street north of Queen, was a venture of restaurateur Shlomo Buchler and famed Canadian chef/personality Matty Matheson (whose recent burger collaboration with A&W was also covered in these parts). Maker has now expanded to four locations in Toronto and their most recent addition on Carlaw Avenue happens to be a modest bike ride away from me... so away I went!
This was my third attempt to review Maker pizza for the Tuesday show. I'd first tried about a month ago but that was the infamous episode where I couldn't find their address in time and, being far too stubborn to look at the actual global map engine in my pocket, opted to review the McChicken instead. Well played, me. I'll discuss my second attempt later... for now though enough of my stalling, here comes actual food talk.
The Carlaw location is tucked in the middle of a block-long maroon brick building slightly north of Dundas Street East, just a good baseball toss away from the Crows Nest theatre or the large patio of Dundas And Carlaw bar. It is a very small space exclusively focusing on take-out orders, completely lacking tables, chairs or even standing room for more than a half dozen people. Fortunately the weather this day was exceptional, so I placed my order and (being told it would be 25 minutes) walked to the Value Village nearby to check for some cheap CDs.
Maker has some very intricate options amongst their signature pies, but I wanted to keep things somewhat simple for the purposes of this review and so went for their "Dr. Pepperoni", a classic within their social media presence. First off... yeah there is a lot of goddamn pepperoni on here. Like an excessive amount. The result is a pretty salty pie of course, but thankfully this pepperoni is of a highly crispy and tasty quality.... important since it is kinda the star of the show here. One thing I've noticed with cheaper types of pepperoni is how thin and fatty they tend to be, resulting in a texture that peels apart easily and doesn't linger in the mouth very long beyond mere greasiness. Maker's pepperoni instead utilizes tiny cups and yet the feel/taste has a bit more depth to it... with the texture resembling more of a tougher salami like a soppressata. As pepperoni it's really darn good, but it dominates this pizza so much it's difficult to get a strong handle of the other elements or flavours here.
Nevertheless I shall try away. The cheese is the most difficult part to evaluate, both because it seems to almost blend into the legions of pepperoni here and also that I was a bit late retrieving this pizza from my CD hunt. In my experience ordering take-out, especially from a busy spot (they seemed rather swamped with phone delivery orders) 10 minutes usually means 15, 25 means 30-35 et cetera. Not always, but often enough. I may have over-estimated how much time I had in my album searching, as I returned about forty minutes later and still had to wait another few minutes while the staff dealt with other orders. The pizza was still warm, however when a pizza sits in a box atop an oven (to keep it warm-ish in cases like this) the cheese will toughen and overcook somewhat. This is a very long way of saying: the cheese was fine, tasted like good mozzarella but the pepperoni flavour bled into it so much I can't really judge it individually. Hey, at least I found a good Beck album though.
The most disappointing part of the pizza was the crust. Don't get me wrong, it tasted good (and I highly recommend getting their crust finishers, more on that later) but the bread was a bit of a challenge to chew through. A mix of airiness in the crust with a tough exterior... certainly fresh enough to avoid being unpleasantly stale, but really lacking that soft baked bread texture I prefer in a pie of this nature. I like having char and some chewiness, there just needs to be a balance within that instead of mostly hollow pockets of air. As for the tomato sauce... thumbs up. This is strong stuff: bursting with a semi-sweet flavour, well blended (no wateriness at all) and with little seasoning hints to show this is far beyond any generic canned supermarket fare.
Lets get to the extras that Maker offers, which you can see in the lead photo: the crust finisher and the dipping sauce. Yes, that actually is a pizza dipping sauce and not a cup of yogurt covered in green apple puree. Starting with that dip... damn good stuff. Perhaps not quite at the level of Blondie's black garlic sauce (but what is remotely close to that?). Maker offers four dip options: creamy garlic parmesan, buttermilk ranch, and then the creamy garlic mixed with either a chili sauce or a salsa verde (which is what I got). The name salsa verde (which I must remind everyone simply translates to "green sauce") led me to expect some kind of tomatillo salsa mixed in with the garlicy cream, but instead the green portion of the dip resembled something closer to a light pesto. A lot of basil and olive oil flavour, though lacking any kind of nutty presence. This was a good compliment to the creamier garlic half, which leaned more on the parmesan taste-wise and was also a fairly thick concoction: truly a dip in the sense if you tried to pour this thing the contents wouldn't even move.
The crust finisher is a nice touch as well. I elected for the "everything bagel" option which throws in a mix of dried onion bits, poppy and sesame seeds, slivers of cheese... like an everything bagel. To keep all these crumbly things somewhat atop the edges of the pizza, they apply a healthy drizzle of honey... which I have to mention because a taste of honey mixed with almost any salty sliced pork atop a pizza... truly excellent. You don't want to over do it, since honey will make your pie extremely sticky (as it did occasionally here) but the combination is purely delightful when you've got a straight-forward single topping pizza. Meanwhile the bagel seasonings give the crust some much needed presence beyond that hollowness within.
---
Overall! Hmmmmm. Even before trying this again (it has been a few years don't forget) this was kind of a losing situation for Maker Pizza as far as I saw them. See, I'd still listed them extremely highly on my Top Toronto Pizza Ranking (they were #3 if you don't care to scroll down through 105 places) and that was based on my visits to the original Cameron location in 2018 (which has a much larger menu and allows you to build your own creation). There was basically no chance for Maker to climb the list here (Descendant and Defina are essentially 1A and 1B in my opinion) while certainly plenty of opportunity for Maker to fall down the list considering the very strong options nipping at their heels. Not to also mention my theory of when a restaurant expands, their quality tends to thin out at least somewhat.
Alas, Maker Pizza will be losing that #3 slot. However, I do still recommend them quite highly. It's a tasty pizza with great toppings and everything beyond the chewy crust was simply excellent. This particular pizza I would only suggest if you can't get enough pepperoni... it was a little too much for me (not like it's roasted garlic, after all) but I can appreciate the craft and high quality of everything going on here. I think previously I'd given Maker an 'A' grade but this here is more of a 'B++' or marginal 'A--'... which would drop them more into the 10-15 range on my list than comfortably Top 5 in Toronto. Hey, it's a tough list.
Also... holy damn have they gotten expensive. My second attempt to review them for the TT fell apart once I walked in and saw the prices: that's 24 bucks for the 12" pie you see above... plus an extra five for the dip and the crust stuff. Definitely some points docked there. Still, they are very worth checking out if you've never been. Maybe bring a friend, though.
Burnt Ends -- I was up north all weekend and free from my computer, so haven't really been writing much this past week. So... have some re-shares! If you missed it, here's my piece on the Spoon discography, and last week's look at Torisho fried chicken (definitely check them out. Damn good).
Lonely Islands -- As I'll continue to say endlessly, about 90 percent of what BlogTo publishes is pure junk. That remaining ten percent though occasionally rises above the sludge to provide some fascinating tales about the city, and this reposted piece by the departed historian Doug Taylor is a wonderful read... a passionate tale of his father and uncle arriving in Canada and attending baseball games at the old stadium on Hanlan's Point, complete with photos from the era. It's just great.
Buried Bridges -- If you're more into city infrastructure, here's something in case you were wondering about those weird "sorta bridges but sorta not" running along those streets that go overtop the subway line between Bloor and Summerhill.
Pizza Parties -- Sigh... yeah I couldn't let this one slip past, especially in a review where I went on several paragraphs about a pizza with just pepperoni on it.
It's another one of those BlogTo galleries, which completes this trifecta of surprising intrigue from them this week. 50 Toronto pizzas! All with pictures! Perhaps don't go through this one while hungry (or maybe do?). Anyhow, for the record I've tried 34/50. I know, I know.... what a slacker.
This Week's No Context Looney Tunes Image --
Tuesday Tune -- A band I got into in the September of 2018 when my apartment didn't have electricity for about a week. This seriously happened. Wasn't working a whole lot that summer and fell behind in my bills, so off it went! Do not recommend. Anyhow, I had to charge my computer in the laundry room and since I didn't have internet (or lights, or anything kitchen related) I listened to a lot of this band as I had just downloaded a couple of their albums. A weird time and year of my life to revisit, but I do like the guitars and atmosphere of this song.
That's all for this week! After a wicked weekend up north it's back on the chain gang for me, but there's still plenty of summer left and plenty more places to review. Until then, stay safe, don't let the sun get you too much and definitely do not spill that mustard.
No comments:
Post a Comment