Crazy Toppings With Crazy Pricing At Mulberry Street Pizzeria

New York or Chicago?

I had seen all those Travel Channel shows debating the merits of each style. Up until now, I hadn't given much of any thought since I never had real authentic New York or Chicago pizza. So when my friends suggested that we check out Mulberry Street Pizzeria, I jumped on this chance to try some supposedly very good New York style thin crust pizzas.

(Lemon Iced Tea)

Like most of my meals, I had a cup of lemon iced tea to go with my food. Mulberry Street's tea was just your standard teabag type brew. There really wasn't anything special about it. It was at least flavorful and not watery and that's pretty much all I can ask for. There really wasn't any expectation there.

(Half Eggplant Parmesan & White Spinach Pizza)

We had a pretty large group so we were able to share three pizzas with six different toppings, which gave me a great idea of what all the different toppings tasted like. I don't know too much about how authentic is this thin crust. A few of my friends started talking about whether they preferred thin crust or deep dish. A few of them had been to New York or lived in Chicago and know them first hand. I think I had come to the conclusion that sometimes I would like a soggy deep dish, while other times I would prefer a crunchy thin crust.

Mulberry Street's pizzas although are thin crust, are not very crunchy. It's closer to the chewy side. I don't have too much problems with it, I just would rather it be a little crunchier. The edges of the pizza were crunchy while the center was doughy. In fact I almost would prefer the flatbreads at Westside Tavern, which in essence is a thin crust pizza with a different name. Those were crunchy all the way through.

The toppings however I did enjoy tremendously. The eggplant tomato side of the pizza was excellent. I almost forgot that I was eating eggplant at all. They were very thinly sliced which was complimentary to the thin crust. The spinach white was good too, but personally I'm not a huge cheese person. The flavors were very strong inside my mouth making the pizza very juicy.

(Half Pepperoni, Half Hawaiian Pizza)

The pepperoni was pretty much a pepperoni pizza. I don't think I would ever pay over twenty dollars for this pepperoni pizza. It may be on a thin crust, but it's not so amazing that I would pay this much more for it when I would be happy enough with a cheaper version. Perhaps I just don't care for pepperoni to begin with.

I love pineapples so I wanted to order the Hawaiian style. I suppose this is definitely not authentic to New York pizza since pineapple isn't a readily available ingredient up in the northeast. Just like the pepperoni, it wasn't something I would pay that much money for again. It was good, just not impressive for the cost.

(Half Lasagna, Half Tomato & Artichoke Pizza)

We were still hungry after two pizzas so we ordered a third one to finish off lunch. The lasagna pizza really did taste like lasagna spread over the pizza dough. It kind of played tricks on my taste buds, confusing me with whether I was really eating a pizza or lasagna. I thought this was actually a very pleasant and fun experience on a subconscious level. I really did in fact enough this one, even though it wasn't the tastiest of the six toppings I had. It was the most interesting mentally speaking. I would go with the eggplant as the best flavored of the six.

The tomato and artichoke topping didn't do it for me. The artichoke was just too clunky for this pizza. It was hard to eat the artichoke with the pizza. When that big chunk of vegetable entered my mouth, it overwhelmed everything else. I felt like I was just chewing on a giant piece of artichoke rather than eating an artichoke pizza like the way the eggplant one was made. It was just too much.

(Hello Kitty Exhaust Pipe)

I think the only pizza I would ever pay this much money for back at Mulberry would be their eggplant. I did find some of their more interestingly toppings titillating to my tongue. It was a good novel experience, but not good enough to warrant the cost of a repeat experience for the most part. The crust of the pizza wasn't crispy enough for me. To top it off, it was a thirty-five minute drive for me. I would much rather go elsewhere for flatbread or thin crust type pizzas.

Lunch this day did end with me seeing a Hello Kitty exhaust pipe in the car parked in front of my car. An interesting sight after an interesting hour of pizza and friends.