Mama Mia! Mama’s Pizza!

If there’s one thing we love in Jersey, it’s a good pizza! New York pizza is amazing, but good Jersey pizza is a very close second.  The problem we face with our immediate area:  There is NO good pizza… period!  So recently Chris and I took a trip into my old stomping ground, Roselle, to hit Mama’s Gourmet in the Roselle Shopping Center.  I used to eat there all the time when I was younger, and I was curious to see if it was still as good as it was back in the day.  Mama’s Gourmet did not disappoint!

We walked in the door, and SHMOWZOW!… a huge platter of garlic-y goodness, slathered in olive oil, with a pinch (okay maybe a really huge pinch) of parsley.  That’s right – garlic knots, done right!  Yeah, we definitely had to have an order for sure!  The last few times I’d had garlic knots they were dry and tasteless, coated in garlic powder!  Garlic Powder on garlic knots?  In my book, that’s some sort of sin.  I mean c’mon, garlic knots are supposed to have piles of minced garlic rolling like an avalanche down the sides – not garlic powder!  Needless to say, they were flippin’ tasty!

A garlic-y avalanche of goodness!

We both went with the standards, plain and pepperoni, and they were just perfect, to say the least.  There’s nothing worse than a crust with zero flavor, red sauce that hasn’t been cooked properly, and low-quality cheese – well this pizza had none of the above.  A crispy, tasty, thin crust; a smooth, balanced red sauce; topped with a mozzarella that makes your mouth water.  Not to mention, the pepperoni was sliced so thin it was almost translucent.  I could only wish for pizza that good in our neighborhood!

Good pizza is hard to find.

We went with some pretty “normal” slices, but I can tell you without a doubt that every single one of the pies on the counter looked breathtaking!  If I weren’t so full, I would have love to have tried the chicken marsalla pie they’d just taken out of the oven… Wow!  Mama’s is great – from the smell walking in the door, to the “matter-of-fact” attitude exuding from Mama herself, to the louder than need be Umberto Tozzi’s “Gloria” (yep, you can listen to the song below) complimenting the just-gaudy-enough Italian dècor (we can say that because we’re Italian).  It was a blast, and I was truly impressed (and a bit saddened because it’s not around the block from our home).

It had been a good 20+ years since I’ve had pizza here, and I’m so happy to know that Mama’s was still going strong!

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