Pizza Style: NY Neapolitan/wood fired oven
Venue Style: Sit down old school family restaurant
Food Orders: Cheese & The Lightning Rod
Beverage Orders: Domestic Beer and jack and cokes
Lg Cheese Pizza: $9.00 (14″)
Attendees: Ellios, Tombstone & Celeste
Guests: None 😦

In our opinion, there is no better way to celebrate and experience a culture than to dive mouth first into the traditional cuisine that ultimately shapes these well-known family traditions that all of us are so familiar with.  Given that ideology, “The Guy’s”, (Ellio, Celeste & Tombstone) decided to head out on this brisk Saint Patrick’s Day to do just that. On their endless quest for cultural enrichment and self-improvement they followed their noses, which led them to straight to Virilio’s Echo Bridge Restaurant located in Newton, Massachusetts.

This arduous journey in search of ethical enlightenment brought them to the door of a cozy family oriented place that offered exactly what these cultured guys were yearning for, which you all know, resulted in the consumption of a good ole fashioned Irish fare….eh hem…3 large Pizza’s! With all ignorant joking aside, you should note that the crew did decide to order a bacon pizza, which was in fact the traditional protein consumed by the Irish during the Saint Patrick’s Day celebration of earlier times. Yes it is true; boiled bacon was, in fact the protein of choice for the Irish when establishing this age-old tradition during the Middle-Ages. Although, the ye-ole Irish folk of yesteryear decided to boil their bacon, we made an executive decision to bypass that aspect of their tradition and add a little crispiness to the porker on our pie.

So here’s the deal. After indulging in the following: (cheese, the special, & a half bacon/garlic sausage) we decided that there is good stuff going on here but the consensus agreed that it’s best to keep it simple. Why? After our first cheese pizza, which we thought had good overall flavor and cooking consistency, we thought it was only right to see where the pizza would go if the kitchen sink was added to their overly doughy, yet very tasty and well-cooked crust. Unlike the cheese, which was well balanced and topped with flavorful cheese and complimentary sauce, The Special just failed. All the toppings, (i.e. green peppers, onion, flavorless hamburger and packaged pepperoni) seemed to lose its luster amongst the mix, making this pizza taste watered down and bland. With that in mind, the Guys decided to order up one more pie in order to give a fair and well-balanced assessment of their pizza. That is when we decided to go with the third and final pizza of the evening, which was topped with bacon, fresh garlic and bland sausage. This pizza was surprising delicious and although, all of the pizzas could have been stretch out a bit more to even out the crust, this pie was harmonious. The garlic did not overpower the flavor and the other toppings seemed to add to the enjoyment of the overall experience. Add higher quality toppings and this pizza could have earned another slice on our scale.

The gracious and welcoming wait staff was pleasant enough to include the Holy Trinity without inquiring, which added to the flavor of these pies, so with all said-and-done, Virgilio’s Echo Bridge Restaurant was a satisfactory experience. All in all, this was not the best pizza the world but it wasn’t the worst. We discussed and concluded that they earned 4.5 Slices on our Slice-O-Meter, deeming Virgilio’s, mezza mezza.