Finally tried Benny’s Big Time Pizzeria last night. I love it when a restaurant lives up to its reputation.
We had:
- Wood Fired Bread | ricotta, honey, rosemary
- Charred Brussel Sprouts | pepperoni sauce, pecorino
- Guilty Pleasure Pizza | pineapple, chili braised pork, red pepper salsa, cilantro
- El Diavolo Pizza (now called Hellfire) | Nduja, chili peppers, olives, mint, scallions
- House Gelato | Pumpkin
- Multiple house cocktails
- Espresso
The wood fired bread and ricotta sauce was very rich, but needed some more spice. If you like straight bread and cheese, this is definitely for you.
The brussel sprouts were excellent, with a very interesting pepperoni sauce. We ended up dipping the bread in the brussel sprouts sauce instead of finishing the ricotta sauce.
The Guilty Pleasure pizza was outstanding. The pineapple was sliced razor thin like a potato chip, and so it didn’t overpower anything, and the freshness of the ingredients really came through.
The Hellfire pizza was briefly our favorite (until we tried the other one). It was quite spicy and delicious. Our only complaint on it was the ingredients didn’t cover the entire pizza, so some bites turned out to be more dough than anything else. But, when the flavors came together, wow.
Benny’s seems to have a thing for gin, which is not my favorite, but we did find a house tequila and house vodka cocktail (can’t recall the names) Both mixed drinks were smoky, and while that’s good on occasion, you can’t drink smoky cocktails all night so we switched to Dirty Shirley’s and vodka/soda’s.
We did try their espresso and pumpkin gelato. The pumpkin was yummy; espresso was acceptable but not their specialty.
We arrived about 6 pm, and while there was a wait for the tables, we were seated at the bar immediately. Definitely going to go back.
