Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Mario's Pizza - Newark, NJ

There is a fairly new pizza place (well, not THAT new but new enough) that opened up a couple of doors away from Jersey BBQ Pit that we have been meaning to check out. Every time we drive down McCarter Highway, we would say that we wanna swing by one day to try it but we just never got around to doing so. It was another lazy weekend for us and as usual, we were just too lazy to cook dinner or even head out to grab a bite. We just didn't feel like going anywhere, let alone leave our couch! I did manage to make it down to the lobby to collect our mail though and I saw a stack of delivery menus nearby. I picked one up and realized that it was for Mario's Pizza....how perfect! We could try the food from this new place and we didn't even have to leave our apartment for that. Life is good! :P
The menu itself was rather extensive. Not only do they have pizzas but they also offer all kinds of soups, salads, appetizers, pasta, wraps, sandwiches, hamburgers, wings as well as Italian chicken, veal and seafood dishes. Oh, they also have selection of dessert and drinks too. Unlike some other places that deliver, Mario's accepts credit/debit cards transactions. Delivery is also free, with a minimum purchase of $10. The only thing thing that we didn't really like was the delivery time. We had to wait for an hour or so, just to get our food. The acceptable delivery time around these parts is usually half an hour.
To start off our meal, Kevin and I shared a small cold antipasto salad ($7.50). The large goes for $12. Boy, we were glad that we ordered a small cos the portion was really huge! A whole bunch of lettuce, tomatoes, onions, green peppers, toasted red peppers, black olives topped with rolls of ham, genoa, salami and provolone cheese. Look at the amount of meat that came along with it! Definitely worth the $7.50. Not only were the portions huge, it tasted yummy too.
After such a yummy salad, this was a little bit of a letdown. Sausage Calzone with Marinara Sauce ($6.25). By the time the calzone got here, it was cold. Really cold. Also, it was super greasy. Look at all the grease on the paper plate. Terrible. The crust wasn't all that great and I felt as though they are skimping on the stuffing. There was only stuffing in the middle, which leaves us with very hard (almost stone like) crust at the end. The marinara sauce was also really watery. I wouldn't order this from them again.
The calzone was really bad but I must say that they redeemed themselves with their wings. We ordered 10 pcs of BBQ chicken wings ($7.25) and it came with complimentary celery and blue cheese. As you can see from the picture, they were huge wings. If there is one thing that I can't stand, it would be tiny, hard, over fried wings. This wasn't the case. They were really huge and juicy. The BBQ sauce was awesome too. Yes, they arrived cold but after reheating it for a bit, it tasted great. Sooooo, the big question now. Would we order from Mario's again? Well, this is a tough one. The delivery was super slow (thus resulting in us getting cold food) and the calzone was horrible. However, we really liked the antipasto and the wings were yummy too. I guess we would give them another chance to see if the long delivery time was just a one off thing and maybe we will try something else from the menu. Will keep all of you posted!


Mario's Pizza - Newark, NJ
1413 McCarter Highway,
Newark, NJ 07104
Tel: (973)497 2031
Fax: (973)497 2130
Web: http://themariospizza.com/

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