your kidding me right!!!!. benniditio's is loved by the spokane crowd; they even won the inlander's best pizza award this year. so we decided that we would stroll around manito park and then try them out for a casual pizza dinner.
we started off with the much raved about beer buddies - plain pizza dough cut into small bite-sized sections, brushed with butter (i was told it was olive oil, but we all agreed that it was butter, there were butter fat solids plainly vissible) and topped with commercial parmesan cheese (think kraft in a can cheese). the concept is good; but the dough, the highlight of the appetizer was tasteless. we had 2 hungry teenagers and two adults present when this appetizer arrived, it did not get finished, we each ate about 1 or 2 and kind of shrugged our shoulders. the only flavor outside of fat, and salt from the commercial cheese came from the sauces. we figured they were called beer buddies because after about 5 beers you just don't care what you eat.
for dinner we had one salad two medium pizzas, one calzone and a salad.
we will start off with the extreme culinary disaster - the calzone was the worst calzone everyone at the table had ever had. that's bad. it was made horribly and looked terrible, overcooked crust, paper thin on the top while soggy and undercooked on the bottom. the appearance of it was a turnoff, but looks can be deceiving. in this case though, they weren't. the flavors inside were just off, we all tried one bite and we all pushed it to the back of the table - yuck.
the pizza that i and the oldest teenager were eagerly awaiting for was the benniditos original pesto. i am a pesto fanatic, many times just eating my home-made pesto on crackers for a snack. ever have basil ice cream - yum i love it. i make pesto pizzas all the time at home, pure delight. but what arrived at our table resembled more like the exxon valdez oil tanker disaster. my wife's comment was "that's sick, you guys aren't going to eat that are you?"
the pesto they used appeared to be mostly oil so the whole pie was covered in a layer of unappetizing green olive oil, when we removed the first slice it was like breaking a dam. the oil came cascading off the pizza to fill the now vacant slice area. it took about 12-15 napkins to soak up half the oil but the damage had been done because the bottom of the pizza crust had soaked up the other half.
the excessive oil had ruined this pie, it wasn't finished by us, you could only take 1 or 2 slices of this heart attack on a plate pie, however it had potential, i liked the addition of the ricotta cheese on it although nobody could pick out the flavor of fontina, i think the oil and pest overpowered it.
the only pizza that got devoured was the mowie wowie, in this case the fontina cheese was very prevalent and a great addition, i also make my hawaiian style pizza with prosciutto, the saltiness of the ham compliments the sweetness of the pineapple very well. the only problem with this pizza was the tasteless dough that had a large amount of raw flour caked onto the bottom. when we were there all pizzas were rolled and but not hand tossed. hand tossing helps to knock off any excess flour, then the oven floor should be dusted with cornmeal to prevent sticking in the oven, there was no cornmeal evident on our pizzas, hence why they use the flour, but that is wrong.
the highlight of the meal was the salad, which was a good size and value for the money. lots of fresh greens and toppings and they did have a nice selection of beer on tap. and a special shout out does go to the server there, they were very busy while we were there and she was handling the whole restaurant by herself and doing a great job.
in the end we left with an uneaten calzone, some beer buddies and half of a medium pesto pizza, we stopped by an ice cream store for dessert and when we got home the boys cooked themselves some more dinner.
the moral of the story is, if pizza and calzones go uneaten by teenagers you know you have problems.
ps if you ever find you self up on the north side and hankering for some pizza, try fat daddy's, the best pizza in spokane.