Ever since my wife, Wendi, and I purchased a new Broil King grill from Home Appliance, with two Ohio locations in Lodi and Brunswick, we have been grilling out a lot more, and I have been on a grilled pizza kick, having made four grilled pizzas within the span of a week. However, I have been wanting to try Bosco’s Pizza Kitchen again, and so Wendi and I ordered a pizza and wings for carryout.
Longtime readers of this blog will know I like pizza, and I like Neapolitan-style pizza, the kind served in New York and Boston. In Wooster, where we live, there is no really great pizza. Rox Gastropub has some pretty good pizza. There are some chains that are OK, but nothing special. Wendi and I had ordered Bosco’s before, but it had been a couple years or so. We like our pizza more than the restaurants in town, so we don’t order a lot of pizzas. But, as I said, I really wanted to try it again and see how good it was.
Bosco’s had a nice online ordering something. They had a special for a large pizza and 10 wings. When Wendi and I share a pizza, we always order pepperoni and bacon. We didn’t veer from tradition this time. Wendi does not like Buffalo wings, so we have to find some other option. I considered BBQ, garlic parmesan and sweet Asian chili. I thought I ordered BBQ, but I was surprised to discover later on, I didn’t.
As for the pizza, it was pretty good. Anymore, bacon on pizza is the kind of pre-processed, ground up bacon bits. However, Bosco’s used what appeared to be half strips of bacon on the pizza. The pepperoni were thicker slices, but smaller in diameter. It was a good quality pepperoni where it seemed as if you could taste wine in it. The crust was good. To me, the crust and the “sauce” are the keys to good pizza. I say “sauce” because I no longer prefer using a pizza sauce for my pizza. Instead, I buy whole San Marzano tomatoes and crush them myself. I season the tomatoes on the pizza with salt, pepper, garlic, oregano, basil, parsley and a touch of sugar.
While the crust was pretty good, two things I do differently with my pizzas: 1) I do not dock my crust, and 2) I do not cook a pizza in a conveyor-belt oven. Some restaurants dock their crust, which is a process of piercing the dough to reduce or eliminate air bubbles from forming as the crust cooks. I do not dock my crusts for the same reason I do not use a rolling pin to stretch my dough into a crust: The more the dough is worked, the tougher it gets. Also, I prefer pizzas not be cooked on conveyor belts. To Bosco’s credit, the pizzas are cooked on screens and not pans.
The sauce was sweeter than I like, but when you make the switch from a sauce to tomatoes on your pizza, then any cooked sauce is going to be sweeter. While, I make my pizzas differently, Bosco’s is among the best pizzas in town. Part of the problem of ordering pizza, or most foods, really, for carryout is that when the meal is cooked, it gets placed in a box. While the box helps to retain heat, it also causes the food to steam a little. Regardless of what you order on carryout, if it is baked or fried, it will not have the same level of crispiness that it would in a restaurant. I should say, when I reheated the pizza, it was just as good and tasty.
As for the chicken wings, I thought I ordered BBQ, but I actually ordered sweet Asian chili. It was a good decision. I am not sure how Bosco’s makes its wings. I don’t know if they were frozen and cooked on the conveyor-belt oven or fried in a deep fryer. No matter the cooking method, I was surprised at how good they were.
If you are looking for a good pizza in Wooster, consider Bosco’s.
