Flying High At The Flying Fig

I've been wanting to try Karen Small's Ohio City-based restaurant, Flying Fig, for quite some time. I have read many positive reviews of the food and given that my out-of-town guests wanted something uniquely Cleveland, I figured after our fantastic meal at Chinato, a visit to her restaurant might just be the perfect cherry to top off that metaphorical sundae.

Flying Fig was located at 2523 Market Avenue, Cleveland, OH 44113 and can be reached at 216-241-4243. They have an on-line presence which contains directions, menus, specials, and lists their hours of operation. While there was no parking directly on Market Avenue, there were plenty of spots to park located on the street only a block away.

Walking up to the front of the restaurant, I snapped this photograph of the main window:


Even though Mike and I had shown up for our reservation a half-hour early, the host inside was more than happy to seat us right away. Fortunately it wasn't too busy and we had our choice of an inside or outside table. Commenting on how nice of an evening it was, both Mike and I agreed to sit outside at one of the sidewalk tables. This would also bode well for my photography since the inside of the restaurant was fairly dark.

We were left to peruse the single page menu:


While most of the menu items looked vaguely familiar to what was available on the on-line version, what I didn't realize until later was that tonight was the debut of the Ohio Pork Trio entrée.

Along with our menu came tonight's bread service:


Here was a shot of my bread plate:


While I wouldn't call this a European style artisan bread, it was quite tasty and was fresh and delicious. A quick check with our server revealed that it was made in-house as I had suspected. We ended up going through two plates of bread between Mike and I since it was so good and we were quite hungry.

To maximize our flavor experience tonight, Mike and I decided to split two appetizers and then each order our own entrée. While there were many tempting items to try from the appetizer portion of the menu, when I saw cornmeal crusted chicken livers, I was sold:


Here was a shot of my portion:


Served up with candied bacon, scallion and citrus salad dressed in a maple and mustard vinaigrette and dotted with fresh chevre, the flavors in this appetizer really sang in my mouth. The crunchy coating played nicely with the creaminess of the livers and the goat cheese. The candied bacon added a bit of sweet and salt and the acidic vinaigrette helped to cut through the fattiness of the dish. The only thing I didn't care for was the fact that the chicken livers were cooked completely through. I would've preferred mine a bit more on the medium side as they were a little dried out and a little bit mealy.

For Mike's appetizer, he decided to go with the Tempura Battered Green Beans:


Served with both a soy-ponzu and caramelized chili pineapple sauce, this was a large plate of food on which to nibble. Here was a shot of my portion of tempura beans:


While the soy-ponzu sauce may have been the more traditional of the two sauces, I have to admit that the caramelized chili pineapple dipping sauce was heavenly. It essentially hit sweet, salty, sour, and spicy notes, all at the same time. The green beans were nicely battered and fried and while Mike thought they were perfectly fried, I thought they were just a touch greasy. However, the didn't taste greasy in the mouth. And paired with the pineapple sauce, I was quite taken with this dish. In fact, after we ran out of beans, I started dipping my bread into the sauce.

As I mentioned earlier, the Ohio Pork Trio was a brand new dish debuting at tonight's dinner service. Of course, I didn't know that until after I had ordered it, but I'm glad I made that choice. Here was a shot of my entrée tonight:


First I'll talk about the non-pork items on the plate and then move my way around to each of the pork preparations. Besides the trio of pork, the plate also contained a cheddar chive spoon bread and sautéed kale. Both items were a nice touch and while distinctly different from the pork items, helped to tie the entire plate together. The kale had been spiced with a bit of pepperocino (red pepper flakes) which gave each bite a bit of spicy kick. The spoon bread was quite moist and the flavor of the cheddar cheese came through quite easily.

The first preparation of pork was the tenderloin:


I tasted the sauce by itself and it tasted of apples, which would make sense because apples and pork have an affinity for each other. The menu had said that the tenderloin was rhubarb glazed and while I didn't get a distinct flavor of rhubarb, there was a hint of sourness to the outside of the pork. I had ordered the pork to be cooked medium and that was exactly how it arrived. Overall, this was a delicious component of the dish.

Next up was the pork belly:


Served with what tasted to me like a tamarind based sauce, the pork belly was certainly cooked long enough for all of the connective tissue to break down. While this pork component was good, it wasn't great. The meat was just a tad dry and while the sauce helped, it couldn't make up that much ground. The spice rub that had been used on the crispy exterior added a lovely depth of flavor and savoriness to the dish.

The final pork component of the plate was the Root Beer-Chili Glazed Ribs:


Not sure what to expect from a "root beer" sauce, I tried a bit of the sauce on the plate first. Outstanding! The root beer flavor was there, but just barely. The chili heat was nicely balanced with the sweet and the salt. I bit into a rib to discover nearly fall-of-the-bone meat which was enhanced, but not overpowered, by the sauce. I was concerned with using my hands to eat this part of the meal since the rest of the plate was definitely knife and fork. However, my server confirmed my choice when she checked in on us and told me that I absolutely should be eating them with my hands. I am not normally a rib person, but I can tell you that I could've eaten an entire rack of these ribs, especially paired with the root beer chili sauce.

After finishing our entrées, I was entirely too full to think about ordering a dessert, but apparently Mike was lured in by the fresh seasonal berries on a shortcake with organic, barely sweetened whipped cream:


While I don't normally include pictures of items I don't try myself, Mike did allow me to have a taste and I have to say it was as lovely and refreshing as I figured it would be. Composed of a trio of blackberries, raspberries, and blueberries, the only component Mike didn't find particularly inspiring was the shortcake. He felt it was too close to something he would find at Bob Evans. Having worked at Bob Evans during high school as a line cook, I can assure you that on this point, we disagreed.

I am so happy to have finally had a chance to try out this marvelous little eatery on Cleveland's near west side in Ohio City. Both Mike and I had a great dinner and even though Mike isn't really into the whole locally sourced food scene, I am glad to see that I have another option when I want to dine out at a restaurant whose chef understands the need to offer local and sustainable menu items. The fact that the food was prepared well and tasted fantastic just makes me want to return soon and return often. I highly recommend you check out Flying Fig restaurant and if you can swing it, dine al fresco on the sidewalk. On a cool summer evening, it's the only way to dine.

Old School Italian Cuisine At Chinato

When I first heard that Zack Bruell was opening up an upscale dining Italian restaurant on the East 4th street venue in downtown Cleveland, I was intrigued. Having eaten several delicious meals at his French brasserie L'Albatros in University Circle, I was very much looking forward to not only checking out this relatively new eatery, but also sharing it with several friends who happened to be in town for the weekend. While it turned out that only one of my two friends was able to make it tonight, the meal we shared amazed us both. But I'll get to more of that later.

Chinato was located at 2079 East 4th Street, Cleveland, OH 44115 and can be reached at 216-298-9080. While you can certainly call for reservations, I took advantage of the OpenTable application for Android on my HTC Incredible to make my reservations. Finding the menu link on Chinato's website can be a little confusing, but it happens to be along the top part of the loaded page. Finding a close parking spot to the East 4th venues can be a little tricky, so I just opted to pay the $8 valet charge at the lot next to Lola Bistro.

Finding Chinato's front entrance was our first task. While the outer windows were lightly stenciled, there was no obvious signage for the restaurant. I've heard that this was done on purpose to give it a more clandestine feel, but the easiest way to find the front entrance was to go to the corner of E. 4th and Prospect, turn away from Flannery's and you'll be facing the front entrance:


Tonight, being a gorgeous sunny day in the low 70's, we could've opted for dining al fresco on the limited patio; instead, we opted for a table inside. After being seated, we were handed the menu:


The menu was only a single page, but it was large. If you spend some time looking at the menu on-line, you'll realize that there was quite a bit of choice in each category. Deciding that I didn't want to provide you with ten photographs just of the menu, I only took the one of the cover and will leave it to you, gentle reader, to investigate the website further. It is worth noting that the menu on the website matched the one handed to us in the restaurant.

Shortly after being seated, a server came around with a large basket of pre-sliced bread and placed two slices of bread on each of our plates:


Along with the bread, a saucer of extra virgin olive oil and pink sea salt were also provided:


While the bread was served room temperature, it was both fresh and tasty. Clearly an artisanal bread, the crust was chewy and toothsome and the crumb had just the slightest amount of pull to it. I tasted the bread by itself and with the oil and it was delicious both way. The olive oil had a wonderful peppery flavor to it that really stood up on its own against the darkly caramelized crust.

One of the selling great points of Chinato's menu was that it was designed for lots of small tastes, which was exactly what Chris and I decided to do tonight. We each decided to order a dish from the Crudo / Antipasti section and one of the small plates from the Pasta section.

As soon as Chris saw Suppli al telefono on the menu, he immediately knew which Antipasti he wanted. Apparently, in the mindset of a traditional Italian cook, nothing goes to waste. Suppli are little balls made from the previous day's risotto that have been stuffed with a little bit of cheese, breaded and deep fried to a golden brown. The "al telefono" refers to the fact that traditionally, the cheese inside the little balls was of the stringy variety, such as mozzarella, so that when cut into and pulled apart, the cheese stretched into long strands.

Here was the bowl of suppli that showed up at our table:


Once I portioned my plate, I cut into one of the fried balls to reveal the creamy cheese center:


Dusted with a bit of grated aged cheese and sprinkled with some chopped parsley, these little rice and cheese balls were absolutely delicious. Perfectly crispy on the outside and creamy on the inside, they were a nice textural contrast from one bite to the next. While I would've been completely happy eating them sans sauce, apparently they were being served with a cup of red sauce on the side:


While it looked like a basic marinara sauce, when Chris and I tasted this by itself, the one conclusion that we both came to was seafood. It had a decidedly briny flavor to it. Perhaps Chinato is adding clam broth to its red sauce, although I can't claim this for a fact since I didn't ask. By itself and paired with a bit of the bread provided to us, we both liked the sauce. In fact, this would've gone great with either plain pasta or perhaps served as the base for a red clam sauce. Paired with the suppli, however, it didn't seem to work very harmoniously. The seafood flavor tended to cover up the more delicate taste of the fried risotto balls.

The antipasti that I picked was the Burrata with Grilled Bread and Cold Basil Tomato Sauce:


Here was a shot of the burrata dish after Chris had scooped out a portion for himself:


And here was a shot of my portion of creamy cheese, basil tomato sauce, and a grilled bread stick:


Burrata, in case you are unfamiliar, gentle reader, is very similar to fresh mozzarella. In fact it is fresh mozzarella in which additional cream has been added. The cream gave the cheese an incredibly rich depth of flavor. What surprised both of us was that despite the addition of the cream, the dish was surprisingly light on the tongue. Certainly the acid of the tomatoes helped to cut through some of that fat, but both of us felt like this would've made a fantastic summer dish. To say that this dish was a winner was an understatement. We greedily devoured the entire dish and then went back to our reserved bread to finish cleaning out as much of the dish that the burrata had come in as possible.

Our appetizers now finished, our server cleared our table in preparation for the first of our two pasta offerings. After looking over the menu, the one pasta dish that really stuck out for me was the Fusilli with tongue, oxtail, and red wine:


The tongue and oxtail had clearly been braised low and slow, cooking for many hours and the meat had been shredded and served as the condiment to fusilli pasta. Topping it was a bit of ricotta-style cheese that was itself topped with shaved planks of Parmigiano Reggiano. For those who are scared of trying this dish because of the tongue, I have two things to say to you. First, both meats had been expertly braised and as such, if you didn't know there was beef tongue in this, you would never have even suspected it. Second, order this dish even if you are scared of it. It was incredibly delicious and tasty and really goes to show just how good Italian cuisine can be when done well. The meat was tender and juicy, the pasta cooked perfectly, and the bit of ricotta gave each bite just a little bit of creaminess. While I did ask if all of the pasta was homemade and given an affirmative answer, Chris doubted whether the fusilli was truly made in-house. To me, it didn't matter, this was a real winner. I thought that the braised meat might be just a bit aggressively salted, but it certainly wasn't to the point where it was a distraction.

Chris's first pasta choice was the Pappardelle with Creamed Cauliflower, Pecorino, and Peperoncini:


Our server informed us that in fact, there was no cream involved in this dish. Which was impressive because the creamed cauliflower was creamy and thick and had a wonderful mouth feel. I'm not normally a big proponent of cauliflower, but served this way, I would eat it every day. Where Chris had doubted the provenance of the fusilli pasta in the previous dish, clearly the pappardelle noodles were made from scratch. They had a wonderful chewiness to them without being tough and they took up the sauce quite well. The capricious bite of the peperoncini was also a wonderful addition to this dish, enough to make you notice, but not enough to dominate the flavor and ruin the subtle flavor of the cauliflower. Another absolutely outstanding plate of pasta!

With a track record of four winner dishes out of four, Chris and I were at a bit of a crossroad in our meal. He was feeling hungry enough for a full-sized entrée; I wasn't. When I said I was just planning on finishing my meal with a small portion of the gnocchi, he reassessed his hunger level and decided that we would do a repeat of the duo of small plates of pasta. I went ahead and order the Gnocchi with Tomato, Basil, Toasted Garlic, Butter and Parmesan:


While these weren't as ethereally light as the gnocchi I make myself (and actually prefer), these were expertly made and most importantly, you could actually taste the potato in the pasta. So many times, the tender little morsels are heavily leaden in texture and taste nothing of potatoes. The toasted garlic portion of the dish consisted of toasted garlic bread crumbs, which added a nice textural contrast to the slightly chewy gnocchi. The tomato added acid, the basil herbaceousness, and the Parmesan cheese salt. While I am a big fan of butter, you won't be disappointed if you like your gnocchi swimming in it. As much as Paula Dean might disagree with me, there can be such a thing as too much butter. While Chris and I both felt that the gnocchi weren't quite as good as the fusilli and the pappardelle, we both agreed that it was still pretty darn tasty.

The fourth and final pasta dish we decided to order was the Risotto with Yellow Peppers and Speck:


The risotto came out with the perfect sauce-like consistency. It was creamy and spoonable, but wasn't swimming in liquid. It was nicely seasoned and I thought the rice was cooked perfectly. Chris, however, while recognizing that true risotto should have just a bit of toothiness to the rice, thought that it was too gummy and made his teeth squeak when he bit down. An element of the dish that didn't work for either one of us, however, was the speck. The flavor was nice, but because the pieces were so large, you ended up spending far too long trying to break it down while chewing it. Perhaps it would've been better served as a crispy julienned strips on top of the finished risotto garnishing the plate instead of being integrated throughout. Keeping in mind the extreme heights to which our meal had taken us tonight, this dish ranked merely so-so. That being said, had I eaten this risotto at a national chain restaurant, I would've been impressed by the talent of the kitchen staff.

While a dessert menu was presented, both of us were way too stuffed to consider anything else. We ordered our third dining companion who wasn't able to join us a large pasta carbonara to go and with our dinner and his take-out order, the bill came to a very reasonable $75 with tax (we had water with dinner). That's roughly $25 per person plus tip. I commented to Chris as we left that while I used to think that you had to spend far more money per person to get anything of quality, I've come to the realization that expensive doesn't always mean good and inexpensive doesn't always mean bad. I highly recommend you give Chinato a first look if you haven't already and if you have, well by all means, go back for another visit to support this wonderful local Italian eatery.

A Vaccaro's Preview: Cabernet Wine Flour

The last time I stopped in to Vaccaro's Trattoria to check out their new spring / summer menu, I ordered an item off of the dessert menu, the Cabernet Wine Flour Chocolate Lava Cake. At the time I had no idea what Cabernet Wine Flour was and simply wrote it off as perhaps a typographical error on the menu. The chocolate lava cake tasted like chocolate and I didn't give the wine flour component another thought.

That was until I received a press release recently via email from Raphael Vaccaro himself describing this new and interesting product. Apparently, a company named Marche Noir has perfected the process of turning grape skins and seeds, also known as pomace in the wine making industry, into wine flour by drying and milling them incredibly fine. The resulting flour contains all of the heart healthy components that scientists have found in red wine such as antioxidants, iron, and Resveratrol (Res-V). Additionally, the fruit used to make this flour were Ohio grown grapes, so the carbon footprint is lowered even further.

Besides the chocolate lava cake which I had previously tried, Raphael has been working with Ohio City Pasta out of Cleveland, Ohio, to incorporate the wine flour into a freshly made tagliatelle that is currently on the menu, but is still being tweaked. Since wine flour has no gluten, successfully incorporating it into something like pasta can be tricky as gluten is what gives pasta dough its stretchable quality and ultimately the chewy texture that pasta lovers all over the world have come to expect.

I decided to drop in unannounced last week to give this new pasta dish a try. My intention is to return for another dinner at Vaccaro's in a couple of weeks, but I wanted to preview this interesting product before that dinner. Sad for me, but great for the restaurant, was that I showed up to a completely booked house on a Wednesday night. Never the one to insist that anyone makes a fuss over me, I saw that there was still an empty seat in the bar area and after inquiring if I could just sit there, Martin, one of the floor managers, was more than happy to see that I was well attended to.

Having never sat in the bar before, I decided to take a photograph of the area:


While I knew what I already wanted before arriving, I took two photographs of the menu. The first photograph shows you the wine flour tagliatelle dish that was currently on the menu:


And the second shows a little blurb at the bottom of the menu describing the wine flour product:


I started out tonight's meal with a house salad, or as the menu describes it, insalata mista:


While I've had this salad as part of the $6 (now $7, I believe) lunches that I wrote about here, I've never actually had the full version before. Dressed simply with a balsamic vinaigrette, this was a nicely balanced salad. One of the perks I always enjoy when I have a salad at Vaccaro's was how nicely they are always dressed; enough vinaigrette to coat each leaf, but you aren't left with a pool of dressing at the bottom of the plate. The mixed greens also brought a bit of bitterness to the party, which was a nice contrast between the sweet and sour of the balsamic vinegar.

Having finished my salad, my tagliatelle soon arrived:


Tossed in a thick creamy sauce made from roasted red peppers, a Cabernet wine reduction, and lots of butter, the large chunks of duck confit, dollops of local MacKenzie Creamery goat cheese, and sautéed mushrooms covered the hidden tagliatelle underneath. The sauce was sweet and unctuous and perfectly seasoned. Raphael stopped in to check on me at one point and stated very emphatically that there was no heavy cream in the sauce. Then he kind of cocked his head to one side and joked, "But there's plenty of butter!" Eh, you'll hear no complaints from me. The flavor of the sauce played nicely with the duck confit, the goat cheese, and the cremini mushrooms.

On to the tagliatelle itself. Because the skins are where the pigment lies when making red or white wine, the wine flour itself lent an dark aubergine color to the finished pasta. I could tell as soon as I bit into it that it was freshly made pasta. It had a wonderfully soft texture that still retained a bit of chew to it. Sadly, I couldn't isolate any of the pasta without the sauce, so I didn't really have an opportunity to taste the pasta naked. That being said, if it did contribute a unique flavor, it worked quite well with the sauce and toppings.

Unfortunately, there were two problems with tonight's dish. First, I discovered amidst a bite of duck confit that there were two small bones which had been missed and needed to be removed:


I suspect that's a problem you won't see again, given Raphael's dedication to perfected Italian cuisine.

The other problem was with the actual tagliatelle itself:


When I started digging into the pasta, I noticed that there seemed to be a lot of sauce and toppings sitting on the pasta. As it turned out, because of the way wine flour pasta cooks and hydrates, if you aren't careful, the pasta can clump very easily. As I began to delve into the dish, I noticed a fairly large clump of pasta sitting at the bottom of the plate that had done exactly that. As soon as I started to describe the clumped pasta to Raphael, he shook his head in agreement and explained the challenges he was still overcoming with this new flour. He admitted that the challenge not only comes from cooking it properly, but that it also cooks differently the first day after it is made versus the second.

I have no doubt that Raphael and the kitchen will work out the kinks in the process and get just the right formula for a tasty, healthy, and texturally perfect pasta. He noted that in addition to the pastas, he was working on reformulating some of the pizza doughs to incorporate wine flour as well. And, he has been playing around with making gelato using wine flour. Apparently, the flavor of the gelato changes based on how old it is.

Understand, the nitpicks I make today were exactly that, nitpicks. I actually loved the flavor and texture of this dish and would certainly order it again. I'll be curious to see how the menu evolves at Vaccaro's to take advantage of this heart-healthy ingredient. Taken as just a tagliatelle dish, this new menu offering was a lip-smackingly good item and I can assure you that your taste buds will be happy. With the uniqueness of the wine flour in the pasta, I would definitely recommend you check it out. I'm just hoping to get to try more of it soon, whatever the end product might be.

More Brier Hill Pizza At Capirano's

Capirano's Pizza and Catering has been on my radar for a LONG time. In fact, as I was going through my contact list earlier this week, I wondered if I was ever going to make it out there to try their take on Brier Hill-style pizza. Capirano's first came to my attention when I was doing research in connection with my meals at the Sunrise Inn in Warren, Ohio and Avalon Gardens in Youngstown, Ohio. Somehow a Google search managed to bring up their name in Newton Falls, Ohio, right off of Route 534. Today just happened to be one of those "blah" days, overcast and in the lower forties. I also happened to be in the Ravenna area with little to do and the thought that I needed to participate in something productive today rooted itself in my mind. When Capirano's popped into my head, I pulled it up on the GPS and within twenty minutes I had pulled into the tiny shopping plaza where the restaurant was located.

Speaking of location, Capirano's Pizza and Catering was located at 119 Ridge Road, Newton Falls, Ohio 44444 and can be reached at 330-872-3777. They also have a website located here. While there were about four businesses in the small shopping plaza, there was plenty of parking in the lot in front of the stores.

Here was a shot of the front of the store:


Once inside, I noticed two small tables. I got the sense that Capirano's was mostly a take-out and delivery joint, but as I found out after getting my pizza, the tables are available if you want to eat your pizza there. At the top of the front wall was the regular menu:


And to the right and below the window in the above picture was the daily specials menu:


While regular pizzas are available in 6", 12", 14" and sheet trays, the Brier Hill pizza (and I'm assuming all of the specialty pizzas) were only available in the three largest sizes. I opted for the 12" for $8.50 and was informed it would take about twenty minutes for my pizza to be ready. Knowing that I had no other place to be, I indicated that it wouldn't be a problem and opted to wait. Of course, my plan all along was to wait and have a chance to discover as much as I could about Capirano's version of Brier Hill pizza. I discovered that there was a common heritage between all three pizzas in usage of peppers and Romano cheese (instead of Mozzarella). That seems to be where the commonalities ended. It turned out that Capirano's uses the exact same pizza sauce on their Brier Hill pizza as their regular pizzas. Happily, their pizzas also turned out to be lightly sauced, similar to Avalon Garden's version rather than the thick layer that I had found at the Sunrise Inn.

I also asked about their pizza dough and the gentleman behind the counter assured me that the pizza dough was made fresh every day. While I didn't see any evidence of a floor standing mixer that a business of this size would need to make enough dough for daily orders, there was quite a bit of the kitchen I couldn't see because it curved around a corner in the back. Based on the flavor of the dough when I ate my pizza, however, I'd have to agree that it was homemade.

Entirely visible to customers, however, were the deck ovens used to cook the pizzas:


The process, as best I could document it, was that the pizza pans were brushed with oil before the pizza dough was pressed in. Sauce, toppings, and cheese were added and the pizza baked 95% of the way through in the deck ovens. At the very end, a spatula was used to free the mostly-cooked pizza from the pan where it spent about 15-20 additional seconds in direct contact with the actual deck itself, presumably to crisp up the crust slightly. It was then removed with a pizza peel and placed into a box, cut into the appropriately sized portions and handed to the customer:


As I sat down to eat this, I noticed steam rising out of the corners of the box. After opening the lid, I was rewarded with eight slices of Brier Hill-style pizza. Notice the gray mist on the right side of the next photograph ... that was steam:


I also noticed that my pie today had both red and green bell peppers on it, something that neither of the other two restaurants did. I picked up a slice and set it on a couple of napkins:


Honestly, it wasn't a bad slice of pizza. From a typical pizza perspective, I would've loved for the crust to be a little darker. I think that would've given the pizza a deeper depth of flavor. Sadly, a majority of Americans like their pizza crusts blond and this would definitely appeal to that demographic. With the use of the Romano cheese, this pizza definitely reminded me of its brethren at the two other pizza joints I've eaten at. The sauce, however, didn't do a whole lot for me. It wasn't that it was bad. It just wasn't as distinctive as the other versions. The pizza crust by itself had a decent enough flavor, but I also realized that it was being helped along by whatever kind of oil had been used to brush the bottom of the pizza pans.

I ate half of my pizza today (I was definitely hungry), packed up the rest and brought it home for an evening snack. Capirano's version of Brier Hill-style pizza wasn't bad, but it didn't capture the nuances and real balance of flavors that you get when you order a pie from Avalon Gardens. Then again, I didn't have to drive all the way to Youngstown in order to get one either, so there is that, too. Would I get another pie from them again? If I was in the area and didn't want to have to drive to downtown Youngstown ... definitely. I don't think that they are the definitive Brier Hill pizza, but sometimes being the only option in town can be a good thing.