#130: Rosati’s Pizza

So this one is kind of interesting.  First off I had planned on grabbing a pizza from Steve’s Pizza, which is in the same shopping center on Foothills where Teriyaki to Go is located.  Apparently they’ve gone out of business, soon to be replaced by another pizza joint.  So I head over one driveway down and go to Rosati’s Pizza.  Now that I’ve eaten and I’m doing a little research into it, I realize that I had actually removed Rosati’s a while back because I decided it was a big enough chain.  But get this, if you go to the Rosati’s website, rosatispizza.com, you won’t see any mention of this California location.  Every other location has it’s own page within that website.  Yelp lists our local Rosati’s website as myrosatis.com.  Same logo, same menu (with slight variations from location to location).  I’m not really sure what the deal is here.  I’ll go ahead anyway.

Unsurprisingly, I was the only customer at 3:30PM.  I walked through the doors and was in a narrow-ish space where the main ordering counter is located.  A woman appeared after just a few seconds to greet me and take my order.  I didn’t see a big menu anywhere, instead they had a small one up on the counter which I looked over.  I planned on getting a half white sauce with chicken something or other.  The other half I hadn’t figured out yet.  First I went over the crusts and asked her what the difference was between their Chicago and pan crusts were.  She explained to me that the cheese and toppings go down in the Chicago crust followed by sauce and tomatoes.  The pan style is made in the same deep pan as the Chicago deep dish, but the order and ratio of toppings is different.  On this one it’s sauce, toppings, then lots of cheese on top.  I’m a thin crust guy, but the pan crust actually sounded pretty good.  That said, I asked which crust they were known for and she said that their thin crust was by far the most popular and was probably about 90% of their orders.  With that I picked thin.  I quickly saw and chose the Chicken Alfredo as one half.  As I looked for my other selection I paused on The Rosati’s Monster (Sausage, Pepperoni, Bacon, Ground Beef, Mushroom, Onion, Green Pepper, Tomatoes, Green and Black Olives with a hand rolled edge).  She mentioned that the green olives pack a punch in this one.  I’m glad she said that because I had missed the green olives and I’m not a fan of them.  Instead I went with the Classic Combo which she recommended.

My bill came out to almost $20 for this medium (14″) thin crust specialty pizza.  It definitely seemed pricey and it’s probably one of the more expensive pizzas in Roseville, up there with Round Table.  I headed to the left, where the dining room was, to wait.  It’s a big rectangular room with a large HDTV at one end and an arcade game or two in a corner (I didn’t take a good look over there).  There are booths as well as big tables that could be moved around to accommodate larger parties.  A fountain drink station that didn’t look like it was intended for self service makes me think they have people working the dining room during peak hours.  I didn’t look at my watch but it felt like about 10ish minutes for my pizza to be made and brought out to me.  The box was quite hot and I rushed home so it would still be that way when I started eating.

This was one of the most elaborate pizza boxes I’ve ever encountered.  It had a flap on each side near the front that you pulled out, freeing the top to swing open, and then the entire thing “relaxed” and laid flat in all directions.  Inside, my thin pizza awaited.  The first thing I noticed was how it was cut.  Instead of typical triangular slices it was cut into squares.  I thought this was really annoying since that meant that the 6 pieces in the center had nothing to grab onto but cheese, sauce and toppings, making for a messy meal, which I hate.  I wonder if they’d cut it the other way if requested.

I picked up my first rectangular slice and it held up nicely.  The bottom of the crust was nice and crisp and supported the toppings, not perfectly but better than a lot of other thin crusts would.  I started out with the Chicken Alfredo (Homemade Alfredo Sauce, Grilled Chicken and Sautéed Onions).  Though their online menu doesn’t mention it, the Chicken Alfredo also has spinach.  This was a really tasty pizza.  The crust was as crisp as it looked, which texture-wise was a nice contrast to the super creamy alfredo sauce.  Toppings were not heavy, but also not light.  Each slice had a decent amount.  The sauce and cheese had to pull a little more weight, and they did well.  I enjoyed just about everything about this one.

Next up was the Classic Combo (Sausage, Pepperoni, Mushroom, Onions and Green Peppers).  Again, the online menu omitted one ingredient: black olives.  Not sure why it’s inaccurate.  The first thing I tasted was the sausage, which was freaking delicious.  Apparently they get it directly from Chicago.  Everything else on this side was really good as well.  Nothing overwhelmed anything else.  The onions and green peppers were crisp.  Most importantly for me, as I tend to enjoy creamy garlic/alfredo type white sauce over tomato based sauces, the red sauce on the classic combo side was amazing.  It wasn’t too sweet, too spicy or too tomato-y.  It was perfect.  I think I actually liked the Classic Combo slightly more than the Chicken Alfredo.  Crazy Town.

I think this might be my favorite pizza in town.  The only thing I didn’t like about it was how it was cut, but that’s an easy thing they could do differently if I asked them.  Despite it’s dubious chain/not chain status, I’m glad I stopped by.  The woman I spoke with was very friendly and helpful in answering my questions.  She also told me about these guys that came in once to shoot a little youtube video (which I’ve put below).  It gives a great look into how they make and cook their pizzas.  The woman in the video is the same one I spoke with.  Check it out.

Website: http://www.myrosatis.com