Mushroom cloud

My husband’s first response when we walked into the compact dining area of Nu Yalk Pizza on the Southwest corner of Kietzke and Moana was elation. The Monday Night NFL game was on, and industrious if gruff employees would occasionally holler at the screen as a handful of customers washed pizza down with pitchers of beer or took advantage of the free internet service. Mumbling something about “When in Rome …” my hubby swiftly procured his own pitcher of Hawkeye Ale ($10.95) as we waited for our dinner company.

Keith and Janet brought 9-year-old Gwen and baby Michael in tow, but the raucous interest in the game from behind the counter and the clientele didn’t really lend itself to a family atmosphere. Good pizza would have mooted these subjective and minor considerations, but on this night we unfortunately did not get it.

Maybe I’m misinformed, but in my mind, “New York Style” pizza means a high cheese-to-crust ratio and toppings as supporting actors. Instead “The Veg” ($31.30 for the extra large) was anchored on a bland crust that somehow managed to lack crispness despite being leathery tough. Even Nu Yalk’s pizza cutters couldn’t sever it completely enough to make the pieces easy to separate by hand. Our pizzaiolo was cool with our request to substitute garlic for the green pepper from the standard recipe, but a nuclear attack of mushrooms overwhelmed such flavor as there was from the uninspiring sauce and other alleged toppings. I’ll take Nu Yalk at their word that there was the requested garlic as well as the usual onions and olives, but my taste buds couldn’t independently verify this. The leftovers did make it home and get eaten the next day, but only after extensive doctoring that included supplemental cheese.

Fallout from the “mushroom cloud” proceeded onto Keith and Janet’s sector, making collateral damage of these two innocent civilians. “The Woiks,” essentially the same as The Veg except with pepperoni and sausage ($33.45 for the extra large), suffered the same ill effects. Janet complimented the spicy pepperoni, but the mushrooms overwhelmed whatever other merits of the pie there might have been.

Better luck might be had with the calzone ($9.40 for one with any two ingredients), spaghetti ($8.31), or hero sandwiches (halves in the six-buck range, $11-$12 for a whole). Should even these selections match our experience with the pizza, consolation might be found in an unpretentious mug of Pabst ($1.86) or, for a dollar more, something a little more refined from a decent selection of microbrews that includes Reno’s own Buckbean Ale ($2.73 for the mug; $10.95 for a pitcher.)

So no, I wasn’t impressed. I’ll grant that some diners might really want a pizza best labeled “Mushroom Apocalypse”—I’m just not one of them.