Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Couch Tomato Café Pizza Review

The Couch Tomato Café Margherita Pizza Review

The Couch Tomato Café is another very popular pizza place located in the Manayunk section of Philadelphia. They have outdoor as well as in door seating and are conveniently located near Main Street.

The Couch Tomato Café, located at 102 Rector Street, Philadelphia, PA 19127, was established in 2003 by Michael Cassano and Craig Mosmen. Michael and Craig were 2000 graduates of the University of Delaware and were highly interested in the restaurant business. They have successfully created a very solid business in Manayunk that is well organized and ripe for expansion. The Couch Tomato is a beautiful little place with outside seating to watch the passer bys along Main Street. They also have indoor seating where you can sit on the popular giant tomato looking couch. The décor inside is very appropriate to their theme, “tomatoes.”

The Couch Tomato has won many awards since their inception and is continuously in the Philly restaurant spotlight. Their pizzas focus mainly on New York Style Thin Crust pizzas. I tried the small personal Margherita pizza and was extremely impressed for many reasons. Their pizza is truly unique in that they use all fresh ingredients and in the method that they use it. Let me elaborate.

The Margherita pizza had mozzarella cheese balls (not melted) arranged on the pizza. This is very unique as most pizza shops will usually melt the cheese. I thought this style of using mozzarella actually produced a very tasty unique pizza. Also, their Margherita pizza had tomato slices in addition to their sauce on top of the pizza. This is a very healthy way to eat pizza and provides more of a natural taste. The sauce was good enough by itself being very sweet and tangy but with the tomato slices…that was a treat. The crust is thin crust New York style. It was not slightly burnt the way New Yorkers like it but it was foldable without cracking, which is a sign of a good thin crust. I also ordered the wheat crust instead of the original white crust and was very impressed with the quality of its taste.

The basil used was fresh whole leaves strategically spread over the four slices that came with the personal size pie. This is the way that Santucci Brothers Square Pizza should have done their pies instead of their chopped slices, which were chopped way too much.

The cost of the pie was relatively inexpensive ringing in at $8.99 for a small pie with 4 slices. The value was in the freshness of ingredients. I really liked the Couch Tomato pizza. I think that New York pizza critics may agree too. I am confident that a place like this would rightfully represent Philadelphia to the pizza world as being a representation of what the best Philly pizzas have to offer. So congrats to the Couch Tomato Café as you have made the cut and our now a part of the Best Philadelphia Pizza Club!

The Couch Tomato Café on Urbanspoon

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