Thursday, June 16, 2011

Alberto's Pizza And Wings: The reason I will not be wearing a bikini this summer.

Alberto's Pizza and Wings
1384 Bathurst Street,
M5R 3J1 Toronto,Ontario
Phone:416-654-5555


I stumbled upon the easily passable Alberto's Pizza and Wings, very soon after moving into my new place. Upon closer inspection, not only was Alberto's going hit the spot for my pizza cravings but hopefully satisfy my love for...tex-mex? Tex-Mex!



The tex-mex/pizza joint has been a neighbour hood staple for the past twenty years.Clearly the combo has proved effective. Located on Bathurst, just south of Vaughn and St Clair, the restaurant is on a rather lonely block with no other food joints around it. This gives Alberto's a chance to shine, through process of elimination.


To be fair, I decided to order a few things off the vast menu of unhealthy deliciousness. How good can a place be that serves burgers, burritos, pizza and wings? With so many specialty shops around, it’s hard to imagine places left with such a large menu do any one thing really well. I went for the walk-in special, a medium peperoni pizza for $9.00, tax included. The pizza we had was delicious, with a tangy sauce and home-made dough. It wasn't thin crust, but a perfect balance between chain-store dipping crust and a good dough recipe. It still allowed lots of room for dipping your crust.

There are lots of walk-in specials for lunch under $10.00, and dinner from $10-$15 per person.There is room in the restaurant for patrons to dine-in, but it is clear that this is a place where the neighbours come to pick up dinner and eat at home.




I returned to Alberto's a few nights later to give their ground beef burrito a try. I called in to order it a few minutes before I wandered over. When I arrived, it seemed that Alberto's had forgotten about my order. I wasn't in a rush, so I wasn't bothered. They said it would be five minutes (ten or so in reality), which was pretty impressive for fresh food made to order.

The ground beef burrito, $12.95 with a small house salad, was more of an enchilada than a burrito. It came served in an aluminum take out container, instead of being wrapped as most take-out burritos are. Doused in a rather spicy (considering I forgot to ask for extra spicy) burrito sauce, baked with 3 cheeses and a few jalapenos on top. The inside held a pretty standard combination of Mexican rice, whole beans instead of re fried, cheese, tomato and ground beef. A generous helping of sour cream and guacamole were thrown into the mix on the side, potentially for free because of the initial mix up, making it a really filling dinner for under $15.




You can't really go wrong with a place that serves so many things. I don't anticipate any of them are bad but I would say trying the fish and chips here might be where I draw the line.