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Don't get your hopes up; Brixx isn't pizza Nirvana
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Published: June 11, 2009
Call it the Pizza Paradox.
On the surface, pizza is among the simplest of foods -- yeasty dough baked over high heat into chewy, crunchy crust. Even the sauce and cheese can be optional. The thickness of the crust varies. So does the shape. Toppings are only limited by our imaginations and access to ingredients.
There are so few rules with pizza. Why, then, are there so few delicious ones? Why's it so hard to make a killer pie?
I thought things may get a little better once Brixx Wood Fired Pizza set up a branch in town. Alas. I am still hunting for pizza Nirvana in Winston-Salem.
A small, Southeastern chain of pizzerias, Brixx bakes its pizzas in a brick oven. And once you get inside the restaurant, it's clear that the oven is the centerpiece. Flames flicker out of its mouth as cooks wielding pizza peels slide pies in and out, on stage in an open kitchen and wrapped by a long, curvy bar.
The menu is equally an ode to pizza, a colorful collection of 10-inch pies.
There's pizza with pear, gorgonzola and walnuts; pizza with chicken, bacon and spinach; pizza with barbecued chicken and Gouda cheese; "Mexican" pizza with black beans and jalapenos and its American cousin, wearing mushrooms and pepperoni.
This pizza has good intentions -- it's shades of Neapolitan-style, with a thin crust, some char along the circumference and tasty-sounding combinations.
But for all the things going for these pies, they're lacking something.
They are simultaneously underwhelming and overwhelming bombardments of salt and slicks of cheese. Perhaps the problem is with the toppings, or at least some of them. On a pizza, there isn't much room for the overly-processed to hide.
There's spottiness to a pie when the shellfish on the Cajun andouille and shrimp pizza is succulent but the andouille is rubbery and lifeless, or when a pizza with arugula; button, shiitake and portobello mushrooms is struggling for air in a sea of gummy mozzarella. With prosciutto and Italian sausage, the Bronx Bomber was slightly better.
The crust also has a problem or two. Despite the bit of char and crunch along the edge, pizzas that I've had in two visits to Brixx have verged on undercooked toward their centers. Part of the rustic appeal of pizzas baked this way is their unevenness, but this was extreme. It makes me wonder whether the kitchen staff has the brick oven mastered, or if they're afraid of it. Pizza-making and baking is no time to be gingerly with fire.
Brixx restaurant is all about casual comfort. It's lined with flat-screen televisions, deep booths and high tables and bar stools. There's a roomy outside patio with umbrella-shaded tables. It would be a more pleasant place to sit if it didn't overlook a parking lot.
Along with the pies, the menu includes sandwiches and wraps. But my carbohydrate of choice here is pasta. There's a short list -- salmon with lemon-thyme butter and penne, pomodoro with angel hair -- and I'd come back to try them because I really enjoyed the shrimp carbonara. It's not true carbonara, a sauce that's traditionally based on eggs instead of cream, but this interpretation is pleasant enough, thick with cream and tangles of sun-dried tomatoes and prosciutto, the shrimp plentiful and cooked just right, the penne firmly al dente. Skip the dry herbed focaccia served on the side.
The best things on the menu are things Dr. Aktins would look more favorably on: fresh, crisp, uncomplicated salads, carefully dressed so that each leaf is slicked with creamy Caesar, or zingy feta. The Caesar is very good, close on the heels of another romaine-based salad, this one decked with tomatoes, roasted red peppers and banana peppers.
Oh, and the beer list is pure comfort. That's where Brixx's proclivity to variety pays off, with loads of micro-brewed choices, from Allagash White (a Belgian-style wheat beer) from Portland, Maine, and Fat Tire from Colorado to North Carolina brews from Duck-Rabbit Craft Brewery in Farmville and hometown Foothills Brewing Company, among others. Root beer is also on tap, and it is good, thick, creamy and spicy in frosty pint glasses.
Other appetizers include a pita and hummus plate with black bean, roasted red pepper and traditional varieties, and better, a platter of chopped Roma tomato, feta and basil bruschetta.
For dessert, you can choose between tiramisu (unmemorable, un-boozy); "Snickers" pie, which is a chilly confection of chocolate and peanuts that's more candy than pie (not bad); and caramel cheesecake (very sweet but satisfying).
What I really wanted was more of that root beer, this time in a float.
The Scoop
Brixx Wood Fired Pizza
Address: 1295 Creekshire Way (the Shoppes on Little Creek).
Phone: 837-0664.
Website: www.brixxpizza.com.
Hours: 11 a.m.-1 a.m. Monday through Saturday; 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Sunday.
Reservations: No.
Type of cuisine: All manner of pizzas, pasta and sandwiches, many cooked in the restaurant's brick oven.
Alcohol: Full bar. Stellar beer list, with many familiar and harder-to-find craft brews on tap.
Smoking: Allowed on outside patio.
Health-department rating: 98 percent.
Price range: Appetizers and salads: $2.95-$6.95;
Sandwiches: $6.95-$7.95; Pizza: $8.95-$10.95; Pasta: $8.95-$12.95.
Credit cards: MasterCard, Visa, American Express.
Atmosphere: Casual sports-bar like pizzeria, loaded with deep booths, tall tables and bar stools, and a fiery brick oven at the center.
The wait: None.
Service: Spot on, friendly.
Be sure to try: Caesar salad, Mediterranean salad, shrimp carbonara, draft root beer.
Stay away from: I'm left dissatisfied with the pizza … and this is a pizzeria.
Vegetarian-friendly? Very, and pizzas can be made with vegan cheese.
Will I go back? For pasta and salads, maybe.
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