Sabatini's Pizza

Name: Sabatini's Pizza
Location: 1925 Wyoming Ave., Exeter, PA 18643
Phone: (570) 693-2270
Cuisine: Pizza/Italian
Price: Around $10/$12 for a pizza. Bring cash!

Review:
One thing I've alluded to a few times throughout this blog adventure is my affinity for good beer. And by "good beer" I don't mean Heineken or Guinness. I prefer high-quality Belgian sour ales, rich coffee stouts, barleywines, hoppy IPAs, and just about everything in between.

Sabatini's, nominally a pizza parlor, plays host to one of the most prodigious selections of beer I have ever seen. They have 12 taps at any given time for draft beer. Usually about half the taps are the usual swill you'd find at most other bars, but the other half consists of selections you aren't likely to find anywhere else. They sell and fill growlers, giving patrons the option of taking 2 liters of draft beer home with them. The bottle collection is phenomenal, with selections from many of the top American craft breweries and from breweries all around the world. And did I mention the pizza? It's certainly different from most pizza I've ever had, but it's strangely addicting and is among my personal favorites.

Megan and I were heading to a concert in Scranton last night and I took that as an opportunity to introduce her to Sabatini's. I'd been a couple times before. Word of warning: this is not an easy place to get to. It is quite a distance from both I-81 and I-476, and you will have to endure many red lights and little suburban towns where the speed limit is 25 MPH. The small borough of Exeter, PA is home to Sabatini's, on the west bank of the Susquehanna River about halfway between Scranton and Wilkes-Barre. Not easy to get to from Binghamton, but if you like pizza and/or beer, it's worth the trip.

The restaurant itself is laid out such that there are two distinct dining areas. The front room is comprised of older, wooden booths with all sorts of memorabilia on the walls from the coal-mining days of yore in the region. The back room has some larger tables. It's a comfortable atmosphere with a sunroof in the front room to provide some natural light to an otherwise dimly-lit restaurant.

I started with a Bell's Oberon wheat ale (draft) and Megan (not a beer drinker) had a Sprite. Note: if you like Blue Moon...try the Oberon and you'll never go back! We ordered a medium pizza (10 small slices and plenty large enough for the two of us) with half meatball.


Now, that probably does not look like the most appetizing pizza you've ever seen. It is definitely an oddball in the pizza universe. The crust is very thin and the toppings extend the whole way out to the edge of the pie. The cheese is an interesting blend that Megan and I both thought was not entirely mozzarella, and the crust has a nice char to it that gives the entire pizza a very smoky flavor. What separates this pizza from the pack is the sauce. This is some of the sauciest pizza I've ever had and it has such a unique sweet taste. It's the kind of pizza where you take your first bite and think it's just OK, but after you've downed a slice or two, it becomes awesome, as if it takes a few minutes for your taste buds to adjust their expectations. That sounds like some kind of backhanded compliment but it really isn't. This is addicting stuff, vaguely similar to the Neapolitan pizza Megan and I had in Italy, and we polished off the whole pie in short order.

I washed it down with another draft, this time a Pretty Things Baby Tree Belgian-style ale, a strong beer brewed with plums and a hint of coffee in the finish. A fine beer indeed, and not one I would readily find anywhere else. I filled a couple growlers to go and then we were off to our show.

If you like pizza, Sabatini's is definitely worth trying out. I don't know that it would be worth the trip for just the pizza alone, but it is consistently rated among the best in the Scranton area, a region well-known for its pizza-making prowess. If you like beer, Sabatini's is a gold mine of amazing brews available at completely reasonable prices, far superior to what you would be able to find at Sam the Beer Man in Binghamton. It is a miracle to me that a place like this with such a world-class selection exists in the small town of Exeter, PA, but I will gladly make more trips to sample both the great beer and their addicting pizza in the future.

Grade: A

Arcaro & Genell

Name: Arcaro & Genell
Location: 443 S Main St., Old Forge, PA 18518
Phone: (570) 457-4262
Cuisine: Italian
Price: $13+ for a full "tray," the "+" depending on toppings

Review:
Old Forge, PA, a southwestern suburb of Scranton, is known to Northeastern Pennsylvanians, and I reckon a few others, as the "Pizza Capital of the World," boasting more pizza parlors per person than anywhere else. Not only do they have more pizza options than anywhere, the style of pizza is an entity unto itself. Old Forge pizza is known for a crispy, somewhat thick crust and lacks the traditional gooey mozzarella cheese of most pizzas. The pizza is rectangular instead of round, pies are known as "trays," while slices are "cuts." When in Old Forge, you must speak the local vernacular.

After my review of Brozzetti's in Johnson City last Sunday, where I speculated that Brozzetti's could be a rogue Old Forge pizza place, I decided I had to find out the truth of the matter. Even though this is the "Tasting Binghamton" blog, some places that aren't in Binghamton are worth a day trip. This is one of them.

My friend Tom and I, beer geeks as we are, made a trip down to the Scranton area to pick up some stuff we can't get locally in Binghamton and around mid-afternoon we both developed some serious hunger. I suggested a trip out to Revello's in Old Forge, as I'd heard they were the best of the bunch and had served some famous patrons, such as Hillary Clinton. Tom was game for the 10-mile trip from our location at the time and off we went with my Droid to guide us to our destination.

Upon arriving at Revello's we were stunned to notice that the place was closed at 2:30 PM on a Saturday and would not be open until 4:30. Luckily, we looked across the intersection and saw Arcaro & Genell, which I noticed other people entering, and I'd read it was supposed to be right up there with Revello's as the best around.

We entered and took a seat and I was surprised by the ambiance. It's a dimly-lit place with booths to the left, tables to the right, and a nice-looking bar in one corner. I felt a little underdressed in the place; it was really very nice on the inside. Soon after, we asked the waitress (who I felt bad for as it seems she was the only waitress on duty and the place was pretty busy) which topping she would recommend of pepperoni, sausage, and meatball. Without a moment's thought, she replied that we should get all three of them. I wasn't about to deviate from her suggestion and so that's what we did, with Tom adding green peppers and olives to his half of the pie...errr...ummm...tray. The waitress warned us that the full tray would be more than enough for two people, but I didn't care. This was Old Forge and I was going to get my money's worth!

After a looooong wait (40 minutes or so) our pizza finally came out. I presume that the style of the pizza in addition to the number of toppings we got added significantly to the waiting time. Would it be worth the wait?

In a word, YES! This was excellent pizza, and I can understand why Old Forge has built such a reputation. The first thing you notice about this pizza that is different from usual is the cheese. I was right about its cheese being similar to Brozzetti's! It's definitely a softer, filmier cheese like either American or Fontina that sticks to your teeth as you bite in. This cheese makes for a less greasy pizza than the standard mozzarella, which is a welcome change of pace. Unfortunately for my conjecture, that's where the similarities to Brozzetti's end. While Brozzetti's has a soft, bready crust, Arcaro & Genell's is very crispy and has a fried-like quality to it. The closest comparison I can think of would be the crust on the pan pizza at Pizza Hut, but a MUCH better done version, and much tastier. Tom commented that he thought it was similar to French bread pizza, and I can see a strong similarity there as well. The toppings are phenomenal, especially the meatballs, which come thick-sliced and well-seasoned. The sauce is robust and a little spicy, but I would say that the sauce is a secondary element to this pizza, with the cheese and the crust being its primary players. Again, this is way different from Brozzetti's where the sloppy sauce is pivotal. Arcaro & Genell's pizza is definitely unique, sharing some qualities with Sicilian-style pizza, but the cheese and crust combine to put this in a category all its own.

I was able to get through 3 cuts of our 12-cut tray, while Tom was only able to manage 2. This is extremely rich pizza: the waitress was definitely right about this being way too much for the two of us, but hey, we each got to take some home with us. I just heated up a slice...grrr....cut for lunch and it was nearly as great reheated as it was in Old Forge itself.

The pizza came to around $20 which, for the number of toppings we got, the size of the pizza, and the ability to say I've had Old Forge pizza, I found to be reasonable.

If you're a Binghamtonian in search of something different, consider making the hour-long trip down I-81 to Old Forge and stopping at Arcaro & Genell's. My theory that the pizza would be similar to Brozzetti's may have been mostly disproven, but at least I was partially right (regarding the cheese), and I found a pizza that I would certainly consider among the best I have ever sampled. If you ever find yourself in Scranton, this place is a must-visit.

Grade: A