Giovanni’s Pizza and Pasta located on 123 Sixth Street definitely has pizza and definitely has pasta, but it’s some of the weirdest I have ever tasted.
When The Globe business manager, Nevaeh Wessel, and I last visited the restaurant we ordered a spicy buffalo chicken pizza by mistake. Typically, buffalo sauce is either sweet or spicy, so when the pizza was so spicy that it was inedible for both of us, I was shocked.
The worker we spoke to even joked that they made it extra spicy because we looked like we could handle it. We could not. So, after taking several painful bites and failing to decipher the pizza’s flavor, the only logical thing I could think of was to drive to my spice-tolerant boyfriend’s house and force him to eat it.
According to the menu, the dish came with grilled chicken strips, fries, mozzarella, provolone cheese on buffalo sauce and ranch on the side. After a bite, he said that the pizza was not spicy at all, which was a stark misjudgment. He didn’t like the fries on top, the chicken was moist and cheesy but wasn’t anything special.
Spice aside, I didn’t like the taste either.
In a fit of hunger, the eight-inch meatball hoagie for $12.99 was possibly the best sandwich that I’ve ever had. The meatballs were cut in half, steamy and weren’t entirely drenched in pizza sauce. The bread flattened and crisped like a macaron when it was bit into and there was a beautiful cheese pull.
The menu listed the ingredients simply as meatballs, marinara sauce, mozzarella and provolone. Despite often trying some exotic dishes, I much prefer simple dishes, and this dish was simply delectable. It’s the only thing I would recommend.
The chicken and broccoli pasta tasted plain weird and cost $16.99. The sauce was watery and flavored by the broccoli, which gave it an odd flavor that was oddly pungent. The pasta noodles themselves were average and the chicken was chewy. Oddly chewy.
The broccoli by itself was soft, so they hit the mark on it, although I would not order this again. It was a good portion, but the quality did not meet the price.
Giovanni’s Pizza and Pasta is a hit or miss. Like many restaurants, there are some good things on the menu, but you need to learn where to look. I for one would not waste my money here just to sample a dish that might leave a bad taste in my mouth.
Cassandra rated Giovanni’s Pizza 2.5 Globes out of 5.
