Amici's East Coast Pizzeria

Update Review, October 2023

A bunch of years ago, I wrote about Amici's East Coast Pizzeria, and, at the time, all I reviewed was the lackluster meatballs (see below).  I haven't sought out Amici's since, and never was that excited by their pizza, but recently attended an event catered by Amici's, so, pizza it was.

Our hosts ordered an assortment of pizzas (all large), and I tried a couple.  Note that this was just a few weeks after I returned from living in NY for a month, and, let's just say, it wasn't even in the same ballpark.  

Trentino. $42.75.

"Parmesan, crumbled feta, baby spinach, red onions, pancetta, herbs, meyer lemon olive oil, mozzarella (no tomato sauce)."

I did not know what kind of pizza this was when I grabbed a slice of the Trentino, I was simply drawn in by the red onions and crispy bits of what looked like delicious pork product.

The crispy bits of delicious pork product turned out to be just that - super crispy, very flavorful, quite salty, bits of pancetta.  I did quite like the pancetta.  There was a nice amount of it on one side, but the other half really was sparse.  Not exactly consistent in the topping application.

The red onion and baby spinach were good, they went well with the pancetta.  I'm not really one for feta though, so that brought this down a few notches for me, and, although I do think the lack of red sauce made sense, and let the toppings shine, it did eat a bit dry.

The crust was mediocre, not particularly good, not an interesting flavor, nor great chew, nor anything redeeming, but at least it wasn't soggy.  Lower end mediocre.  The cheese was average.

Overall, a pretty generic and mediocre piece of pizza, but, the pancetta and onions really were tasty.  **** for those, **+ otherwise, *** overall.

Trentino. $42.75.

"Parmesan, crumbled feta, baby spinach, red onions, pancetta, herbs, meyer lemon olive oil, mozzarella (no tomato sauce)."

A few weeks later, I was at another event with Amici's pizza, and was drawn back in by the memory of the tasty pancetta.  It was again good, but not quite as memorable, and I was more distracted by the strong feta and such lackluster crust this time.  **.

Hawaiian. $35.75.

"Honey-cured ham, pineapple, mozzarella, tomato sauce."

I know hawaiian pizza can be polarizing for some people.  I am not those people.  I don't generally go for pineapple in other places (meh to pineapple in sweet and sour dishes, meh to pineapple on ice cream, meh to pineapple in fruit salad, etc), but, I do like the sweetness with ham on pizza.  That said, I did not like this pizza.

The crust was the same as the previous slice, pretty meh.  The sauce was uninteresting.  Cheese mediocre.  Ham was like Canadian bacon, really porky, and tough.  I didn't care for it at all.  Pineapple was fine, just canned crushed pineapple.

Overall, just not good, and I didn't enjoy this at all.  *.

Combo. $42.75.

"Pepperoni, meatball, bacon, sautéed mushrooms, black olives, mozzarella, tomato sauce."

I didn't actually try the combo, this is just here for illustrative purposes.  The distribution of ingredients was really not ideal, soooo many black olives everywhere!

Original Review, April 2022

I don't really eat that much pizza these days.   This makes me a complete mystery to my parents, who have pizza night every single week, without fail, and love having the leftovers to eat for several days.  More than half the days of a week my dad eats pizza.  But me?  Eh.  

Back when I first moved to San Francisco, pizza was definitely heavy in my rotation, and that meant basically one of two places: Little Star (which I've reviewed several times before) or Patxi's (generally when in the South Bay because it was close to where I lived).  Always for deep dish.  Little Star cornmeal crust deep dish really is a special thing.  But I mostly moved on from frequenting the Mission (where I'd go to Little Star, despite the epic waits), and mostly just don't crave pizza (of course, I went through a thin crust Delfina phase, and had to check out the hype that was Tony's too at some point).

But even if I don't care about pizza, Amici's has been on my radar, a chain with locations all throughout the bay area, one of which I used to walk by regularly.  I remember having it a few times, always for delivery at an event and thinking, "meh".  Standard, "East Coast" style pizza.  Bo-ring.

During the pandemic Amici's pivoted, shuttering several of their locations and instead moving to takeout/delivery only, from ghost or cloud kitchens.  It is from one of those kitchens, located at 60 Moris street, that I finally tried Amici's again.

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Beef Meatballs. $5.75.

Meh.

All I can say about these.

The sauce really had no depth.  Just, tomato sauce.  Actually, I think, pizza sauce?  It was no different from any grocery store jarred sauce.

The meatballs were like what I remember the mini meatballs in Spaghettios or Chef Boyardee being like, just, bigger. That is, they were mushy, not spongy exactly, but, soft in an odd way.  Eh.

The meatballs were served with no cheese or anything to jazz this up (ok, partial point for some herb garnish?).

I absolutely would not get again and was rather shocked at how low quality this dish seemed to be.  Only good with some penne and cheese, if you were, you know, craving canned-tasting meatballs.

**.

Caesar Salad (with Anchovies). $7.95.

"Crisp romaine, housemade croutons, freshly grated parmesan. Served with Caesar dressing. Complimentary anchovy fillets added upon request."

I moved on to the caesar salad, at least a legit offering with anchovies optional.  The salad came nicely packaged up, with the croutons and dressing on the side, so not to get soggy.  Points for that.

Salad Base: SO MUCH CHEESE.

There was, um, a lot of cheese on top.  Literally, a cup of cheese on here.  That said, it was indeed fresh grated, it wasn't dried out, and it was a decent quality, had some nuttiness to it.  Above average for a generic pizza place, and clearly they didn't skimp.  The meatballs really could have used some of this generosity.

Below the cheese was ... the ANCHOVIES!  Yes, you can ask for anchovies, complimentary, which I most definitely did.  Like the cheese, there were actually tons of anchovies.  Salty, briny, exactly what you'd expect from anchovies.  I adored these, and was so glad to see them on here.

And finally the lettuce, standard caesar base of torn romaine.  Seemed fresh, crisp, decent portion, good size chunks.

The base of this salad was remarkably solid, I was rather shocked to be honest, solidly above average.

***+.  

House Made Croutons.

I appreciated that the croutons were on the side, even though I didn't ask for this.  Yay to not soggy croutons.

The croutons, just like the salad base, kinda surprised me in their quality.  The portion was generous, the cubes were extremely well seasoned (tons of Italian herbs!), they were very crunchy but not too crisp (clearly lots of olive oil used!), and they tasted, well, like a pizzeria.

These were very good croutons. Again, ***+.

Caesar Dressing.

And finally, the dressing.

This is something I'm always polar on with Caesar.  There are two styles of Caesar dressing usually, the thinner, vinaigrette style, and the nice thick mayo style.  And of course some are loaded with parmesan.  Some use real anchovy.

My personal preference is the thick mayo style, minimal parmesan in the dressing, and bring on the anchovy.

This was somewhere in the middle.  It was a vinaigrette style, but a thicker one.  It was loaded with grated parmesan.  I'm not sure about anchovy.  The flavor was decent, not too tangy, and very cheese forward.  Certainly not my favorite Caesar dressing, but, good.  And seemed quite possibly house made?

***.