Almost Famous

The Ninja puts Gennaro’s Famous Pizza to the test.

Hello pizza fanatics and welcome to the May 2018 edition of the East Falls Pizza Review. For this month, the Ninja tried pizza from a shop that makes a pretty bold claim. While searching for some pizza the other night, the ninja came upon a shop by the name of ‘Gennaro’s Famous Pizza’. “Famous pizza?” the Ninja wondered out loud “I must give this a try at once”

Gennaro’s Famous Pizza is located at 210 W Chelten Ave on the bordering Germantown section of Philadelphia but delivers to East Falls. In fact, Gennaro’s claims to be so famous, that they proudly proclaim it no less than 3 times on the exterior of their building:

The Ordering Experience (5 out of 5)

Gennaro’s has enough online ordering options to make your head spin, delivery services the Ninja didn’t even know existed. Maybe this is why they are so famous? Famously easy to order from. Here are your options:

Gennaro’s website

Grubhub 

EatStreet

EZCater

Seamless

Slicelife 

Zomato 

Additional ordering options also available at:

-By phone

-In person

The Ninja placed his order at 5:45PM for and was quoted a delivery time of 45 minutes. Much to his pleasure, the pizza arrived at 6:20PM, a full 10 minutes early. Famously fast?

The Pizza Experience

Presentation (2 out of 5)

Nothing groundbreaking here in terms of the box. In fact, we’ve seen this box before at Franks and Golden Crust III. For a shop that claims to be famous I would have expected a custom box.

Under the hood, we see an x-large pie that appears to be evenly baked throughout. Good cheese to crust to sauce ratio. But maybe the pizza speaks for itself and doesn’t need a fancy box?

Look at the size of this slice. It barely fits on the plate. Famously large? Are we getting tired of the wordplay with the word “Famous” yet? Lets take a taste:

Cheese (3 out of 5)

Nothing wows me about this cheese. Standard cheese. Not amazing, not terrible. It’s tasty, it does the job. It’s baked to a nice golden color. There’s an adequate amount of grease. Overall i’m pleased with it. If there was a grease rating i’d give this slice top marks, it’s tasty in that respect.

Sauce (4.25 out of 5)

The sauce is very fulfilling. Sweet + robust with hints of fresh herbs. Great color to it as well and it’s a little on the thicker side.

Crust (4.5 out of 5)

Big fan of the crust. It’s slightly on the thicker side. I’d classify this as thick-thin crust. It’s certainly not a thick crust pizza, similar almost to a pan pizza. The crust itself is very crunchy on the outside, yet warm and doughy in the middle. So much so, that you can hold the pizza by the outer crust and it sticks out straight, parallel to the ground, absolutely no droop. Holding all of that delicious cheese and grease perfectly level with no spillage.

Conclusion (3.75 out of 5)

Famous? Maybe not. Tasty? Absolutely. One thing that became immediately apparent to me was that this pizza was eerily similar in taste, construction, and appearance to another restaurant known for making bold proclamations,. That’s right, this pizza was a near clone of Larry’s Steaks, home of the ‘Belly Filler’ on City Line Ave. What does it all mean? Could these two shops be related? Do they share their famous belly filling recipes? I guess we’ll never know.

Now, your pizza moment of zen:

About Pizza Ninja 22 Articles
Born in Chicago, arguably the capitol of world class pizza options, the Pizza Ninja consumes pizza an average of 3 to 4 nights a week. From local options to frozen pizza, no crust is left behind. He has been eating pizza for 34 years and currently resides in East Falls along with his wife, daughter and two dogs. On occasion, he will graciously share a slice of his pizza with them. Follow the Ninja on Instagram.

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