Mastering the Art of the Pony Keg Pizza at Trotta's

Twelfth Stop: Trotta’s Pizza and Drive Thru

Date:  April 6^th, 2012

Location: 3501 Werk Road  Cincinnati, OH 45248

Ranking: 37

We had been waiting for the ideal time to try this drive-thru on the Westside, and this Friday night seemed as good as any.  With some rented movies and a comfortable couch awaiting us, we made the trek across the city together.  We phoned in our order on the way. 

Essentially, Trotta’s offers two completely different types of pizza:  Sicilian and Traditional.  The Sicilian is a rectangular-shaped, thick-crusted pizza with large, puffy edges.  The Traditional is on the thinner side, and round.  With these two different types of pizza, all kinds of varieties are offered, including both specialty pies and an impressive list of ingredients to build your own creation.  And then, there is the Lotta Trotta.  By our estimates, this is a gargantuan version of a Sicilian pizza, though we do not know its precise dimensions; they are not listed on the drive-thru’s site.  From pictures and confirmations from friends, we understand that this menu item lives up to its name.  However, we will have to wait until next time to find out for sure.

On the left, Sicilian-style goetta pizza.  On the right, a traditional style bacon spinach pizza.

On this night, we thought it best to order two completely different pies.  Variety is always nice, plus we find it more suitable for blogging purposes.  On an 18” Traditional crust, we selected the Bacon Spinach pizza, which featured red onion, Roma tomatoes, black pepper, garlic, provolone, and a ranch sauce in addition to those titular key ingredients. Robyn noticed quite a bit of minced garlic on her leftover slices the next day, which could be a make or break feature if you care about how your breath smells throughout the next 24 hours after eating this pizza. All of us agreed that this pizza was AWESOME. 

We like it, a lotta.

The creamy ranch sauce was slightly tangy, and really complimented the medley of ingredients atop the pizza.  The toppings were incredibly fresh.  Leaves of fresh spinach laid flat under the other, more bulky ingredients, thin slices of red onion wove their way between the giant chunks of thick bacon, and the cheese successfully brought (and kept) all of these pieces together.  The crust had a buttery taste to it, which, is always delicious.  It was firm to the touch and crispy on the outside but, once you took a bite, incredibly soft and chewy on the inside.  This was definitely our favorite.

To accompany the Bacon Spinach, we chose a one-topping Large Sicilian.  Our topping of choice:  goetta.  That’s right, folks, Trotta’s offers goetta in their exceptional list of pizza toppers. We knew this from the initial Cincinnati Magazine blurb, and had always planned to take advantage of its availability when the time came.  We love goetta (in fact, Robyn was once dubbed The Goetta Princess), and had only had it on pizza at the annual Goettafest extravaganza.  None of us were sure of what would best compliment the goetta (maybe tomatoes?), so we made the executive decision to leave it at that.  We are sad to say that we were a little disappointed.

 

As aforementioned, the Sicilian pizza is much bulkier in the crust.  Combined with the strong Italian, zesty flavor of Trotta’s pizza sauce, the goetta didn’t stand a chance.  The goetta is crumbled on top of the cheese.  Normally the taste of goetta is an independent one but, in this case, it was kind of lost in the shuffle.  We noticed that the edge pieces of the pizza versus those cut from the center offered a different experience to the eater.  The edges, again, are just so thick and doughy; in the middle, the taste of the goetta shone through a bit more.  Somehow we found that this pizza grew better as we ate more.  Leftovers heated up exceptionally well, and made it more acceptable for one to want pizza for breakfast (goetta IS primarily a breakfast food, after all).  This wasn’t our favorite, but we are glad that we gave it a shot.

In closing, we’d like to say a few words about the drive-thru itself.  Trotta’s is a true drive-thru service, offering soft drinks, alcoholic beverages, and snacks in addition to their fresh baked pizzas.  We had heard that the service was exceptional, and those reviews were correct.  We were quickly in and out, despite a line a few cars deep when we arrived.  These people work hard and fast, and immediately offered to stick our giant pizzas in the backseat.  Thank goodness, too, as we had already discussed our fear of having a pizza handed to us through the car window.  We wish we had a Trotta’s in our neighborhood so we could frequent this pony-keg establishment more often.  Seriously, how awesome is the drive-thru concept?  Having a get-together and need more beer?  Got a sleeping baby in the backseat?  Wearing hideous sweatpants or pajamas?  The pizza drive-thru is your best friend.  And we hope someday soon to meet up with it again, along with that scrumptious Bacon Spinach pie.