A Failure of Expectations

A couple of years ago, on a previous trip to SpeedGaming Live, the crew I hung out with went to Mellow Mushroom in Chantilly. It’s a pizza chain with a number of locations across the eastern half of the United States (and three locations in Arizona), specializing in (their words) “the best stone-baked pizza. The first time we were there, I would have agreed as the pizza (and wings) I got were exceptional. That led us to go back (after a two year reprieve to give us time to explore other restaurants) and see if the place was as good as we remembered.

To put it simply: I didn’t think so but the others in my crew felt differently. I mention all that up front so that you can go in knowing that you may disagree with me on this particular pizza eating visit.

We settled in for a meal of pizza and wings, because wings are always required (in my book) when you’re doing pizza. We ordered the hot wings, a plate of ten drummies and wings, for the table, and I also got a stone-baked Veg Out pizza to go with. We each had our own, individual pizzas instead of sharing flavors for the table, although the wings were shared among the four of us in the group.

The wings were great, just about as good as I remembered. Served (as is tradition in the U.S.) with a side of carrots and celery along with the dip of your choice (we went blue cheese, which is the obvious right choice), the wings were delicious. Double-baked, without a lot of fat, they were nice and crispy. Coated in their spicy, thick, red sauce, these had heat and flavor. And then paired with the blue cheese… yeah, I could have eaten these all night. They were scrumptious.

Sadly the pizza wasn’t anywhere near as good. On my previous visit I went with a Holy Shittake, which featured a white sauce pizza with a ton of mushrooms as well as a saucy drizzle. That one was really good and I wish I’d just gotten it again. Instead I went with the Veg Out because it was a more traditional veggie pizza (and on convention runs it’s hard to get a lot of vegetables) served with a red sauce base, and I was really feeling the red sauce. Frankly, it was a disappointment.

The pizza lacked flavor. The red sauce wasn’t robust at all, tasting weak, almost watery. The veggies were just veggies, themselves lacking salt or punch, and the cheese was just kind of there. It wasn’t the worst veggie pizza I had, but the mix of toppings – tomatoes, green peppers, olives, mushrooms – wasn’t very inspired or all that interesting in context. I’m glad I got something without meat, but considering the mushroom pizza was right there, taunting me, I wish I’d just gotten that one again instead.

Finally, for my drink I grabbed a special that must have been exclusive to the restaurant since I can’t even find it on their online menu. It was a kind of cherry lemon-lime aid that sounded better in practice than when it was in front of me. The drink was just too sweet, loaded with sugar and syrup almost to a sickly degree. I could at least taste lemon and lime in the mix, which was good, but overall I think I would have rather had a basic soda… or even just water.

The run was overall a disappointment for me, especially when you take into account environmental factors. The restaurant apparently had Music Bingo during the dinner hour (7:00 PM) on the day we went, and that started up halfway into our meal, dominating the noise of the restaurant and making it harder to talk. It would have been better if we’d shown up at a different time (maybe even on a different day). That, plus bad selections from the menu left me wondering why I liked this place the first time. The saving grace were the wings, but I’m not sure that’s enough on its own to make me want to go back there again.

I really liked Mellow Mushroom the first time I went there, but after this visit it’s going to be a few years before I’ll want to sample them on an SGL trip again. They failed me this time around.