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Weekly reviews of crab cakes around the MD and DC area

Pizza Boli's Old Bay Crab Pizza

We'll bet you didn't know that Pizza Boli's started over 25 years ago up in the Baltimore neighborhood of Mount Washington.  Nowadays, they have over 70 stores in the MD, VA, PA and DC area, being voted best pizza by the Washingtonian Magazine, and touting that they offer more product variety than any other major pizza chain.  They are also innovators in recyclable container technology with their SmartBox pizza boxes.  Along with that, one of their newest pizza offerings is the Old Bay Crab Pizza.  Being a Baltimore company, one is going to probably assume that they know a thing or two about crabs.  (Isn't that usually the case?)  So how did their newest pizza offering turn out?  Let's find out!

Standard Old Bay Crab Pizza is crab meat, tomatoes, spring onions, 3-cheese blend and "Old Bay"-seasoned Alfredo sauce on a hand-tossed crust.  The review photo above is without onions (due to personal tastes/likings).  Only available in Large size (14").

I decided to go pick this pizza up myself, which may/may not have been a good thing.  Upon receiving my pizza, that Old Bay smell was permeating the box.  Despite the ride home only being about 5 minutes, my car smelled like Old Bay for about a week.  So lesson learned here:  unless you like smelling like crabs for an extended period of time, you might want to get this pizza delivered.

This pizza is basically Maryland in a pizza.  The smell is really good with the crab and Old Bay.  It is a bit hard to discern between the cheese and the sauce, but upon inspection, you do actually see bits of crab in there.  The best way to describe the pizza is as a crab dip pizza, but instead of being made with a cream cheese base, it's an Alfredo sauce.

For a chain pizza, this pizza is pretty decent, at least at first.  The Old Bay doesn't overpower the other flavors of the pizza like you would assume it would, given the pronounced aromas.  The seasoning and crab mixture is flavorful without being too strong, with the crab flavor being more on the back end.  If you really like Old Bay, you can try sprinkling more on top.  Hot sauce also goes well and brings out the Old Bay flavor.

The two things I noticed about this pizza are 1) the flavor starts to flatten out as the pizza cools off, and 2) the pizza has little flavor once it has been refrigerated and reheated.  Oven reheating might be necessary here (I just did about 20-30 seconds in the microwave).  Not sure why the flavor started to disappear, but the pizza certainly became boring after the second slice.  At least the tomatoes were there to bring a little flavor complexity to the mix.  Maybe keeping the spring onions on the pizza would have been a good idea as well.

Pizza Boli's Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

Additional Info

  • Restaurant Name: Pizza Boli's
  • Address: 2177 Defense Hwy Crofton, MD 21114 Availability may vary by location
  • Neighborhood: Crofton
  • Restaurant Type: Regional Chain
  • Website: http://www.pizzabolis.com
  • Review Date: 01/07/2012 10:44pm
  • Atmosphere: Not Busy
  • Item(s) Ordered: Old Bay Crab Pizza
  • Cooking Style: Oven Baked
  • Other Styles Available: No
  • Available by mail order?: No
  • Price: 13.99
  • Order Type: Other
  • Crab Content: Shredded
  • Filler: Average
  • Spice: Minimal
  • Overall Impression: Mediocre
  • Rating (out of 5 crabs):

    2h-crab
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