MJ's Gourmet Pizza

I'm home alone tonight while my wife hangs out with some friends, so naturally I'm looking for a pizza place to try. After perusing Google Map I noticed that MJ's gourmet pizza, a place just on the Kitchener side of the border which has over 300 reviews and a 4.8-star rating on Google. Surely with scores like that, it must be great. In addition to that, I watched Spider-Man Brand New Day today and MJ is a Spider-Man character, so, obviously I have to get MJ's Pizza. While trying to figure out what I want, I noted that they don't have a website; instead all of their menus posted up on Google Maps images. Odd choice, but everything seems up-to-date, so I called and placed an order.

It was 7PM when I called, and on the phone the employee explicitly warned me they close at 8PM today, and that the pizza would be ready in 15 minutes. I'm not sure who is waiting an hour to pick up their pizza, but whoever did clearly left a mark.

The Pickup

The quaint storefront of MJ's

Picking up the pizza the place is a quaint little shop in a strip mall in just-barely-Kitchener. The lady behind the counter (clearly the person who had warned me about their closing time) seemed very busy and a bit frantic, but she was pleasant enough. She gathered my order then gave me a handwritten receipt detailing what I order. She then told me twice that if I collect my receipts, and bring in five of them, then I get a free small garlic strip, whatever that is. Now, I had definitely seen on the Google reviews that if you brought in five receipts you get a free medium pizza, but maybe business was too good, and they were giving out too many free pies. She did explicitly say it was a garlic strip as what I get, so maybe people are still trying to cash in for medium pizzas.

My white paper receipt, 4 more for a free thing

Unfortunately they don't have sun-dried tomatoes so I got a medium pizza with pepperoni bacon and hot banana peppers. I also got a panzerotti because they were relatively inexpensive, and many reviews suggested that they were amazing. To accompany my two pizza like dishes I got three garlic dips and, they seem to be in small clear containers which might indicate that they may be homemade. There were also some reviews that showed praise for their dips, so here's hoping

The Pie

Top down of the pie

I got the pizzas home, sat on the couch, and had a bite. My initial bite seemed kind of... nothing.

The pizza tastes like pizza. Like average, nothing in particular, absolutely middling pizza. The garlic sauce was equally average; it seems to be factory made garlic sauce piped into small containers. Now this isn't to say that there's anything wrong with the pizza or sauce, just that there's nothing particularly right with it. Given how stellar the reviews were I was kind of expecting something to stand out; The crust, the sauce, the toppings themselves. But so far if you've had pizza, then you may as well have had MJ's Gourmet Pizza.

The Panzo

Top down of the panzerotti

The panzerotti was the same as the pizza, just fine. It's a baked panzerotti, it seems relatively full, the dough is nice and it's greasy just how you'd want, but that's about it. There's nothing that wows me about the panzerotti, it's got the upsides of a normal panzerotti similar to how the pizza has the upsides of a normal pizza. I'm starting to think that everybody on Google Maps was absolutely wrong, because this food is just fine. Between the middling food, not having a website, the lady on the phone warning me that she closes at 8:00 p.m. (despite me ordering an hour ahead), the receipt deal being nerfed, and not having my favorite topping, it's hard to rate this very high. It's basically the most average pizza I've ever had, certainly worse than Bridgeport Ginos.