Cuisine Review

A gymnastics center is not my typical idea of a place to eat. Or in this case, a restaurant attached to a gym. Years ago I did eat at the Oasis Café when it was adjacent to Nasser Gymnastics on Old Shell Road. After closing, the space was dormant for some time until recently when Pampino’s, an Italian restaurant, began operation.

A bit dark on the inside, you feel as if you are hidden away from the world in here. And on the day I went with two friends to lunch, there were only a few people eating at noon. There is not a ton of atmosphere, unless you count whatever you can see through the open door into the gym area.

The good test of a pizza joint is its pepperoni pie, and I immediately got a small one when we walked in. The menu is very, very large and full of basic, American-Italian food with smatterings of other choices. There are several salads to start off the menu, most typical, but for a few.

There is a “nizza” salad ($5.99), which is a chef salad, a combination of vegetables with tuna and egg. The other interesting salad that was considered by one of my tablemates was the pampino salad ($6.99) with the chef salad (again, a chopped vegetable salad) and the addition of shrimp, pepperocini, artichokes, and cheddar and mozzarella cheeses. But there were way too many other choices for me to allow her to get that.

Pampino’s has about 40 pizza combinations – specialty and the regulars – offered on the menu. The pepperoni we ordered, a 10 inch ($4.98, plus one topping, .99 more) had a balanced crust – not so thin it was cracker like, but not thick and doughy. It reminded me of Shakey’s before they suffered from the whole “maggots in the cheese” urban myth.

The crust was a little less than half an inch thick with a hard outside and slightly chewy inside. The pepperonis were large in size – it was quite a nice pizza. You could tell they make their marinara sauce in the restaurant. Or at least it did not taste canned.

I will try to describe some of the many specialty pizzas that seem interesting, which can be ordered in 10 in. ($9.99), 12 in. ($12.99), 14 in. ($14.99) or 18 in. ($19.99). One is the Pampino Pizza, with fresh marinara, lightly fried fresh vegetables, pepperocini and garlic. There is a Shrimp, with marinara, olive oil, garlic and basil. I could have taken a risk and ordered the Grand Canyon, barbecue sauce with corn, pepperoni, bacon bits, pepperocini and tomatoes. They also make a bacon cheeseburger and buffalo chicken pizza.

THEN, there are all the white pizzas, at the same prices found above, that range from steak or chicken alfredo, salmon or a tono alfredo, which has tuna, garlic, onion and mozzarella cheese. One of my fellow diners had heard the calzones were awesome, so he assed it up and chose the super calzone ($7.99) with mushrooms, green peppers, onions, black olives, pepperoni, ham, beef and sausage. There is also a meat lover’s, vegetable and the pampino calzone (lightly fried fresh mushrooms, onions, green peppers, black olives, artichoke, pepperocini and garlic).

The calzone is massive – it might even satisfy those twins from the “Guinness Book of World Records,” you know, the ones on the motorcycles. I always wanted to meet them to ask just what all they ate. Anyhow, this calzone is like a large pizza folded over. It was packed out with the filling and came with a cup of marinara to pour over. The outer shell was soft and while I would have liked it cooked a bit more, the others disagreed. At first, we did not think my companion could finish it, but he did (in addition to later having a green mint chip milkshake from Old Dutch on the way home. Maybe he’ll have his own motorcycle soon.).

There are just as many pasta combinations as pizzas. I remain slightly hesitant about praise because I worry about restaurants that offer too much. However, all of the selections are combinations of the same items. There is chicken Parmesan, fettuccine alfredo, spaghetti with meat sauce, carbonara, penne with proscuitto, lasagna, etc.

I tried the spaghetti and meatballs ($7.99). Two large meatballs were plopped atop a bed of spaghetti with a creamy tomato sauce. They do not use marinara for all of the pasta dishes, in fact for very little of them. I liked the creamy tomato sauce; it was similar to the tomato basil soup at 219, if you took out some basil. The meatballs were thick and full of flavor and were not dried out with lots of breadcrumb filling.

And once I talked her out of the salad, my other companion selected the eggplant Parmesan ($7.99). The eggplant was most definitely fresh, and came in large, rectangular slices, well prepared. She did not like the tomato sauce with it, which was the same as mine. It would have likely been better with a marinara.

There is one last queer thing (as in, odd) about the menu. Several loaded baked potatoes are also on the menu, and our server told me they are quite popular. Just take the above ingredients and you can get an idea of what they contain.

The price was reasonable for the very, very large amount of food provided. What we had was freshly prepared, hot and did not take long (but then again, there were only two other tables). They are also open for dinner and do not have a liquor license, so diners can BYOB.

Pampino’s is acceptable, if not recommended, especially for its area of town, where there is a dearth of good affordable places to eat. I say try it, I would go again.

Kinnon Phillips is Lagniappe cuisine editor. Contact him at kphillips@lagniappemobile.com.

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