I wonder if they're Italian.

As Ronnie, a DoZ reader named Brad and I came to know, the tucked away throwback that is MaMa DeMarinis’ is the kind of place you go when you initially  attempted to go to a different pizza place because it had a funny TV ad a few years back, you witness a drug deal outside of that (now closed) restaurant, and you drive around aimlessly until someone eventually remember it exists. That’s a story for another day… but that’s how we finally happened upon the elder most of the Bay View restaurants bearing the DeMarinis’ name last week.

Nearly dying on 27th Street after witnessing a felony aside, I’m glad for the night’s events, if only because they led us to one of the better and more unique pizzerias the Milwaukee area has to offer. Read on as I tell you why this run down neighborhood restaurant isn’t nearly as getting-AIDS-worthy as our own Sto Cazzo insists it is.

Old and shitty looking as it is, one must assume MaMa DeMarinis’ is a place rich in history. Of course, I’m not going to actually look into its history because history is…
A.) Boring
B.) Subjective and constantly changing
C.) More like “her story.” Am I right, ladies? HAAAAAAY!
D.) All of the above
… but walking into the establishment, you can operate under the assumption that little, if anything, has changed since it opened nearly 6,000 years ago. The same dingy cast of ancient regulars seem to line the bar, the same kind-hearted waitresses (who started the job in the days when women’s rights was just a clever oxymoron used as means of humor in silent movies) still take your order, and subsequently bring out the same flavorful baking pan pizzas they used to feed to the dinosaurs that once roamed and ruled the land where Cafe Centraal now stands.

But with pizza so tasty, I’m personally glad nothing has seemed to change. MaMa’s homemade sausage is that of wet dreams, they basically douched our pizza in delicious and semi-spicy sauce, FRESH MUSHROOMS, and they had our Za to us pretty much immediately. Also, they are one of the few pizzeria’s I know of to offer vegan cheese, if you’re into that thing. 

To me, it tastes almost exactly like Dom and Phil DeMarinis’ pizza (her sons, which Sto Cazzo will eventually fill you in on). Regardless, on Za skills alone, I still wish MaMa DeMarinis was my mom — I mean, unless she’s totally hot or something. That could be weird thing for a son deal with.

Apparently there was to be some sort of competition between nine local pizza makers: Tenuta’s, Marchese’s Olive Pit, Classic Slice, Marco’s, Steny’s, Times Square, Vinchi’s, Mama DeMarini’s, and Moct (which apparently serves food now).

From what we could tell, it was supposed to start at 7. We didn’t get there until almost 8 PM, and there wasn’t a sight or smell of za in the place. Instead of ditching out, we grabbed a few $2 bottles of High Life and decided to wait it out.

Sure enough, the pizzas started rolling in about 8:30 and this complete clusterfuck of an event was getting under way. Some guy mumbled something into a microphone and people started lining up to sample some slices.

Of course there wasn’t enough pizza to go around and it was gone in about five minutes, but we did manage to snag samples from four of the nine varieties. Here are some shitty haikus to explain:

Moct
Seriously, dude
Can I get some fucking ‘za
With all this onion?

Marco’s
Toppings are freshest
Spit out a whole olive pit
What the fuck is that?

Steny’s
Looks like a fetus
Dried out in the summer sun
Tasted delicious

(T. Mario busts in and throws Ronnie’s poetry book to the ground)

“Moct” is a Serbian word for bridge. In Milwaukee, it means over-hyped bar I’ll probably only go to when there’s free pizza and $2 Miller bottles. Ronnie — even in his sick and cough syrup addled state — was majorly balls deep in this idea, so I was glad to accompany him to Moct’s first (and probably last) annual Iron Pizza Competition.

As he said, the event had worse organization and more gaps than Hands Across America meets an anorexia clinic bake sale, but I managed to snag four slices to review.

Moct
Unlike Ronnie, I actually liked Moct’s cheese, sausage and onion pizza. I was surprised to how, unlike the bar bearing the pizza’s namesake, I didn’t die a little while in this Moct. It tasted like there was cream cheese in the sauce. For a bar (with no food menu), Moct wasn’t the “Leact” tasty pizza available.

Vinchi’s
Before everything oh-so-predictably ran out, I got my mits on a square of Vinchi’s works pizza. It was greasy and aggressive… like a pizza Andrew W.K. or something. But they lost points for using canned mushrooms. Canned mushrooms?!? I thought we were at Moct in Milwaukee – a bar named after a Serbian word for bridge. I didn’t know we were actually eating pizza under a Serbian bridge. Not bad, Vinchi’s, but freshen those shrooms up.

Classic Slice

Just fucking with you. Classic Slice, like most of the others, was gone within five minutes of the contest. Read my full review of Classic Slice if you’re really interested.

Steny’s
I don’t know what Ronnie was talking about with his Steny’s haiku. It didn’t look like any of the half dozen sun-dried fetuses (feti?) I’ve ever seen. Sure 20 minutes of solitude left the pizza dry and cold, but it was a colorful blend of bright red from the roasted red peppers, to flowery light green of the artichoke hearts, to the dove white cheese. Overall: Pretty good under its time-dried state of being eaten while standing up in a loud bar with hundreds of people up in my shit.

Marco’s
At the end of the night, I placed my Iron Pizza vote in favor of Marco’s.

My reasoning:
• Largest slices
• Most toppings
• Seem to hold up the best in the lukewarm state such a competition brings about.
• Tasted good.
• Made Ronnie spit out an olive pit and yell “What the fuck was that?” Classic.

We have no idea who actually won this thing. When the pizza was gone, so were we. But no matter who officially won this poorly-organized contest , I think the real winners were the people who got to try less-than-glowing representations of local za for free. And Moct for thinking of a good reason for people to come to Moct.