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Mellow Mushroom
635 N. Campbell Station Road
777-6768

by Les DuLunch

Those Baby Boomer hippies bequeathed to us the information age. Never forget it. All that talk of love and peace quickly transformed itself into dollars and sense. After a brief stop in disco decadence and '80s excess, came the 1990s and an endless barrage of images, information, and IPOs.

So it should come as no surprise that the Mellow Mushroom isn't quite the trippy, laid-back pizzeria you might be expecting. Suspicion creeps in when you pull off I-40 into what appears to be an upscale truck stop. The restaurant's sign, with its bell-bottomed letter formation, leads you to believe you're about to step back into a little bit of Woodstock '69. But betrayal is as cruel as the festival's most recent revival.

Inside, instead of "Kill your television" bumper stickers, there must be 20 TVs strung up on the walls. In fact, there's one person on staff whose sole job appears to be changing their channels. Admittedly, the TVs did come in handy on election night, when Manilla Ice, Cinderfella, and I first sampled the fare, but the lack of cheering for any parties with half-way decent environmental records brought the hollowness of the restaurant's concept fully home.

Jerry, Jimi, Janis, and Bob would be rolling...over in their graves, that is, if they knew their images were depicted on the menu (although Janis does look a little unhappy to be there anyway). And that's too damn bad, 'cause Mellow Mushroom's pizza could provide a groovy cure for any of their Mary Jane-induced munchies in no time flat. The whole hippie schtick may be half baked, but the pizza isn't at all.

The 'Shroom has the best pizza crust this side of the Haight. Deliciously chewy and wholesomely textured, it appears beneath pizzas, enfolding calzones, and twisted into wonderful pretzels. (Unfortunately, though, it doesn't have anything to do with the sub sandwiches or garlic bread appetizers, and they suffer because of its absence.)

While the returns were pouring in, Ice, Cinderfella, and I prepared to dive right in to the Shroom's Gourmet White pizza ($20.95 for an ample large). "The Beatles had 'The White Album' and we have the White Pizza," said the menu in a corny but closer-to-the-mark esprit de corps. "Give Pizz-A-Chance!" Our waiter almost set my qualms about the restaurant's concept to rights. All floppy mop and saggy jeans, I halfway expected him to greet us with a charmingly slo-mo "Duuuude!" "Hey there. What can I get you guys?" sufficed nicely instead, though.

When the pizza arrived, tomato and onion slices topped a delicious mixture of Parmesan, feta, provolone, and mozzarella cheeses, olive oil, diced garlic and sun-dried tomatoes. It's a wonderfully rich concoction, offset with just the right touch of concentrated flavor from the sun-dried tomatoes. But it's the hand-tossed crust that carries the whole affair off so perfectly. White crust would be too innocuous for the cheeses' flavors. This firm but not crunchy wheat version added a base load of nutty earthen goodness. Dude, it's really good!

Returning for lunch later the next week, I was able to ponder that seemingly eternal question, "Why do otherwise great pizza places insist on undermining their quality with sub sandwiches that don't hold water?" After sampling some of the wonderful products made with Mellow Mushroom's spring-water dough, I wondered why they didn't use it spruce up their sandwich bread.

Grilled tempeh—Indonesian cakes of fermented soy—had sounded like an interesting sandwich filling ($3.60 for a half). Chunks of it, along with some stray iceberg lettuce and tomato slices, were arrayed open-face on a hopelessly ordinary wheat loaf. Really, Subway has more interesting bread than this. Too-mellow provolone chosen as a pairing only proved to make the whole thing even blander. How about some ripe goat cheese instead?

The "lil" Greek salad ($3.55) that I started off with was so unlike the appellation that I almost felt guilty leaving two-thirds of it on the plate, but didn't since guilt is a wasted emotion that exists only to be inflicted on others. Besides, I was distracted by the arrival of the pretzels ($3.50 for a half order). Skip the garlic bread entirely, this is where the appetizer's at. Soft but still resilient, they featured more of that fabulous dough, which was butter-brushed to add crunch and then topped with dusty Parmesan.

Fredro, my lunch companion that day, fared much better with his calzone ($6.25 for a basic, plus 85 cents per topping). Baked into a circular shape, it featured an ingenious hollow center in which two cups of basil-toned marinara nestled. We both agreed that diners will want to avoid the chicken ingredient, though. It tastes good-too good. There's something fishy about its texture. It's too moist, too silken, and, in a strange way, almost creamy, as if it were really some tofu product merely masquerading as a formerly feathered friend. If it were in fact a soy concoction foisted on diners as part of some guerrilla P.E.T.A. campaign, I might be a little more forgiving. But no. Don't eat it.

Heading to the "mellow flushroom" (that's restroom) to wash up, I expected to find the black-lit velvet paintings, beaded curtains, wafting incense, fliers for ragged little local bands, and bong and Birkenstock collections that were so conspicuously missing from the dining room. No luck. Just stainless steel, porcelain, and some wood paneling. The franchise owner needs to trot down to the Shroom's similarly displaced next-door neighbor, Earth to Old City, for some hipper hippie decorating ideas.
 

November 23, 2000 * Vol. 10, No. 47
© 2000 Metro Pulse