Joe Squared

I had been looking at the clipping from the Food Network Magazine for a couple of months. Ever since Food Network rated pizzas across the country, naming Joe Squared as Maryland's best, I knew that I had to make a visit. But somehow I got busy and the clipping remained on the fridge.

The recent motivation to visit came from one of my teachers, who raved about her dinner at Joe Squared one day in class. If she loved it, I thought, I would have  to go. So my mom and I planned to visit one Friday afternoon. We had to look up directions and then had to figure out exactly where to park. (There was a parking lot across the street, but, being unfamiliar with the area, we took a few, erm, detours on our way to said parking lot before finally figuring it out.) After a quick jaunt across the street, we arrived at our destination, eagerly awaiting the food we would order inside.

I'll be honest, Joe Squared is a quirky place. The location we visited was right by MICA, so the clientele ranged from young, hip, art students, to elderly couples. Truly a weird mix. It wasn't busy when we arrived, so Mom and I picked a table in the back and waited to be served.

Joe's dark walls are lined with eclectic paintings of different menu items and T-shirts boasting those same eclectic paintings. The menu is quite substantial, and if I hadn't come on a mission I probably would have struggled to pick what I wanted. But alas, I had been waiting for the Flag Pizza for months, and I was not about to pass up the opportunity to order it.

But before we could enjoy an entree, we opted to get an appetizer. We selected the fried cheese ravioli. These are little raviolis that are breaded, fried and served with marinara sauce.

What makes these the most awesome fried raviolis ever is the cheese. I think they must use some very, very fresh ricotta cheese in these babies. When you bite into them, the cheese is all warm and melty and drips out over your fingers a little. It was divine. I honestly could have made a meal off of them. The outside was just so crispy and then the inside was so...cheesy. I knew good things were in our future.

As we were waiting on our pizza, we noticed a guy hand cutting potatoes in the back. When we saw that we immediately thought that their fries must be amazing. I mean, you usually can't watch someone cut the potato to make your fries when you're at a restaurant, right?

We went with the western fries to spice things up a little bit. Unfortunately, we were a little disappointed. 

The fries themselves were beautiful but they were lacking the kick of spice my mom and I were expecting. I thought the batter weighed the fries down a little bit, and, when combined with the lack of "western" flavor, they were just kind of meh. We set them aside, however, and shook it off as a good experience as we awaited our pizza.

At last, it came. 

You'll have to excuse my desire to drool as I gaze at this picture. Honestly, one of the best pizzas I've ever had. The crust is super thin and crispy, probably because they have a super hot oven in the back that churns out all of these beauties. This particular pizza is split up into three stripes. The stripe closest to the front was pesto with fresh mozzarella cheese. This was really tasty, but the pesto was a little oily, so you'll probably need to make use of your napkin. The middle stripe was THE BEST. It was a white sauce with ricotta, cheddar and mozzarella cheese. I'm sorry, but who has ever thought to put cheddar cheese on a pizza?!? Not me. But now I am definitely going to try out that combo on my own. I could have eaten three pizzas made of the ricotta-cheddar combo. Really. It was that good. The last stripe was mozzarella, provolone, romano, parmigiano, and asiago cheese with red tomato sauce. But just because it was a classic does not mean it was average. Oh, no. It definitely held it's own, and rivaled the pesto stripe for second-best, in my opinion.

I should also mention that the pizzas come in a couple different sizes. We asked our waitress which size would be best for two people, so if you're feeding more (or you just want more for yourself), you can get a bigger pizza. Ours was a pretty good size, though, and we ended up taking half home to savor later.

Our meal was so awesome. We talked about it for days afterwards, and I am trying to figure out when we can go back. There are just so many delicious options! I would recommend taking a couple people and splitting everything so you can get the most variety. Their pizzas have some outrageous toppings, their risottos are apparently really good, and the vibe is most certainly one you will not find anywhere else.

Go to Joe Squared. Your stomach will not be disappointed.