Pizza Tops List At Neapolis, A South Italy Place In Brier -- Touch Of Greek Means A Mediterranean Taste
Neapolis Pizza & Pasta, 23631B Brier Road, Brier. Open seven days a week, 4 to 10 p.m. Checks, VISA, Mastercard, beer and wine. Reservations: 486-0344.
-- BRIER
Three things you should know about Brier: It's pretty, sylvan, green, pastoral; you should always obey the posted speed limit; and Neapolis is there.
The folks at Neapolis do what they call "authentic Mediterrenean cuisine," and, as descriptions go, that works.
Southern Italian - hearty red sauces, meat and cheese, with a little Greek dancing around the edges, greens, the olives and feta cheese slipping into almost everything. It's a heady, tantalizing mix.
The menu breaks down into pizza, pasta, salads and sandwiches. Side orders are soup or garlic bread. The pasta dishes are traditional. Spaghetti al Roma ($5.95) is a heavy plate of noodles in a rich sweet meat sauce, as is the Italian sausage ($7.95) except that it adds sausage. Still, this is a robust sauce, not paste and meat, sauce that has spent time in a pot, seasonings that have broken and simmered long. It works well as an all-purpose treatment. The ravioli is bathed in it, then covered with mozzarella and baked. It's a dish that stays put. A long time. Nothing wimpy about it at all.
Dinners come with a choice of soup or salad and bread. Have the soup. A bright, fresh tomato base vegetable. Very fresh and lively. Even on the hottest of days you'll want another bowl. The bread is fresh, lightly buttered and generously sprinkled with parmessan. very nice.
The Italian antipasto ($5.95) is a very ample salad mix - and well-mixed at that - of greens, good sized chunks of pepperoni, salami, mozzarella, olives and peppers, tossed in oil and vinegar. It's more than enough for one person, better split between two. Again, very fresh ingredients and a more than ample serving.
But the real treat are the pizzas. Good crust, not too thick, not too thin, not soggy from the sauce, plenty of topping. There are 18 standard choices, small, medium and large, ranging from $5.75 to $12.95. Any would make a fine choice.
But there are also four speciality pizzas, Favorites of Michael, Dimitri, George and Anthony.
A medium George ($11.25) was a delight. The base was sauced, then covered with fresh spinach and feta cheese. Over that went olives, diced pepperoni - not those tough poker-chip slices one usually gets - mozzarella and sliced plum tomatoes. For an extra crunch, a few sunflower seeds. The flavors are at once complex and totally distinctive. The feta adds a nice salty acidity balanced by the sweetness of the tomatoes. It's quite rich. A medium is probably enough for two, although you'll want more and if you have it you'll hurt yourself.
So if you're heading through Brier on Brier Road, you'll want to keep an eye out for more than the speed-limit signs. Neapolis is another good reason to slow down.