The Facts:
Pizza: Mama G’s Italian Restaurant
Business Category: Locally-owned
Website: http://loveisgoodfood.net/
Location: 777 US
441 South in Clayton, GA (just south of US 76)
Date of Review Visit: February
8, 2014
What I Ordered: Small (10”) pizza with sausage and
pepperoni; Mello Yellow to drink
Price: $12.52 (includes drink and tax but not tip)
The Micro:
Crust: The crust at Mama G’s is the not-too-thick
not-too-thin hand-tossed variety. I am a
thick-crust pizza fan who also sees the value in a thin, crispy crust. The middle-of-the-road style is probably my
least favorite, and the rather pedestrian qualities possessed by this crust did
not improve its standing in my book. On
the bright side, the pizza is almost perfectly baked, and some shreds of cheese
end up baked on the crust. Overall, this
crust is not bad, but it is a rather ordinary crust that gives the pizza a
rather ordinary character. Score: 6/10.
Sauce: The sauce appears in good quantity, but it has too
many herbs and spices for my taste palette.
I ended up tasting only the spices and not the sauce. A little more delicacy is in order, in my
view. Score: 7/10.
Cheese: The cheese comes in good quantity and quality. The cheese blend is slightly bland unless you
sprinkle on some parmesan provided on the tables. Then again, given the overspicing of the
sauce, blandness in another category may not be so bad. Score: 8/10.
Toppings: The pepperoni is OK but nothing special. The sausage, on the other hand, is excellent:
it appears to be hand-sliced. Both
toppings appear in good quantity and have the right amount of spiciness. Score: 9/10.
The Macro:
Appearance/Atmosphere/Service: The pizza’s appearance is
good, and the service is very good. The
dining area is rustic and functional with lots of decorations (too many, in my
opinion) on the wall. Some TV’s give a sports bar feel, and live entertainment
on selected summer nights adds to the energy.
Score: 9/10.
Value: $12.52 for a 10” pizza and drink is quite steep. The quality is good but not that good. Score: 4/10.
Taste: The crust holds this category back, but everything
else works together pretty well. The
quality of the sausage really helps.
Score: 16/20.
The Final Judgment:
I stop at Mama G’s rather often when I am hiking in the
north Georgia
mountains. This restaurant is a good if
somewhat pricey option to satisfy your pizza hunger. Score: 59/80.
