Cosmic Pizza

2/9/14 - Edit: Something weird is going on with this place.  Apparently they've changed ownership yet again and their Facebook page is promising pizza that is "less Cosmic, more New York".  This really bums me out since we have plenty of NY style pizza here, but I guess we'll see what they put out starting next month...

I have a few hang-ups when it comes to the whole writing up restaurants thing.  One of them is that if there's a particular dish that gets the majority of people's attention at a place, I feel like I have to try something different.  Of course, sometimes exceptions have to be made, and that's why when I finally got around to trying Cosmic Pizza, there was absolutely no question what I was going to get.  If you've been there and you know anything about my tastes, you probably have a pretty good idea what I ordered.  If you're unsure, I got the same thing that everyone else who has written about them got, so I'll understand if you're sick of hearing about it.  If you haven't made it there yet and we have anything in common, I might just be able to sway you...

I feel I have to disclose a bias at this point, and that is that I loved Cosmic Pizza the second I walked in the door.  The decor is a little on the cheesy side, what with the fake fireplace, plastic spaceships and strings of lights, but as someone who remembers the 80's fondly it was right in my comfort zone.  Everything about the place reminded me of the kind of little theme diners I saw as a kid in the small towns I passed through with my family on trips.  But don't just take my word for it...

Faux fireplace, sci-fi toys can bee seen at upper left.

The well-worn ping pong table that takes up most of the back room.

Does it get much more 80's than this?

There isn't much of a story to tell here.  Everyone had things they wanted to try, but I had decided what we were ordering and I would NOT be dissuaded.  Luckily, everyone else was happy enough to go along.  The Craters of the Moon pizza has white sauce, applewood smoked bacon, sliced potatoes (Idaho potatoes, of course), and the main selling point: baked eggs.  Personally, I would have preferred fried just because of the decadence factor, but as long as the yolks are soft I'm happy.  I have LOVED egg yolks as long as I can remember, whether running down the sides of a burger or into a pile of hash, for dipping toast or bacon in, mixing up into a bowl of Asian noodles or rice, coating a big pile of carbonara...wait, where was I?  Oh yeah, egg yolks on a PIZZA?  Is there any doubt that this would be amazing?  Well yes, actually.  Picture the same thing but from Domino's.  But I digress.

We placed our order and waited.  I'm not sure everyone dug the atmosphere as much as me, but I was in full-on nostalgia mode.  The waitress brought plates for us, brightly-colored plastic ones covered in scratches from utensils wielded by previous diners.

Personally, I try to be more careful.  All those plastic shavings have to end up somewhere...

Finally the pizza came, and I immediately saw the trouble in paradise.  Our eyes scoured the pie and then sized up our fellow diners.  There were simply not enough eggs to go around.

Craters of the Moon

We played nice though, slicing up the eggs a bit and spreading them around so everyone got to try them.  It was a definite NY style, with very controlled use of sauce and cheese so nothing overwhelms anything else.  I got the feeling overall that the men in the group, particularly myself with my yolk fetish and my sister's boyfriend who kind of likes anything that Sriracha goes well with, enjoyed themselves more, but everyone agreed the pizza was good and that it would be worth trying other things. Sis' boyfriend of course wants to try the Cosmic Popper, which comes with jalapenos, cream cheese and the aforementioned Sriracha.  I'm interested in the COSMO, which is your typical combination pizza but with the addition of jalapenos, and the Super Nova Margarita which takes the interesting tactic of using pesto sauce as a base.  I'm curious about the sliced-corn-dogs-and-chili Galactic Fair, but I can't see myself ordering a whole pie just to try it.  Yes, there are a lot of things on the menu that sound good, but let's be honest here: when I return to Cosmic Pizza, I'm going to order the same damn thing I ordered the first time.  It was that unique and that good.

But this time I'll pay a little extra for a few more eggs.

Food:  Unique and good, like I said.  A-
Value:  Eggs aren't that expensive, I hope they don't charge much for extras.  B-
Service:  Our waitress was nice, funny, and patitent while answering the same questions I'm sure every bunch of new customers put her through.  A
Atmosphere:  Just look at those pictures!  A+
Final Grade:  A