The Pflugerville Flavor

Baris Pasta & Pizza

Saturday, 11am-10pm; closed Sunday

The once-bucolic farming and ranching community of Pflugerville has undergone a major urbanization in the past few years, morphing into a thriving bedroom metropolis of Austin. As suburban monolithic homes multiply like fire-ant mounds in the pastures of far North Austin, every conceivable form of fast-food chain restaurant has accompanied the subdivisions. Lately the dining scene there has begun to globalize, with some independent ethnic eateries beginning to realize the market potential. Those that have, such as Baris Pasta & Pizza, have been warmly welcomed by Pflugervillians.

The restaurant is named for the village in Italy where the family resided before their ancestors migrated to the States. Family members settled across the Atlantic in Queens, one of the definitive hotbeds of Italian culture and food in New York City. Rumors of this direct connection to the American cornerstone of the red-and-white-checked tablecloth is what led us to eat at Baris to see what the fuss was all about.

Baris is in the strip center anchored by the Albertson’s supermarket, and when you enter you find a comfortable and understated family-oriented establishment. The walls are covered with the requisite publicity photos of famous Italian-Americans, calling to mind the decorations of Danny Aiello’s pizzeria in Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing. An exuberant air-conditioner keeps Baris a tad on the chilly side for our tastes, so taking a sweater along isn’t out of the question.

A recent lunch visit amazed us with how popular Baris is at the noon rush. The place was packed with a mix of moms with small kids in tow and blue- and white-collar workers, most chowing down on the quickly served lunch specials (Monday-Saturday, 11am-3pm, $4.95). We opted for regular menu items, starting with a medium (14-inch) “Special” pizza with all of the ingredients (anchovy on half) for $11.25. The topping ingredients are high-quality, though we would have preferred the tomato sauce be a tiny bit more robust, and the crust is OK (but not the thin, crispy variety found all over NYC). The uniformity of the crust suggests a sheet roller rather than the advertised “hand-tossed,” but the overall taste is fine. One small problem is that the anchovy is intensely salty. Proper Italian anchovies are salt-cured and oil-packed, but generally the salt is rinsed off before application (a suggestion for the kitchen crew).

Next, a tossed salad ($1.75, a mix of mundane iceberg lettuce with tomato and pepperoncini) arrived. The dressing saves the pedestrian dish. It is a rich Italian-style vinaigrette intensely flavored with tomato (and available for sale, bottled). Entrées were the Pasta Sampler ($5.95) and the Low Fat Spaghetti, With Basil, Garlic, and Olive Oil ($5.25). The Sampler contains portions of lasagna, manicotti, and cannelloni in a large rarebit. The flavors are fine, but the items exhibit a bit too much uniformity. The overall taste is of tomato sauce and ricotta, with one of the items containing spinach. No problems here, but we feel a sampler should be composed of items with different rather than homogenous tastes. The spaghetti is properly al dente and the dish simple, just like we wanted. We would have preferred a stronger-tasting olive oil and more garlic to make the dish really shine.

Dinner on another visit was a cut above the lunch experience, but the room was sparsely filled with diners, the lights up too bright, the air conditioning colder than during lunch, and the sound system set on an obnoxious easy-listening FM station (complete with obtrusive commercials). The owners should invest in a CD system and buy the soundtrack to Big Night, among the countless available sources of fabulous Italian dining music.

We started with a baby cheese pizza (10 inch, $4.75), figuring it might be a better way to judge the crust and sauce. It is fine, but again, a few more herbs and a slightly crisper crust would nudge it closer to perfection. Next came Johnnie’s Salad ($4.95), which is far superior to the previous salad mentioned. It is large (easily big enough to be shared), with a nice, crisp mix of romaine, spinach, mushrooms, broccoli, cauliflower, and mozzarella, topped with that zesty house dressing. A side order of sausage ($2.75) is served in a pool of truly robust tomato sauce that is excellent. The sausage has a nice undertone of fennel and a nice snap (another note to owners: schmear a dab of that sauce on the pizza and it takes the pie over the top).

Entrées were the Chicken Carchovie ($7.95) and Baked Eggplant Florentine ($7.45). The chicken is a sautéed, thin breast topped with a garlic-and-white-wine cream sauce with artichoke hearts, accompanied with a side of spaghetti. Overall the dish is delicious, but could be better with more garlic. All in all, for the price, it’s a bargain. The eggplant is a pleasant amalgam of smoky roasted eggplant slices, tomato sauce, spinach, and mozzarella. Again, we got exactly what we expected with this dish and were satisfied to the last bite.

The service during lunch was efficient, pleasant, and unobtrusive. The service at night was marred slightly by a tabletop full of empty dishes lingering a tad too long (especially given that there was no crowd), but the waitperson was otherwise efficient. The menu covers all of the standard Italian menu bases, including hot and cold subs, calzones, and stromboli, all in the $5 to $6 range. Beer and wine are available, but the selection is somewhat limited.

Baris gives the diners of Austin’s northern hinterland a solid source for the kind of Italian cuisine you want (and expect) from your basic Italian family-style restaurant. The portions are large, the prices ridiculously low, and the quality is fine. True, a nudge here and a schmear there, a little extra sprinkling of this or that, and it could take that next step up in taste, but who are we to say? Crowds of folks like it just the way it is. – Mick Vann

This article appears in May 16 • 2003.