Mary Jane Pizza 瑪莉珍披薩

Profile

Address:    台北市大安區溫州街89號

                   No. 89, WēnZhōu St, Da-an District
Phone #:   02-2369-5333
Website: http://www.maryjanepizza.com/

Price Range:   $$

Accepts Credit Cards: no

Attire: casual

Good for kids: yes

Take out: yes
Waiter Service: yes
Outdoor seating:  no
Alcohol: yes

Rating

Food Quality: 3 out of 5
Decor:  3.5 out of 5
Service: 3.5 out of 5
Overall: 3.3 out of 5
Recommendation: Crunchy personal pizza at a bargain.

Review

Mary Jane Pizza is a restaurant that provides affordable and palatable pizza. Their 8-inch pizzas range from 200-300 NT from the basic pepperoni and cheese to the sicilian pizza topped with artichokes, anchovies, olives, and roma tomatoes. If you don't like what they offer, you can also build your own pizza by selecting your favorite toppings. They also offer Hoegaarden on tap, which is a plus. Mary Jane Pizza brings a rendition of New York Style Pizza at an affordable price to Taiwan. This is a popular place to dine among local students and foreigners alike.

The decor is very diner style, and they don't have many fancy chairs, but the environment is clean, and their bathrooms are pretty well equipped. The art they put up was a good attempt at trying to class up the place. It surely made the space feel more homey. They have one table that has a sofa chair, which would be a pretty cool place to chill out and have a pizza. The space is not very crowded, and they have those organizable 2 people tables so that they can accomodate different groups on-the-fly. The decor is similar to the average eatery and so a 3.5 out of 5 seems fair.

The service is your standard Taiwanese service. They take your order, smile, and bring you your food promptly. They did not make us feel warm with some friendly banter or attempt to crack a joke. Yet, they still did their job well and without expecting to be tipped. An average service gets a 3.5 out of 5.

The soup looked deceptively good, but it actually tasted like hot orange juice and came with chunks of orange zest. I don't recommend getting their soup, especially this orangey one. You are probably safer going with their salad as an appetizer. No bueno.

This is the Sicilian Pizza. It's topped with olives, capers, anchovies, artichokes, and roma tomatoes. Although it is palatable, I would prefer a pizza that has a chewier crust than this Matzah Bread style pizza dough they serve. I don't know why they chose to go with the Matzah style bread because even the "thin" New York pizza that they model themselves after have some chewy texture to it. If I wanted crunchy pizza, I would've gotten a box of Bagel Bites from Costco. Also, They didn't have enough cheese on their pizza, since I couldn't even pull the cheese (mozzarella?) more than 1 inch. Their other pizzas have the similar texture and cheese defeciency which is characteristic of the pizzas served at Mary Jane. All in all, it's still the closest thing to the California Pizza Kitchen / Steelhead Brewing Co. pizza that I enjoyed back at home. I still gotta search for that place that uses fresh ingredients and the right amount of cheese on a chewy yet slighty crispy dough. Come to think of it, these personal pizzas are about the same price as a personal pizza in America, so the value of each pizza is actually low compared to the State's (Value = Quality/Price). The food here gets a 3 out of 5: it's edible.