Berrafato's Prima Pizza & Pasta
9370 Transit Rd., E. Amherst, NY 14051
Web: Berrafato's Prima Pizza & Pasta
Phone: 716.636.3191
Rating:    [learn more]
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East Amherst Italian Pizza Subs Wings

"Prima's Chicken Parmesan was a single plain cutlet with soft and too little breading, dropped in more of the same forgettable red sauce; it was the best of the items."

Brief but notable updates to several past Buffalo Chow reviews have been posted, along with this: a look at Berrafato's Prima Pizza & Pasta, which quickly and quietly replaced the good Molinaro's New York Pizza location at 9370 Transit Road in East Amherst. Though it still operates other locations, this particular Molinaro's had a low profile, and the new Prima Pizza & Pasta location - Berrafato's second, following an opening in Buffalo - blends in even more. This article contains a brief review of Prima Pizza & Pasta, plus details on what we've updated in our prior coverage of Buffalo's Shango Bistro, Amherst's China Max, and Boonville's Mercer's Wine Ice Cream.

With a one-page, extremely simple menu that focuses on pizza, wings, pasta, and subs, Prima Pizza & Pasta is decidedly less ambitious than Molinaro's - a place that also maintained a stocked dessert display case full of delicious cannolis and other Italian delights - but a narrow selection is not necessarily a bad thing; sometimes focusing on fewer items results in superior quality. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case here: everything we sampled at Prima was so unimpressive by comparison with the 2.5-star Molinaro's that we wouldn't rate the two places as even in the same league.

Start with the restaurant's titular menu items: the flat crust pizza, which we ordered with pepperoni, sausage, hot peppers, and onions, was bland and unenjoyable - beyond the fact that the pizza arrived looking lifeless, everything from the toppings to the dough, cheese, and sauce was forgettable; we had two-thirds of the slices and didn't want to finish the rest. The pasta, which we sampled in ziti form, was basically "make it at home yourself" in quality, with a plain red sauce.

Everything else followed in roughly the same lines. Chicken Parmesan, ordered with with the ziti, was a single plain cutlet with soft and too little breading, dropped in more of the same forgettable red sauce; still, both of us thought it was the best of the items, rating slightly better than okay on our scale. A single order of ten Chicken Wings, requested as hot as they could be made, arrived something close to mild or medium by local standards, fried almost dry and lightly crispy, and unimpressive in either flavor or size; a pre-packaged bag of carrots was tossed in the box. We ate them out of hunger, but could as easily have not. A sliced mini-loaf of bread included with the Parmesan was stale dry, and a side salad was fine, composed of greens, cucumber, thin carrot slices, chickpeas and a small cup of dressing.

Neither of us enjoyed the Prima Pasta & Pizza meal at all, a surprise given our pleasant experiences at Old Man River, another Berrafato's restaurant that recently received its final review update and a higher rating. We don't plan to return to Prima again unless it receives a significant menu upgrade and some better recipes, both of which would be needed to justify a visit given the area's capable nearby competition. After debate over whether it merited 1.5 or 2 stars, we concurred on a rating of 1.75 stars - actively below par.

Besides Old Man River, we also updated our reviews of Shango Bistro - an upscale New Orleans-inspired restaurant, rated three stars on the strength of its almost universally good food and strong presentation - and China Max, a low-end, family-owned Chinese take-out rated two stars for its fine dishes, which tend to be a little too light on meat content. Both reviews include new photos and details.

Finally, we have a quick postscript to share on Mercer's Wine Ice Cream, a collection of six different pint-sized "sophisticated" ice creams made with real wine, and consequently possessing up to 5% alcohol content. Following our previous story on Mercer's, which we discovered in a Rochester winery earlier this month, a reader wrote in to say that the brand could be found in Buffalo's Dash's Markets, a claim that we investigated and found to be apparently inaccurate: Dash's carries an alcohol-free alternative called Glace de Vino. After contacting Mercer's, we learned that its nearest local vendor was Lockport's Spring Lake Winery, and a subsequent visit revealed that the ice cream wasn't even on display, but rather was in a back room. We bought all four flavors that were in stock.

And we were pleased. Like the Ala Port we'd tried before, the other three flavors we tasted were gentle - decidedly what they were labeled as, but not overbearing. The best of the bunch was the Peach White Zinfandel, which combined a lightly sweet white wine with a milky ice cream base and chunks of real peach; the Royal White Riesling was more subtle, like a sweet combination of wine and cheese in every spoonful, and the Red Raspberry Chardonnay was a little stronger, pink in color and with sophisticated touches of both chardonnay and berries. Once again, the rose-colored Ala Port was smooth and a little spicy, just as with the brandy-bolstered dessert wine it comes from. Though the $7 to $8 pricing we've seen for these pints may take them out of the realm for many prospective customers, we definitely like them; with the right exposure, Mercer's could have a strong niche hit on its hands.