I went to Bagby Pizza two weeks ago and was not impressed. They did a great job on the interior of the restaurant; it has a great casual atmosphere, but with character. In my opinion, they are clearly trying to emulate Iggie's: from the thin-crusted, gourmet-topped style of pizza, to the BYOB with available corkscrews, to the chalkboard menu. This is not a bad thing, but the food doesn't measure up. I got the gourmet meat pizza. The toppings were very good, but the crust was disappointing. Pizza is my favorite food and I feel that the crust is by far the most important part. Bagby's crust was way too thin for me (almost like a saltine) and it had almost no flavor of its own.

Overall, I feel that the quality of the pizza doesn't warrant the prices that they charge. Hopefully things will improve as they get more experience.

Went to Meridian 54 last night. We found the food to be pretty good, but definitely not memorable. I had the pecan salmon, which was a little dry but covered in a really good, sweet sauce. The wife had the "cheesesteak" which is london broil over orecchiette. The orecchiette was missing when her entre came, but the server quickly got the kitchen to make her the pasta as a side dish. Her steak was decent, but tasted as if it had been cooked earlier and reheated. The service was really good. My main gripe is that they seem to be trying to do too much. The menu is HUGE, with a really large variety of food. While that can be a good thing, it can also lead to merely ok food because the restaurant is spreading itself so thin. I think that was our experience. I may give it a try for brunch, as lots of people on this site seem to love the brunch there.

I was really excited when Pasta Mista opened up near my house in Canton, as I've been waiting for some decent pizza in Baltimore, especially since Pi closed down. Unfortunately, it looks like my wait continues. Pasta Mista's pizza reminded me a lot of the pizza places that I used to go to in college; all of the pizza is premade and sitting under heat lamps, the crust is your typical bland, dense pizzeria crust. I give them credit for having some unique topping combinations, but, overall, the pizza was just ok. I may be spoiled having lived in the DC area for a while, where there are many great pizza places (2 Amy's, Mia's Pizzeria Paradiso, Comet Pizza, Ella's, Matchbox), but I would love to have a place in Baltimore that even comes close to having pizza as good as any of these places. Unfortunately, Past Mista isn't it. I haven't tried Zella's yet, but hope for good things. I've tried Joe Squared, and think that it's just ok - didn't live up to the hype. I will say that Past Mista has some decent pasta and you can't beat the price (like $9 for lobster pasta). All in all, ok takeout pizza, but I'd rather make my own pizza at home or head to Matthew's.