THE LUNCH BOX The Restaurant at Cedar Crest

115 Elm St., Route 1

Camden, 236-7722

Pizza is not my thing. Don’t get me wrong. I’m as American as the next when it comes to wolfing down a pie. But I find the calories overwhelming. Especially at breakfast. And frankly, pizzas are a lot like bagels: It’s hard to find them as good as they used to be. So I crossed pizza (not to mention bagels) off my list long ago.

Then I stumbled into the Restaurant at Cedar Crest on the southern end of downtown. You might not notice the place, which is attached to a motel. You might not think it’s the kind of eatery worth stopping at in a gourmet-lover’s outpost like Camden. And you certainly wouldn’t expect to find star pizza there.

I was tempted by other offerings: pasta, scampi, meatballs, lasagna, seafood, soup or salad. But when I saw two pages of the menu devoted to pizza, well, that was an invitation. I was alone. I was hungry. I gave in.

Instead of choosing from the house specialties – I wasn’t quite ready for Chicken Alfredo Pie or the Steak and Cheese Pie – I came up with my own combination: fresh tomatoes and onions. Sounds boring, but a good pizza is about flavor, not pyrotechnics.

And I was right.

Owner Jason Moholland makes the dough fresh daily. He makes the red sauce from fresh roasted tomatoes that he grinds with salt and pepper. The crust is thin. The sauce is light. The flavor is big. The most popular is the House Balsamic with mozzarella, prosciutto, asparagus, balsamic vinegar and olive oil. The vinegar and oil soak into the crust. Need I say more?

The pies come in four sizes: 8, 12, 16 and 18 inches, and cost from $6 to $19. (Mine was $9.) Toppings (32 of them) range from $1 each to $1.75 for the big pies.

Pizza is back on the list.