Comments on: Pizza Pizza

By: patti

patti — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 01:09:10 +0000

You are not wrong in your assessment of King Cole Pizza in Cleveland. It was taken over by his son and his son opened a place in Mentor, Ohio under the same name, but business was not his strong suit and he closed that one, too. I had King Coles in the 80’s and no pizza will ever come close to the crust or topping on a King Coles Pizza. Period.

By: Phil

Phil — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 01:22:11 +0000

Stay away from Pizza Bogo in Cleveland Heights. Ownership is not very friendly and we need to support local shops. They have ok pizza but treat customers like we are nothing to them. When times are tough quality counts and they have very poor quality!!

Try Deweys around the corner. They are great with the family and make a great pizza pie. They will treat you well. Pizza Bogo is a mess.

By: Mtnmatt

Mtnmatt — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 22:57:10 +0000

Born in Manhattan and lived my whole life in the northeast, until moving to SoCal last August. i never understood why Domino’s would even bother with franchises there, except for the drunken college delivery market,

There is NO good pizza here. Apart from my family and friends, it (and real delis) are the only things I miss about metro NY.

It isn’t just the general quality, but the variety available – thin crust, thicker crust, bread-slab Sicilian, etc. All over metro NY, you could get what you felt like at that moment.

In NJ – Firehouse Pizza in East Orange is a must-try, but there plenty of good, nondescript joints in every town, the worst of which blows Cali pie away.

One of my earliest memories is getting a pizza slice through a window on the street in NYC as a four-year old. I can still recall the taste. There is lots of (relatively) bad pie available in NYC, but more than enough good slices to make up for it.

My grandparents lived in Ravena, outside Albany, NY, and Bernasconi’s rectangular pies live in my memory, though it is long gone. I used to get up early just to beat my brother to the cold leftovers.

I lived in CT, and had many visits to Pepe’s and Sally’s both are awesome. But there were a few places like Mike’s in Fairfield that cooked the pies in a pan, making a deliciously crisp crust.

If you go to Providence, be sure not to simply order a “plain” pie because you won’t get cheese (elsewhere, plain = cheese only – cheese is assumed).

I knew a spot in Long Island that put the cheese underneath the marinara, so that the oils oozed into the dough – a nice variation and texture change.

Most pies in Boston were the thin-crust that I prefer, so that was always a treat.

I have to go check Travelocity now…

By: Ed

Ed — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 16:15:31 +0000

For what it’s worth, I agree that most Cincinnati pizza is non-descript. It’s either from a bland, nationwide chain or a bad local imitation of one of those chains. I think LaRosa’s is an exception, but it’s an acquired local taste, like Cincy chili. I worked for LaRosa’s for about ten years, and I do have to say that I really like their pizza even to this day. The sauce is more than tomato paste and water, and the crust is good as long as it isn’t undercooked–flaky, crispy, savory. Ingredients there were fresh and top notch–at least when I was there in the 1990s. I actually miss that place a lot. So, there is one good place that serves something with some appeal. It isn’t Chicago or New York style pizza, but it isn’t Papa McCrap Hut either.

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 04:05:14 +0000

I second Vanessa. Punch Pizza in the Twin Cities is fantastic. Better than anything I’ve had in Italy (admittedly, I haven’t been to Naples). Having moved away from Minneapolis three years ago, I really, really miss my regular Punch fix.

By: Josh

Josh — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 14:24:50 +0000

Joe

Go back to Cincinnati (or Columbus) and eat Adriatico’s. The best pie I have ever had.

By: Rob

Rob — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 12:11:06 +0000

Louie’s Pizza, Stephens & Dequindre, Warren, MI. Just north of Detroit. Awesome.

By: Glen

Glen — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 04:47:51 +0000

To Andy, who cannot eat pizza due to gluten intolerance:

The day I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease (gluten intolerance) was profoundly sad because I had to give up Leo’s Pizza, which is IMHO the very best in KC and the world. However, you can try the gluten free at Waldo Pizza…not a bad substitute for the real thing.

By: John

John — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 23:13:01 +0000

Joe,
You said you think crust is what makes a pizza great, but I think you’re missing the point. As you said, a bad crust can ruin a pizza, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that a great crust makes a great pizza. If you have great crust but bad sauce or crappy cheese, the pizza will still suck. And at the end of the day, when you eat a piece of pizza, the crust isn’t really what you taste. You will notice the texture, but most of the flavor comes from what is ON the crust, and flavor is what we’re really talking about.

Here’s the thing: crust on a pizza is like the first day at the US Open. You can’t win the tournament on the first day, but you can lose it. Same thing with crust; a great crust by itself doesn’t make a great pizza, but a bad crust can ruin the pizza before it even gets out of the gate (to mix sports metaphors).

By: Bob McWilliams

Bob McWilliams — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 22:05:41 +0000

Joe, I love your description of the ideal pizza being the pizza we remember. I was lucky enough to discover that my quarter-century old memories of an ideal pizza were not overly embellished by hindsight. I didn’t really realize how good pizza could be until I left the Midwest to go to Harvard Law School, and discovered Pinocchio Pizza in Harvard Square. Admittedly, the reason I first went there is that the slices seemed pretty cheap (as opposed to just about everything else in the Boston metro area). But I quickly realized that I had not begun to realize how delicious, glorious, and sublime real pizza could be. And I agree that the key was the crust–not thin dry crackers, not doughy globs, but thin, pliable, and just right in terms of texture. Add in great sauce, and your pick of toppings, and Pinocchio was quite good. It was a hole in the wall, with a few tables, a soda machine, heavily accented staff “pepp-roni pisa, number turdy tree.” It also had “Free Howie Winter” graffiti (Howie was the Boston underling of the Patriarch Family out of Providence).

I had never been back to Boston or Cambridge before my 25th law school reunion in 2005. I really didn’t expect Pinocchio’s to be there. Harvard Square had been greatly gentrified in recent years, and I didn’t think this little place would have survived the onslaught of the trendy and chic places. But within a half block of getting off the T and walking south towards the Charles, a student coming towards me was carrying a box of takeout from Pinocchio. And when I walked in…well, it was a little different. That had added salads and pasta dishes to the menu, there was a cooler with drinks instead of a soda machine, the pinball machine (mandated by the Mob when I lived there) was gone, giving room for one more little table, but basically the same. But how would the pizza be?

Deliciious.
Wonderful.
Sometimes you can go home, or at least to your pizza home, again.

Disclaimer, when visiting NY, there is a pizza place whose name escapes me, which is somewhat south and a bit east of times square, that was even better than Pinochios. But it didn’t feel like home.