Backstepping @ Piccola Italy

So I’m on strike against Mary Angelas, who happen to share owners with Piccolla Italy.  Sometimes I just get these cravings.  I was definitely hungry and wanted pie but wasn’t sure if I should break my oath to myself and give into the dirt bags who support that ruthless bitch (see previous post).  I almost ordered Papa Johns out of principle.  I’m glad I didn’t.

Half mushroom, half cheese.  This thing was delicious from head to toe.  I have a bad habit of putting extra seasoning and what have you on most of my pizza, but this thing was ready to roll and was eaten lightning fast.  If I blinked I would have missed it.  Thin layer of sauce, just enough cheese to weigh down the slice and a nice dusty, semi-crisp crust.  The mushroom side was topped liberally and sweet delicious juice dripped down through the slice upon folding.  I hear they have $1.50 beers on draft all day.  Sounds like I might be making a dine-in visit soon and violating major terms of my pizza strike.

Sette Fire Roasted Pizza, Church Hill

Fire roasted pizza you say!?  I too was excited.  For weeks.  On one of my lonely, boring weeknights at home, I decided enough was enough.  I’d go check it out.

As far as I’m aware, Sette is the only fire brick oven restaurant in town, unless I am wrong (which I hope somebody corrects me).  The restaurant is as asthetically pleasing as the pizzas, which are all gourmet thin crust pies with namess like the “Church Hill”, “Gambini” and “Rustica.”  The “Church Hill” was the closest thing to an old fashioned pepperoni pizza, along with mushrooms and roasted red peppers.

If I had to pick one thing that stands out with this pie, it’s definately the crust, which absolutely gets its flavor and form from the fire brick oven.  This is definately the way to cook a pizza.  The crust doesn’t need to be yanked apart with clenched teeth and one hand gripping tightly.  It is crispy and moist, a perfect balance usually unattainable by most Quik-E pizza joints.

All is not well with the rest of this pretty pizza.  For some reason, flavor is almost non-existant.  Even with the mushrooms, peppers, and humongous cuts of pepperoni, I don’t taste much else other than crust and oil.  Everything is simply mediocre tasting, and I find myself relishing only when the slice is 3/4ths done and I’m holding a large piece of crust.

Everything holds together very well however.  The cheese never slips away, taking with it the fresh ingredients that adorn its surface.  It is a glimmer of hope that I still have for this place.  Surely, some of their other pizzas have GOT to be as delicious as they claim…

Make your own!

Its never easy to find pizza pies at 2 in the morning.  Sometimes you have to go home made which in most cases ends up being frozen reheated.  When you get down to brass tax, we are talking about bread, cheese and sauce.  How hard is it to fuck that up?  Close to impossible.  If you don’t believe me check the good stuff over at Mack and Manco’s in New Jersey.  Tonight we loaned out a Digiorno.  – Andy

Frozen pizza pie has a warm place in my heart.  My years growing up in Virginia Beach were filled with pizza Fridays, being rewarded a week’s hard work with the usual delivery; 1 Large pizza and occasionally some bread sticks and a 2-liter of soda.  But sometimes my parents couldn’t afford to blow $20+ on delivery, so they kindly stocked the freezer with an assortment of large or personal frozen pizzas.  From Mama Celeste Pizza for One to Digiorno self rising crust…its all good mama!

Tonight Andy treated me to one such pie; a Digiorno cheese pizza, and it was damn good.  These pizzas are surely perfectly constructed in some factory far, far away to make sure the cheese is always adherent to the crust, so none of your favorite ingredients slip away.  A very sweet, almost candy like sauce is never an unwanted flavor, while the mozarella cheese from somewhere far away is chewy and tasty.  The crust never wavers, holding his posse up, even when lifting the slice from its end.

Frozen pizza is always  a delight, especially when paired with a chill night of movies and good friends. – Grant

Two by the Ocean, One off the Grid.

Excuse the lack of photos. Not all of our writers are equipped with smart phones. It is not very uncommon to catch three or four pizzas over the weekend. I had the familiar pleasure this past few. Some of my favorite pie is the spontaneous kind. It usually leads to an old favorite, or a new adventure. Rarely does spur of the moment pizza result in the mediocrity you would expect from a Papa Johns. I must admit, however, their cheese dipping sauce is a guilty pleasure of mine.

Both of my reviews are from pizzerias I have frequented on far too few occasions, considering my praise for both. Cogan’s Pizza in Norfolk, and Lag-O-Mar in Virginia Beach.

Cogan’s has been around forever, I used to play punk shows there in high school. Most of the time it was a total shithole, the last place I would ever expect to flip into a real class act of a pizza parlor. Over the last few years, Cogan’s got a facelift including some delicious signature pizzas including a Four Cheese and also a Margherita, a huge selection of delicious brews, a patio area, and a little extra space for table and arcade games. Their pie is almost a middle ground between New York and Chicago I’d say and their crust reminds me of something close to digornio consistency. A choice to go with spicy sauce is definitely a must. Try their pizzas on Sunday, they happen to be $5 off.

Lag-O-Mar is located in Lag-O-Mar oddly enough, a burb in the near the Redmill/Sandbridge/Pungo area of Virginia Beach.  It is a tiny place in a mini-strip including a Gas Station and something else, I think.  Maybe just the Gas station.  I had their pizza once a few years ago before a road trip to Richmond.  Two slices and a fountain soda (root beer on tap is choice there) ran me a few dollars.  The slices had a typical New York style and was not oversauced.  I like my pie with a thin layer of sauce if I am going with just cheese.  Its also nice when you are on the go and don’t want stained pizza crotch or lava sauce herpes burns on your face.  My second visit was somewhat of a let down, finding out they only had slices until 4pm, but my 10″ cheese was still delicious, with an exceptional greasiness and nice dusty crust to lick off my hands when I finished it off.  One of the best parts about Lag-O-Mar are the free arcade boxes while you wait for your pizza.  They have Raiden DX.  I will end the review on that high note.

Last but certainly not least, while it pains me greatly, over the last month I have been boycotting Mary Angelas pizza in Richmond Va.  While I love their pizza and subs and a good friend of mine, who is a career waitress makes a honest paycheck over there, I simply cannot continue to frequent a place owned by a guy dating the rudest person on the fucking planet.  If you happen to see a fat nasty bitch who belongs on a cheap reality show with other fat nasty bitches who think they have somehow earned the right to treat people like total trash, tell her to get a real job and swallow some bleach.  She happened to frequent my place of business, act like a total freak in front of my Pamparius co-writer as well as several customers and then blatantly ignored my Carytown business discount at the pizza place after clearly reading my “Carytown Bicycle Company” shirt, not to mention having stood in my place of business a few days earlier trash talking me.  So if you are reading this and looking for pizza in Richmond, don’t go to Mary Angelas.  We can no longer afford to indirectly support shitty people.

Tarrantino's, Broad St.

Tarrantino’s is the pizza joint right behind Tarrant’s Cafe, a very delicious and comfortable, slightly upscale restaurant on Broad St.  Run by the same people, you will get Tarrantino’s pizza on the Tarrant’s menu if you choose to dine in.

But what I don’t understand is why I always seem to get a better pizza when I walk through the front doors of Tarrant’s and sit down for a meal.  The pizza is absolutely brilliant.  Superb ingredients and cooked to perfection.

However, the three or four times I’ve ordered straight from Tarrantino’s, whether I choose delivery or take out, I’ve gotten inedible, uncooked shit on more than half the occasion.  Don’t get me wrong, the pizza is still made with the same soft mozzarella, a wonderfully subtle, savory tomato sauce and very fresh crust, but the cooks never, EVER, cook my pizza until it is done cooking.

Why is this?  Do the pizzas actually come from a different oven when ordering from Tarrant’s Cafe?  I’m almost certain they do not, as I have a friend who serves there who tells me otherwise.

Last night I ordered a medium pepperoni.  My total was around $14 which is leaning towards the expensive side, but the pizza here is worth it.  This time, however, I told the guy on the other end to cook my pizza a little longer than you usually do, to ensure that I received my pizza with a fully cooked crust.

Did they listen?  Maybe.  But either way, the cook didn’t get word and my pizza was, as usual, uncooked in the middle.  I begrudgingly consumed half the pie, still enjoying the most wonderful invention food has ever given us, but the pizza didn’t really taste GREAT until i was half way done with each slice, where the dough had enough time to form a solid crust.  Then, and only then, was this pizza so damn delicious, that even through all the distress Tarrantino’s has caused me, I will still recommend this pizza to anyone looking for great New York style pie.  Just make sure you dine in.

And give their white pizza a shot too, I hear they’re great.

Zorba's Pizza, Northside Richmond

Tucked away in the Bellevue area in the north side of Richmond is Zorba’s Pizza and Subs; a small, dirty little hut of a pizza shop next to a 1930′s Art Deco style theater turned Grotto.

Clad in old, faded promotional photos of gyros and a Greek flag hanging above the register, the thick accented men behind the counter serve up some pretty well cooked NY style pie.  Well cooked, but not terribly great tasting either.

The pizza comes to us with noticeable rivers of oil on top of the softest mozarella cheese I’ve had in a while.  The cheese is very fatty, soft and chewy.  I am a huge fan of cheese but this is terribly too much as it does nothing to keep the toppings from sliding off the crust.  If you wanted to replicate the endless stretching of gooey mozz seen in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoons, this is the pizza to do it with.

At a glance, the crust looks great; crispy exterior with enough thickness for a soft inside and cooked just the right amount of time.  Alas, the crust tastes like it alone had been sitting out in the open before the toppings were piiled on to it.  Such a good looking pizza crust that tastes of cardboard.

The sauce is very boring, cheap tasting tomato paste and the pepperoni on top floppy and plain.  Zorba’s Pizza looked to be a gem of an authentic, unique place which is a rarity in Richmond these days but failed to meet my expectations.

For the first time in a long while I had no desire to finish the last couple slices of pizza sitting on my table, but maybe you’ll enjoy it more than I did.