pizzylvania

My trip to Philly and West Chester summed up:

Great pizza

Good music

Pretty scenery

Fun Bike Riding

Shitty Cheese Steaks

Yeah, the cheese steak from Pat’s sucked and I don’t care what anyone says, I ain’t eating fucking Cheese Wiz.  I’m 25 years old for christ’s sake and I want a bangin cheese steak with melted provolone.  I’ll get a greasy, cheesy steak from Dog n’ Burger in Norfolk any day.

But whatever, my obligations towards this site require me to snuff out good pizza all over the country and Andy directed me towards Pizzeria Stella on south 2nd street.

I’m always skeptical when entering a “fancy” pizza place.  Too often the owners place more emphasis on the decor than the food.  Building a pretty “brick” oven in plain view of the dining area doesn’t fool me.  I don’t really care about that stuff, if the pizza is good it should speak for itself.  We ordered a red pizza with spinach, fresh tomatoes and mozz.

This stuff is incredible.  Everything was cooked to perfection, or at least what I consider perfection.  Delicious mozz, a tangy and slightly chunky tomato sauce that stuck to everything it touched and spinach with a hint of lemon, all of this sitting on top of a perfectly baked crust from tip to end.  You could hold the slices up without the lip drooping and none of the toppings slid off the edge.  Even after I downed that shitty cheese steak I made plenty of room to destroy every slice of this that I could.

After a day and night in Philly we made sure to drive through West Chester on the way back to check out Fairman’s skate shop and see some stuff that I’d seen in some low budget films and CKY videos.  Being sort of a small college town (West Chester U and U of Delaware nearby) I figured there would be no shortage of crappy, late-night pizza joints a-la Assante’s and I was right.  In the small quarter-mile circle around the town center that I hung out in I saw no fewer than six pizza places.  They were everywhere.  Benny’s Pizza happened to be the lucky one.

For around six bucks we got a 14″ half pepperoni pie.  This stuff was pretty damn good and I imagine they do great business, especially with a Lethal Enforcers arcade cabinet in the back.  The pie was typical of a cheap ass pizza but better than what I’m used to here in Richmond.  The crust was a lot thinner all the way around but still kind of cheap and sweet.  They don’t go as heavy on the sauce which is great because the sauce is some cheap shit anyway, and the cheese was forgettable.  But for the price, you really can’t beat this stuff.  I wonder how Benny’s stacks up to the other dozen or so pizza joints in West Chester?  I didn’t see any upper class, rich white folk pizzerias while I was in town which I can appreciate.  Just budget pies for the college kids.  Fuck ya, West Chester,

I plan on going back for a bike race in June and I’ll definitely be stuffing more Chester pies in my face.