Pizza Summer

So today was the first day of summer and also happened to be Go Skateboarding day. A few weeks back, Braden was telling me about a past summer where he and some friends tried to eat pizza every day for the summer. He said most of those involved gave up a little over a month in, some sooner. They all had a gnarly time and put on some lbs. That surely came in handy the following winter. Grant and I decided to relive the legend and as disgusting as it may seem, we will attempt to eat some kind of pizza item every day for the entire summer. We kicked things off by taking shredsticks up the block and getting a cheese pie from Tarrant’s. This summer is looking very tasty.

Suffering for your craft

Sometimes I wonder if eating so much pizza is the right lifestyle decision.  One day I’d like to have kids, be a successfulm respectable adult, and turn into a crazy old grandpa that gets to yell everything on my mind at the top of my lungs.  ”Oh he’s just senile,” they’ll say as they hold doors open for me and my Rascal scooter.  Oh, and I’ve always dreamed of having several young men rush to my door to help me off the ground when “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.”

But I also love Pizza.  Yes, I capitalized it.  It is the food that makes me the happiest in the world.  I celebrate every joyous occasion in my life with pizza from the mundane to the extraordinary.  There is a Devils game on cable television tonight and to celebrate the rare occasion that I don’t have to watch hockey on a 640×480 resolution internet feed, I will consume an entire pizza of my choice.

However, some things I do not out of my desire to consume but instead I do less satisfying things in the hopes that this blog will one day become something bigger than just a small pizza blog with 80 hits a day.

Today I decided to see how well the kids at VCU are eating.   Their pizza, in particular.  You see, I graduated from VCU last year and I never ate too much of the pizza that was served throughout campus.  It can get pretty fucking bad I tell you, and if you’re a student then I probably don’t have to tell you.  On the Monroe Park campus I know of three places where pizza can be purchased with meal plans and dining dollars;  Shaffer Court dining center, The Commons and the first floor of Shaffer Court.

The Commons serves up this stuff called Bene Pizza.  I don’t know much about Bene other than how shitty the pizza was, and apparently still is horrible.  For $2.50 (plus tax) you can get a greasy, sloppy slice of pepperoni pizza.  You know that weird, addicting, McDonald’s-like sugary, oily taste that is greased all over Pizza Hut’s pizzas?  That what this thing has.  The aroma is oddly pleasant, but not in a desirable way at all.  The cheese sucks and the crust is even worse.  In fact, the crust ends look full, plump and full of chewy goodness inside.  Its all air!  You’re really only eating two sides of really flat, stale crust, separated by lots of oven air.  I remember only eating this shit when I had to…when Subway was closed and I had to spend the remnants of my parent’s dining dollars.

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Romanza, the New Feel Good Hit

Last Friday we embarked on our first ever Pizza Crawl with the dudes from Carytown Bicycle Company, and while 8 1/2 stole the show, Romanza in the Jackson Ward was definately the surprise hit of the evening.

So last night I was on a cheap pizza kick and didn’t want to bother with Chanello’s or Asante’s Pizza, so Romanza was the logical choice.

And it’s better than those two.

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Arianna's Pizza, Sheppard

I’ve always known that the same family owned Piccola’s and Mary Angela’s, but I’ve only recently learned that the same family has sort of a monopoly on pizza pie in Richmond, owning not just these two overpriced joints but also Pronto’s, Maldini’s and Arianna’s. I only hope they aren’t all equally as bad as Piccola has recently been.

My first and only experience with Arianna’s was a pretty annoying one. I went there with a friend about two years ago and we got some pretty good pizza, but the service was so horrible, so god awful, that the server earned less than a dollar tip. My friend and I felt we were treated as if we weren’t going to be able to afford to leave a good tip because of the way we were dressed. Everyone else dining in that night seemed to be dressed up fairly nice and us, with jeans and t-shirts, don’t look like kids that can afford to leave a tip.

Or maybe the server was just a dick.

I went to Arianna’s more recently and the service was much, much better. The pizza? Pretty good. Not great. The crust was kind of dead and tough, just didn’t have any flavor. The good part was the cheese and the sauce. Very good stuff but unfortunately, it’s just too expensive for such a mediocre pie. A good crust means everything, and a bad crust will crush even the best flavors that sit on top.

-g

This Just In: Pizza Bribe Earns Domino's Driver Felony Charge

Found this on Digg today.

To calm irate customers, Paul Booth, a 53-year-old former Dominos Pizza delivery driver, would offer free soda or breadsticks. However, he says, going into “customer-service mode” was a mistake in trying to smooth things over with a Sandy City Police officer, to whom he offered a pizza after being pulled over for speeding in June 2009.

“They treated me like a child molester, so I just got the fuck out of there,” Booth says.

Hahahahaha.  Read the rest here.

-g

DaVinci's, Brooklyn Park

Just when we think we’re running out of new pizza parlors to visit, we get the word of promising pie joints.  Sometimes in not so promising areas.

A friend of mine hints at a place she’s heard people talking about in a particularly crummy area of Northside along Brooklyn Park called DaVinci’s.  The place is a take-out only, traditional pizza and subs, hole in the wall type of pizza joint.

The pizza?  Pretty damn on point.

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Dominos $5.99 Deal until Oct. 25

It’s customer appreciated week at Dominos Pizza, and until Oct. 25 you can pick up a large, 1-topping pizza for $5.99.  Thin crust or regular crust.  Your choice.  Carry-out only.

Personally this pizza should never cost more than $5.99 in the first place, but I happen to think their thin crust pizzas aren’t half bad.  Check em out.

-gRant

Why Fit Guys Can Still Eat Pizza

I caught an interesting article on Men’s Fitness today about the healthier ways to eat pizza.  As a guy who takes physical health pretty seriously, I was fairly excited to see such an article on a health and nutrition web site.  Here is an excerpt…

“What’s not to love about this Italian export? Other foods, you eat. Pizza, you experience. Devouring a slice is a process that involves all the senses: the aroma coming from the oven, the sight of the molten cheese, the feel of the cornmeal-dusted crust in your hands, the sound of the crunch as you bite into it. And, of course, the taste-that unparalleled combo of dough, sauce, herbs and cheese.”

-gRant