Mi esposo and I, weary of substandard pizzas, have started a fun Friday night challenge: to find the best pizza joint within a 20 minute radius of our home.
We've just had too many pizzas that were soggy, sauce-less, wearing wilted toppings, and festooned with some fake soya stand-in for cheese that we decided that if the cook (ahem...that's me) was to be given a night off for an occasional carryout pizza, it had better be a damned good pie. And if we were ever going to find a damned good pie, we had to be methodological about it.
So began The Great Friday Night Pizza Challenge.
Here are the rough outlines of the game:
-Every Friday, mi esposo and I take turns selecting a different pizza joint.
-The Pizza-Orderer of the week gets to decide the establishment as well as the toppings.
-To be deemed "good", the pizza must meet the following requirements:
1. Pizza must be well-sauced (we like a sauce-y pie).
2. The sauce must have discernible, if not powerful, flavor. (I will never order from a place again if I can taste sugar in the sauce. I think adding sugar to tomato sauce is tantamount to cheating.)
3. The crust, whether thin or thick, must never be quasi-raw, doughy, glutenous mush.
4. The pizza establishment must be a reasonable commute from our inner-ring, east side home.
5. The cheese must be actual cheese, crafted from the milk of cows, sheep, or goats.
6. The toppings must be fresh, visually appealing, and as-described on the menu.
Sounds easy, right?
Ugh. I can tell you tales of horror about hair in my pizza, puddling grease pockets on my pizza, pizza with hardly a whisper of sauce, pizza sauce so heavily sugared it could have been a dessert, pizza that was so doughy I felt bloated for days, pizza with toppings the dogs refused, and more.
The Great Friday Night Pizza Challenge has been great fun. It lets me try all kinds of pie from around the area. It encourages mi esposo, normally a NON-foodie, to slow down and analyze flavors and textures. And it lets everyone have a turn picking dinner: for example, he likes a traditional pie while I go in for the ones with "out-there" toppings and combinations. This way, everyone gets a chance, and everyone gets to give their opinion.
If we're lucky, we may unearth the best pizza this side of the Cuyahoga.
What about YOU? (We'll take suggestions!) What's your favorite pizza pie on the east side of Cleveland???
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Valentino's and Whole Foods. Good crust (not greasy or hard) and fresh ingredients. Love the sauces they use as well. Just the right amount of oregano.
ReplyDeletei 2nd Valentino's as being darned tasty though i want to be the guys who own Vincenza's Pizza and Pasta downtown ... imagine a wildly popular (and profitable) restaurant that is only open for lunch monday thru friday.
ReplyDeletethe Cincinnati based, rapidly growing Dewey's is pretty good for a "regular" pizza place as well.
ReplyDeleteKaren i think marottas is great but the price is an insult so i hit whole foods for a slightly better pizza. Geracis well done, valentinos as mentioned. I went to deweys last saturday, i was very unimpressed just as i was the 1st time i went, i still cant understand why people like their pizza.
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