This is two weeks in a row that I’ve eaten in a residential house converted into a pizza place. (The other review has been delayed due to a fact-checking issue and will be posted after this one.)
Pizza City is a weird little place which is only open 5 days a week: Sun, Tue, Thr, Fri & Sat) and then only for dinner. They’re also open for lunch from Thursday to Saturday.
Remember to consult your Magic 8 Ball to decide if they’re going to be open when you’re hungry for pizza.
As always, when I go into these quirky little places, I’m expecting something really special. Chains and upscale fru-fru places rarely have good pizza. It’s the little mom and pop shops where I expect to find the next great pizza.
This pizza was an extremely near miss. As I was eating it, I felt like I might really like this pizza but for one problem: the entire flavor was overwhelmed by the taste of garlic powder. (Not fresh garlic – the dry stuff.)
Towards the center, I think I could taste the cheese some, and it wasn’t bad, but everything else was drowned out by the garlic powder.
When you reached the outer crust, it was exactly like eating a bread stick with garlic powder stuck to it – not a garlic bread stick where the garlic had been melded into the flavor, but just bread with garlic powder poured on it.
Service was a little slow, but the owner/manager/pizza maker was very friendly but quite busy. Apart from a delivery person he seemed to be the only one working.
I’m going to give them a second visit in the near future because it’s possible that they just spilled too much garlic powder on the pizza. (Although, my party had two other pizzas and they all reported the exact same thing.) Besides, I need a better picture of the pizza. Apparently the garlic altered the focal properties of the air in the localized vacinity of the pizza. (Or it might be bad photography.)
Pizza City
4447 N 7th Ave
Phoenix, AZ
602.604.2489
Cost:10″ Pepperoni, $4.36 or $0.06 per square inch
(Note: this is one of the cheapest pizzas per square inch I’ve reviewed. It only achieved $0.06 by rounding, the actual cost was $0.055)
Conclusion: The jury is still out, but if you really like garlic (powder) this might be the pizza for you.
Stay tuned for a follow-up.
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