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Western Pizza (or perhaps Western Pizza Express is a Canadian chain with one location in Phoenix.

Looking at their website, they operate two types of locations: take out and delivery only (Western Pizza Express) and facilities that include dine-in also (Western Pizza). If that’s the case, the Phoenix location is a Western Pizza, although their menu says, “Express”. Your guess is as good as mine.

This pizza has more of a bready crust, but it wasn’t bad, and was properly cooked throughout – a welcome change after the last few pizzas I’ve had at other places.

The pizza was loaded with good-tasting pepperoni, a full layer under the cheese and then small slices on top of the cheese.

The cheese was good too.

All-in-all it was a good, serviceable pizza, my only complaint was their “…’family secret’ recipe for our incredible tomato sauce…” as they put it.

There was another person eating pizza with me, and without consulting each other we came to exact same conclusion: It’s barbecue sauce, not pizza sauce.

If you like a really sweet pizza, this might be for you, but it was a bit too much for me. Although, to my surprise, it wasn’t as awful as it sounds.

It was a nice place and I might eat there again, although I’d be inclined to try something else on their menu. They have a variety of subs, salads, wings, appetizers and desserts.

Conclusion: Not for everyone, but worth a try, maybe, I suppose, or not.

Price: 8″ Pepperoni, $7.50
Price per square inch: $0.15 (0.149)

Western Pizza
Western Pizza Express
4801 E. Indian School Road
Phoenix, AZ

Technorati Tags: Blog, Food, Pizza, Restaurant, Review

Pizza is subjective. I’ll be the first to admit that.

One person’s ultimate pizza is another man’s greasy cardboard. Some days when I’m eating a review pizza, I think, “no one could like this”.

Other days I think, “this isn’t my cup of tea, but I could see how someone else could love it.” And so it was while I was eating at Pino’s Pizza Al Centro.

Right off the bat, I’m not inclined to return, but I’ll try to be as detailed as I can in this review to let you decide as you see fit.

I generally see pizza lovers falling into two major camps: Foundationers and Topping Heads. I’m a Foundationer.

A Foundationer is not a crackpot religion, but a pizza philosophical position. In short, a crust failure is a total pizza failure.

(While it isn’t a crackpot religion, if anyone would like it to be one, just send me money and I think something can be arranged. Similarly, we are looking for someone to write a wikipedia article on this philosophical movement.)

Meanwhile, Topping Heads think everything above the sauce is the key to a masterful pizza. They’re just plain wrong, but I have to say that to keep my membership up in the Foundationers.

Keep all that in mind as we move along in this review.

Pino’s has been just off Central on Thomas for I don’t know how long. I’ve been passing it on my way home for as long as I can remember although I won’t go so far as to say It’s been there for the full 12 years I’ve been driving home that way.

It’s never open when I pass it. For the longest time, I thought it was out of business. In fact, it’s only open weekdays between 10 AM and 2 PM and again from 5 PM to 8 PM and I’m almost never driving that way during those times.

Today I made the effort to get there during lunch hour. I was expecting them to only have a couple small tables (looking through the front window gives the impression of a cramped space and no dining area), but actually they have a good-sized dining room with 20 or more tables.

Even though I ate an early lunch, it was quite busy.

They have several pizzas in a serving area for pizza by-the-slice, although I did notice that the crowds seemed more inclined towards have pastas and sandwiches rather than pizza.

My pizza was a 10″ (their smallest) pepperoni. It looked really good when served up but it did not, for me, live up to the promise of its appearance.

Starting from the top:

• I disliked the pepperoni. Pepperoni generally falls in one of three categories,

  • flavorless – self explanatory
  • smoky – some pepperonis have an almost summer-sausage, smoky, country, bitter flavor. More like something I’d expect from Knickerson Farms than an Italian Deli
  • pepperoni-flavored. I can’t describe this one, but this is the flavorful, not smoky flavor that makes a pepperoni that I can just eat cut right off the stick.

  Unfortunately, this was the bitterest, most smoky flavored pepperoni I’d tasted in a long time. That, in itself, is not a show-stopper, there’s always Italian sausage as a fallback.

• Cheese. The cheese was good, but there was loads too much on the pizza. It was awash in melted cheese. They certainly did not skimp on cheese (or pepperoni, for that matter). Too much cheese creates a different problem, which we’ll get to in a bit.
• Sauce. Good. Tasty. No complaints.
• Crust. Oh, this is really where the problem lies. The outer edge was cooked but had little flavor (unless you like the flavor of flour). There was one crunchy spot which tasted very similar to those dried Italian breadsticks they used to serve in a restaurants before they discovered people liked fresh ones.

  The inside portion of the crust was raw. “Raw” in this case meaning “wet dough”. This is exactly what happens when you put too much cheese (or other toppings) on pizza. The bottom browns up nice, but the top of the crust remains uncooked.

  I took a picture of it for demonstration purposes, but my cell phone camera has no macro and the picture was not clear enough to post. I was able to measure it though. There was a thin layer of cooked crust on the bottom and 3 times as much uncooked dough sitting on top of that. If you figure that the cooked crust will have risen, that’s really a lot more 75% uncooked.

As a Foundationist, the uncooked crust is inexcusable, and yet I know many people who wouldn’t think twice about eating a pizza with double or triple cheese on it.

If that’s you, then this pizza might be for you, but if a well-prepared crust reigns supreme in your book, give this one a miss.

10″ Pepperoni Pizza, $6.95 = $0.09 (0.088) per square inch

Conclusion: Topping Heads Only (But you might really like this one.)

Pino’s Pizza Al Centro
139 W Thomas
Phoenix, AZ

Technorati Tags: Blog, Food, Pizza, Restaurant, Review

Ah late Christmas presents! A coworker took the crew out for pizza as a belated Christmas present. We decided to go to Oregano’s

Oregano’s is a local Arizona chain, although somewhat of a late-comer to the Phoenix market. I ate in one in Flagstaff many years ago and bemoaned the fact they didn’t have one closer to home.

Generally I’ve had stuffed pizzas, but today I decided to try the Chicago Thin crust.

The smallest they have is 14″ which they claim feeds 1-2. Unlike most pizza places where the estimate is overstated (“Our 8″ pizza serves 2” Ha!) Oregano’s is understated. Few single people of normal capacity could polish this pie off in one sitting.

The crust was very thin, but cooked and crisp throughout, with very little droopage (is that a word?) even on the center pieces.

It is cut into squares rather than slices and that just plain sucks no matter what pizza it is. The pieces in the middle just don’t have that crusty last bite to complete the experience – although they do make good pieces to give to others and pretend you’re sharing magnanimously.

Otherwise, good all around. Good crust, good pepperoni, good cheese, good sauce. A little salty.

I still prefer the stuffed pizza, but for that you’ve gotta wait the better part of an hour, so don’t order one if you’re dying for food right now.

Oregano’s always seems to be crowded, no matter which one you go to, so go at an off time or prepare to wait.

They have other items and, although I tend to go with pizza, their sandwiches are large and good.

14″ Pepperoni Pizza $10.74, cost per square inch: $0.07 (0.070).

Conclusion: Recommended.

Oregano’s Pizza
1008 E Camelback
(for other locations, see their website)

Technorati Tags: Blog, Food, Pizza, Restaurant, Review

I felt my review of Red Brick Pizza was somewhat unfair. Considering how much they bragged up their oven technology, it seemed I must have gotten an off-day pizza. They could hardly have called what I got “crispy”.

Today, I took the family in during the middle of the day and tried again. This time we had a more rounded meal.

My daughter had breadsticks: Like the crust, the breadsticks were nearly flavorless.

My wife had some form of combo pizza. Before she’d ever read my review of Red Brick, she told me the ham and pepperoni must be made of tofu, as they had no flavor, although the sausage and bacon were flavorful.

My pizza was nearly identical to my previous one. Pictured here you can see just how “crispy” the crust was.

We timed the pizza, it was 12 minutes from order to pizza on the table. We did watch the process and from the moment the pizzas went in the oven it was only 6 minutes to the table.

Final recommendation: Not recommended.

Technorati Tags: Blog, Food, Pizza, Restaurant, Review