Wilmington Pizza Insulting the stretch of pavement and stripmalls you call home

25May/110

Incredible Gourmet Pizza

Posted by pete

Disappointment never left such a terrible taste in my mouth

As all of you who read this blog with some regularity know, I'm fairly incompetent. One example of said incompetence is that I thought this Incredible location was no longer in existence. I got it in my pea-sized brain that the newish Slice of Life shithole took over their spot. I don't remember why I decided upon this nonsense, but as usual I was entirely wrong; as you can see, this place totally exists.

Which is kind of a shame because the pizza was bad, in the must bummer sorta way possible. It's a real big bastard that doesn't look too bad at first, really:

The only positive thing I can say about this slice is that it's very large. It's not quite as large as those found at the Incredible location off New Centre, but that thing was simply gargantuan. The crust was misshapen and extraordinarily dry. It also had a general burnt taste to it, which struck me as kind of inexplicable since it didn't appear burnt.

There wasn't enough cheese on here, nor was there enough sauce. I think the sauce may have been okay but the cheese was crummy, I think. It was either really bland,  or low- fat, or maybe it's just that there was so little of it on the slice. Based on the lack of grease, I'd say they're using some shitty low-fat mozzarella and not much of it.

All I could taste was burnt crap in my mouth, and it was dry as all get out. Real bummer because I went here expecting something good like you can get at their sister pizzeria off New Centre. This right here is definitely some of the shittier NY-style pizza in town, so if that's what you are looking for, stop looking and drive on over.

I hope they were just having an off day.

Yech.

6 1/2 recircs out of a possible 8 recircs (lower is better)

Incredible Gourmet Pizza - $2.70
1414 S College Rd # 105  Wilmington, NC 28403

Incredible Gourmet Pizza on Urbanspoon

23May/110

Gumby’s Pizza

Posted by pete

Thanks for shitting on my childhood, jerkbags

I had no plans to review this place. I've been here once before almost a decade ago and even though I was probably stoned to oblivion I still knew I was eating garbage. But it seems a certain, small, deviant minority of Wilmington gets a kick out of these reviews and since I can still afford the gut rot whiskey it takes to write them, I figured I owed it to my readers to shit down Gumby's throat. Hell, they're more of a pizzeria than some of the places I've reviewed. I think.

Well I got there at almost 6 p.m. expecting to pick up a pie and wonder of wonders, the fucking oven has been fucking off and my pizza has just been sitting in a cold oven. I mean if you open at 6 p.m. maybe that's almost excusable but they allegedly open at 4 p.m. Luckily I didn't care that much since it afforded me the opportunity to walk over and buy some Big Flats 1901, which I had been meaning to try. But it was still a telling sign, you know?

The pizza:

This is the smallest amount of pizza from Gumby's that I could get (as far as I could tell) and if you've read my terrible reviews you know that I'm always in favor of slices - the cheaper the better. Well shit I'm about to go off-topic again out of nowhere:

I don't understand the interior of this place. They've got a door for an employee's restroom (red/brown one on the left in the uppermost picture) and a mystery door in the back, and a sign on the front door that says "no public restrooms." I usually take that to mean no hobos are allowed to shit here, but I'm not convinced in this case. Are customers even allowed to eat in here? What are all those chairs for, people waiting? I don't know man this place is weird but if they allow people to sit down and eat they should sell slices. I think it would be in their best interest. They should also allow people to shit.

Fuck that misplaced and terrible aside I'm now going to talk about the pizza. Shit tasted like Domino's. Or maybe an amalgam of Pizza Hut and Domino's. Regardless, just skip this fucking place and eat at one of the national chains if you're craving crummy, crappy, generic pizza. Go to Gumby's and get a small 1-topping special for $5 or go to Domino's and get a large 2-topping special for $6. Same shit, different size and price. Totally your call.

As crummy as I found this pizza, I seem to find it difficult to rate. Part of me wants to shit on it for being a replica of chain garbage. Then again well-made chain garbage is better than poorly-made faux-NY style pizza. And for chain garbage it was done fairly well despite the oven kinks, which I felt compelled to mention but can't take much off for. It's in fact going to rank a tad worse than the nearby and new  Wilmington's House of Pizza, only because they were both going for the same style pizza and Gumby's came up a bit short by comparison. As an aside, the style of pizza I just referred to is called "American." Said nomenclature makes me want to rig up a tube and vomit into my own ass.

I'd like to go on record as saying that I love Gumby. The character. That fly green mofo with the horse. Baddest dude made out of clay ever, as far as I know.

I think I ate most of it anyway, in a period of overwhelming self-loathing.

6 recircs out of a possible 8 recircs (lower is better)

Gumby's Pizza - $5.39
1414 S College Rd # 105  Wilmington, NC 28403

Gumby's on Urbanspoon

20May/110

Quick Note: Brooklyn Hampstead

Posted by pete

I went to Brooklyn in Hampstead and it was the fucking bee's knees, my gullet got proper fucked. New real review in a day or two.

Also, yes the pizza here is actually $2+ tax, I was overcharged previously.

13May/110

Tony’s NY Pizza & Trattoria

Posted by pete

There's hope for Leland yet


I fucking love this place. I'll cut to the chase and say that this is not the best pizza reviewed here. I love this place anyway. The space is real big and stupid, not resembling a pizzeria at all. I love this place anyway. There's a formality going on here which I fail to genuinely appreciate. I was hoping Tony's would go the traditional pizzeria route. I may have been praying, I don't know. I knew the space was too big for that purpose, having been to Antonio's in the past, but I still had hope.

The good news is that Tony's is not Antonio's. It's not some generic shit hole serving crappy slices in hell forever. It's a place that very likely serves totally decent Italian-American food that also offers pizza (slices, at that). It's basically a fucking dream. It's like someone shitcanned Antonio's and handed the location over to people that didn't suck dicks for a living. That's basically exactly what happened.

The bad news is that the slice I got wasn't quite what I was expecting. Truth be told I was expecting too much. According to PCF, this place is the result of some serious heavy hitters joining forces: I <3 NY joining forces with Luigi's. I've never eaten at Luigi's, all I know about it is that people said it used to be incredibly good and, according to a friend who worked there, Luigi was Mexican. Is that relevant? I hope not but that's for your racist ass to decide.

I got a fucking slice of pizza:

I sort of hate getting small slices of pizza. Only because I know that a larger slice of pizza doesn't cost the owners much more. We're talking about a matter of cents, or something. That said, this slice wasn't the smallest I've gotten and it was one of the cheapest. So fuck everything I just said. In fact, fuck this entire review.

There is one singular problem with this slice. The crust was far too dry. Overcooked or poor dough formula? I don't know and I'm sick of trying to figure this shit out from afar. Regardless, this was a great slice of pizza. The sauce was great. It was fucking great. The cheese was unassailable. Really the only problem was that the crust was exceptionally dry. It's kind of shocking considering how much regard I have for I <3 NY. Also the last time I went to I <3 NY, the crust was so far from dry that it was terrible. I went there recently and it was fucking sort of shit. Fucking pissed me off. But is wasn't dry.

Maybe I went here with too much expectation. Considering the people running this place I was expecting Tony's to trump all others I've reviewed. But that's kind of unreasonable. They're brand new. Still, they should understand their dough and oven well enough to prepare a better crust than this. Even so, it was quite good. Compared to the place that used to be here, Antonio's, Tony's is fucking light years beyond them. They don't even have any competition in Leland, so they're fucking set. The only thing that gives me pause is the large location and sit-down atmosphere.

Leland is a terrible place, slightly worse than Wilmington.  I fucking hate it. If you are ever there I suggest you go to Tony's.

Whiskey.

2 1/2 recircs out of a possible 8 recircs (lower is better)

Tony's NY Pizza & Trattoria - $1.99
1107 New Point Blvd.  Leland, NC 28451

Tony's NY Pizza & Trattoria on Urbanspoon

8May/110

Pizzetta’s Pizzeria

Posted by pete

I went back to Pizzetta's recently and while my opinion of the pizza hasn't changed, due to the fact that I haven't bothered to try it again, I can report that this place is very good. It's some of the best Italian-American shit I've had in Wilmington. Plus the portion size and price were quite good, with my dish costing less than $10 and feeding my fat self for both lunch and dinner.

Most importantly, their cannolis are the best I've ever had outside of New York (even if they are humorously small).

I'm not trying to turn this blog into another terrible, generic, dime-a-dozen food review site. I just felt like I owed Pizzetta's another mention after doing them the incredible disservice of declaring their pizza 'alright.'

6May/110

Mellow Mushroom

Posted by pete

A hell of a place


I'm a huge fan of Mellow Mushroom. Mainly because they've got a lot of beer. Also because their mascot is a mushroom, and that's basically my favorite drug ever. But I also like their sandwiches and consider them a decent bargain. Alright, you caught me; I haven't mentioned their pizza. I'm not a huge fan of their pizza.

Let's start with the good. The jalapeno slice had a lot of fuckin jalapenos on it. That's cool. Moving onto the cheese slice, it just looks dumb. It's got a weird secondary ghost cut line along the side of it. I'm not taking points off for that, I'm just commenting on it. It looks dumb. What's up with all that parmesan cheese along the rim? Newsflash, fuckfaces: you put parmesan on every table so don't unilaterally put this shit on the rim of my slices like you are the U.S. military napalming unsuspecting civilians. I don't even really like parmesan! I never put it on my pizza, thats for damn sure. I'm guessing they do this to entice you to eat the rim of the crust. How about just making your crust less shitty? Try that on for size.

Onto more of the good: I thought the sauce was good. I also thought the cheese was okay. But the crust was terrible, I'm sorry to say. There was no crunchiness anywhere in this crust. It looked like it was cooked to fucking hell, but it was floppy as all get out. It was so fucking soft and stupid and weird, it pissed me right the fuck off. Much worse than that, it was covered in corn meal on the bottom, and as a result of that, plus the under-seasoned, low-hydration, overcooked dough, the slice was just dry and stupid in my mouth. It was very disconcerting, but since I had beer it wasn't exactly the end of the world. Which is to say I didn't die.

Everyone loves this place, including me. Their pizza is a fraud, though. They view pizza crust as merely a means of carrying toppings to someone's face. That's why I review plain slices - to weed out the shysters. The crust is the backbone of all slices and if you depend on masking your bummer crust with a ton of toppings, you're not getting past me. And Mellow Mushroom does indeed have a lot of awesome, fresh toppings, applied liberally. But their crust is shitty. Most people don't give a shit about the crust, so take this review with a grain of salt. And put it in the fucking dough recipe. Probably wouldn't even help, actually.

Another pint to go with this shitty pizza, please.

5 recircs out of a possible 8 recircs (lower is better)

Mellow Mushroom - $2.70
4311 Oleander Drive, Wilmington NC 28403

Mellow Mushroom on Urbanspoon