Scotto Pizza
Edible mall pizza. The fuck?
Sbarro, one of only two establishments in town to have the ignoble distinction of receiving a full 8-recirc rating (infinite recircumcision), has bitten the dust. That was very good news. When I heard it was being replaced by another chain pizzeria (this one being SCOTTO, some weirdo place from up north), I was filled with terror and began shaking uncontrollably. It also may have been withdrawal, who knows.
The first thing I noticed was the stupid TVs they used as menu boards. Scratch that, the first thing I noticed was that they had infinitely more employees working there than customers ordering from there (zero versus 6+). And when I say working I of course mean standing around doing jack shit. I guess they're new and don't know how much staff they need at given times. There were so many people working here that I felt like an animal in a zoo being gawked at by a bunch of self-entitled human scum. The small asian people floating around handing out skewered meat added to that effect, strangely.
They have two types of pizza (NY style and something that looked vaguely deep-dishy) and a lot of variety therein. The NY style shit didn't look too bad. It was cheaper than Sbarro used to be ($2.94 versus $3.52) and the slice was larger:
The pizza probably looks oversauced, overcheesed or both in this picture, but it wasn't too bad. The sauce itself was also pretty good, as was the cheese. The crust was alright; it wasn't cooked on a screen (thank Christ) and it had a bit of a crunch. But it definitely could have used more salt (or, you know, any salt whatsoever). I actually enjoyed this mall pizza.
Unlike Sbarro's disgusting bullshit which I didn't even finish, I could've eaten another slice of Scotto's, which makes their 2 slices and drink special for $6+tax a pretty good deal in general and, in specific, an awesome mall deal. Or you could go next door and have some monstrously overcooked fried chinese heatlamped horseshit.
SCOTTO!
4 1/2 recircs out of a possible 8 recircs (lower is better)
Scotto Pizza - $2.94 3500 Oleander Dr., Wilmington, NC 28403
My Essentials Extra Cheese Crispy Thin Crust Pizza Microwavable
Seventy Cents to Freedom
I went to Golden China at 17th Extension and South College today for two reasons: One, I heard they had an appetizer called Chinese Pizza. Japanese pizza is one thing (and weird as fuck), but Chinese pizza? Sounds too perfect to be true. I don't think the good people of Hong Kong had even heard of pizza when I went there years ago. The second reason is that I wrote another review recently, but I don't want to post it because it's fairly negative and it bums me the fuck out. Anyway, Golden China didn't have any fucking pizza (shocker).
I wandered around like an idiot for a while. I walked around Dollar General. I hate Dollar General. Why don't they call it Everything's More Than A Dollar General? Because everything is more than a fucking dollar. Even stuff that oughta be a dollar is like $1.25, because Dollar General hates you, that's why. Then I wandered around Food Lion, and this My Essentials bullshit caught my eye (partially because I almost never shop at Food Lion and therefore never tried this):
It was on sale so I bought the fuck out of it. Normally this would have cost me over a dollar after taxes but I scored this shit or $0.70. Damn it feels good to be a gangsta. I got this one specifically because it says it's microwavable, and I was going to take this back to the office to eat it. We don't have an oven; we have an ancient tiny microwave. It's one of those microwaves that's so old it doesn't have a spinny-turny apparatus. It's one of those microwaves that's so old that it has knobs instead of buttons. It's one of those microwaves that's so old you can feel the cancer emanating from it like a warm summer glow after a long nuclear winter.
Interestingly, the picture on the box isn't too far off. You basically know what you're getting when you buy this garbage, and I respect that. They know you're a broke hobo, you know you're a broke hobo, case closed. I'm surprised they spent the money on color printing, honestly. Here's the little pizza:
The sauce was a bland paste. The cheese was far from memorable. The crust reminded me of that weird, stupid, shitty Totino's frozen pizza I reviewed before. All in all it was pretty crummy and exactly what I expected.
I want to go back and buy every last one of these motherfuckers. Probably one of my favorite dollar frozen pizzas. But it's been a while since I've had the big dogg, Mr. P's.
Palermo’s Primo Thin Ultra-Thin Crust Margherita Pizza & Thanks!
Bloody mouthful of a name
Usually when I put up frozen pizza posts on here, it's because they're cheap as hell and terrible as all get-out; easily torn to pieces in a hopefully humorous way. This Palermo's pizza, on the other hand, is just goddamn delicious. I don't get it terribly often, but that's only because it usually costs at least an arm and a leg. Luckily, this time, I got it for very cheap. It was on sale, you see.
Their misuse of the term margherita aside, this is a hell of a frozen pizza. The crust is barely there, but its crunchy at least so that's cool. The toppings are all great; the tomatoes, basil, garlic and mix of cheeses. I could eat this pizza all day and frankly wish that was a viable option. One of the most glaring problems is that I can, and have, eaten an entire one of these dumb motherfuckers in one sitting, during a monumental hangover. The upside being that I probably passed out immediately afterwards and upon waking was likely ready to get back on the glorious boozetrain.
Some of Palermo's other offerings aren't as good, but a lot of their thin crust pizzas are rather dank. I stole some kind of fucking Palermo's goat cheese pizza from my parents freezer the other night. I don't know why I felt the need to mention that.
As an aside, the Kickstarter project was successful! Thanks to everyone who donated, I will hurry up to get everything done and sent out.
Pizzetta’s Pizzeria Round Deux
I liked the pizza this time so you can get off my back and jump up my butt
I got a lot of flak for giving Pizzetta's a mediocre review last time. Some time ago I journeyed back there again (with my mommy this time) and had some pasta dish that was really good. Considering the conflicting opinions of others regarding their pizza and my conflicting opinion of their other food, I decided to revisit Pizzettas. But I'm a lazy man, as you have surely come to realize.
The other day, I went to check out whether or not Sbarro had indeed closed down and turned into a place called SCOTTO PIZZA (no joke). It had not but this change is apparently forthcoming. Luckily they can not possibly do worse than the shit Sbarro was peddling last time I was feeling masochistic. So then I had to figure what to eat for lunch (no, fuck mallcourt food). Though Flaming Amy's was the obvious choice, I remembered my responsibility to my loyal readership (only briefly, mind you), and headed to Pizzetta's to get their $5.50+tax 2-slice-and-drink lunch special.
This time I decided to hedge my bets and get a regular slice and a Nonna's slice. Below is the regular slice:
This already looks a lot more promising than the vaguely-passable stuff I was served before - and it was. My only slight complaint would be that it was too sweet - the sauce mostly. Which is weird because last time I loved the sauce. Maybe the tomatoes were a bit sweeter than before, or they used too much sugar? I don't know. The sauce was still good. And I thought the cheese was better than before. At the very least it wasn't applied to the slice by a maniacal dump truck. The ratios were all quite right. The dough consistency was fairly good, but I kind of thought it also had a strange bit of sweetness.
The Nonna's slice was great:
I wasn't even planning on reviewing this because it looked weird. Then I had a few bites (in the span of approximately one second) and changed my mind. I then snapped that shitty picture you see above. I don't know if this goes for all Nonna's slices, but this thing was pretty big. And it was awesome. It had the same problem of the sauce being too sweet but fuck it, this shit was good. Did it look weird? Yes. Do you look weird? Probably. Live and let die. I killed this pizza.
I would offer a mea culpa for my previous review, but that would be ignoble. The other slice I had wasn't very good. It wasn't very bad, either. It had serious issues, though. Sometimes restaurants have off days - and therein lies the problem with most restaurant reviews. While I'm sure a lot of professionals will make multiple visits to a single establishment to ensure their opinion is scientifically sugarplums and rainbows, I don't have time for that bullshit. If I ate at every one of these places three times I would probably be fat enough to be on Medicaid. And then I wouldn't have mounting medical debt. Hey... hmmmm.
As an aside, sorry for the lack of updates recently. That's all you get. No excuses. Also, if anyone emailed me in the past two weeks, or sent messages via the Feedback thing, I probably didn't get it. I forgot to switch the mail stuff over to the new host because I'm a genius.
Hypnotoad!!
2 recircs out of a possible 8 recircs (lower is better)
Pizzetta's Pizzeria - $2.43 4107 Oleander Drive, Wilmington, NC 28403
New hosting
I had some initial issues transferring the main database over. Somehow, 113 instances of this character: Â showed up, interspersed in many posts. Then I looked closer and they were in the original database too, but I had no idea how these jerks got in there. I'm listing the mysql lines I used to correct the issue below, since it's both of no use to you and it might come in handy for me later.
update TABLE_NAME set COLUMN_NAME = replace(COLUMN_NAME,'Â',' ');
If there are any other problems, besides my vulgarity, please let me know.
Home Run Inn Classic
Son of a
Fine people of the planet earth: never buy Home Run Inn pizza. This shit is very small, very expensive and very bad, too. At its regular price of $4.29 (at Harris Teeter), this is indisputably the most egregiously overpriced pizza ever to grace the pages of this godawful blog. I bought it because I'm a pizza nerd and because it was half-off, so it only cost me $2.15+tax. At that price, it is indisputably the most egregiously overpriced pizza to grace the pages of this godawful blog.
I thought it might be good, too, goddamnit. The picture on the box gives it a passing resemblance to bad NY-style pizza. Which, in the world of frozen pizza, puts this shit in ambrosia territory. But when I retrieved the discus from the lying-cheating-whore-of-a-box it was as if I had come face-to-face with my own mortality. It was like some Norse God came out of bloody nowhere, grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and before I even had time to shit my pants said, "You will never know peace in this world."
After seeing this monstrosity birthed from it's boxy mother I was certain I should have instead spent the two dollars on a kick to my scrotum. Yet, in the back of my mind (and scrotum), I had a faint hope that the application of 450 degrees of Kevin Bacon might turn it into something edible. As usual, the back of my scrotum misled me. This pizza was so fucked.
I baked this thing less than their minimum baking time suggestion and it was already about to be burnt around the edges. I include the box picture alongside the real deal because I know you fucks are too lazy to scroll up and compare for your damn selves. This stupid shitbird pizza looks nothing like that picture. You will notice I added crushed red pepper. Ignore the spicy flakes behind the curtain.
The cheese had this plastic quality that I could not seem to fully appreciate. The sauce wasn't half bad, really. Maybe one of the better frozen pizza sauces I've had. The crust was the most vile thing I've ever tasted. It was dry and chalky and gross. Makes me wonder what kind of nutball committee okayed this monstrosity and thought $4.29 was a good price. Frozen pizzas which I've bought for a buck were bigger and tasted better than this bullshit.
If I had paid full price for this garbage I would have taken one bite and promptly returned it to Harris Teeter. Then I would have bought the rest of their stock and repeated that process ad nauseum. I can say without question that this is the worst 'pizza' I've ever consumed. Which makes sense since Home Run Inn hails from Chicago.
Thank you, one and all
I'm in love with all of you. I made this Kickstarter project and it somehow worked out. I'm going to try to figure out further ways to satisfy you motherfuckers, but for the time being I just want to thoroughly thank you. I've already bought hosting about two weeks early at a new place and figure I will try it out to see if it is, shall we say, up to snuff. Some lovely gentlepeople have complained that I'm too vulgar or too greedy - and that may well be. To the latter point, greedy is not a word I'm used to being called. I won't bother to add up my life story, the money spent on hosting, the domain, pizza, or gas (it may sound strange but when I'm at work I prefer a packed lunch or can of soup; outside of there I will make something better than fucking CiCi's buffet rather than drive). Paradoxically, I love pizza but rarely crave it - at least in these parts.
Mainly I want to ask people to stop donating, because I have more money than I can use for hosting at this time, and the e-book thing is something I wanted to do anyway. The way Kickstarter works, I don't think I can stop donations from coming in. Hopefully I can come up with some other bullshit to give out that might be appreciated. I'm already planning on sending out a ruleset for a War-like card game I made with my siblings a number of years ago. It actually saddens me that such a prize is the best I could come up with.
I guess the takeaway is that I won't have to pimp myself out to any of you motherfuckers for some years. And I will be able to post on here now and then in the saddest kind of way. That being said, I was also thinking of having a backers pizza extravaganza. And by that I my mean go to Brixx for an informal Monday meetup or a BYOB at Brooklyn. Because I'd love to stroll up in there with a case of beer.
I also wrote a new review at LiquorLunch.
KickBack Jack’s
Kick back your fucking pizza to the moon
I love KickBack Jack's. I didn't think I would because I hate every place that resembles this place, particularly Carolina Ale House. That statement will assuredly piss off my buddy over at LiquorLunch, who loves that crummy place and who also loved KickBack Jack's when we went there today.
But I hate the fucking pizza. Fuck these guys. Don't you dare publicly exclaim that you have the best pizza in town. They seriously write that on the menu! A chain restaurant in multiple cities! Fucking jerks. Honestly I took it as more of a warning than anything else. If you have the best pizza in town you just shut the fuck up and reap the rewards. I'm thinking of I <3 NY and Brooklyn right now, not fucking SLICE OF TERRIBLE PIZZA-INFUSED LIFE. OH WE WON ENCORE BECAUSE WE PAY PEOPLE TO VOTE FOR US AND WE ARE FUCKING GFUCPKOIJHKJHKJHIKUHIUH FDSOUHFDSUH. Okay. Fuck. Well I hate those guys.
They shouldn't even serve this shit to people. Serve it to my dead dog - I think he's buried in my back yard in New York. I bet John Walsh didn't know that, when he bought my crappy old house. Heh! Actually there were probably a lot of pets buried back there. Not because we were killing them off intentionally or anything, mind you. Pets die, you fucking twat. Well actually one time after I was catching frogs in some sewage runoff I brought back my latest amphibian trophy to show off to my brother and his friends. They really wanted it and I couldn't get away so I just threw it as high as my 7-year-old arms could manage. I was seven. Fuck you, I don't feel good about it either. Pavement.
The pizza. Fucking hell. The crust was not offensive. Not entirely offensive, at least. Well-browned, minimal oven spring, not terribly under-seasoned and it held its form. But we can say that about most chains, right? So consider the crust average at best. The sauce was far over-spiced, too-thick, but still not the worst of the lot. The stupid cheese was fucked. I'll steal a thought from LiquorLunch and say that Byron probably put the cheese on here, to make room for his crack rocks in the cheese containment unit. I can see it now. I'd call him a poor bastard but I know he's better off than me. I love Byron. That one time on Front Street when I offered you a slice of pizza in lieu of money and you rejected my offer, demanding a million dollars instead - comedy gold, sir!
The pizza I was served also looked dumb as all get-out. Part of that is my fault. I ordered half a pizza and a salad (it was a deal or something, fuck you). I expected a normal cheese pie cut in half but what I got was some fucking mongoloid monstrosity where somebody tried to form half a dough ball (or something) into a half-pie. On the one hand, fuck this approach. Just give me a smaller pizza, you shitbirds. On the other, equally negative hand, if they did rip a normal dough ball in half and then form it into this and cook it, it might explain why there was not much rise in the crust.
Oh man this picture is big. It's the Caesar salad I got. It was really good! Everything else I had was really good. Their house beer is two bucks on Sundays (edit: this might be an every day special). It was good! I thought I recognized it but I was too busy getting drunk to be entirely sure. It is good though. It's the sort of beer an idiot domestic drinker could love and a shitty beer snob could tolerate. I had two because Sunday is God's day and I worship the destruction of my liver.
Hey by the way, give me money: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ilmza/ilmzacom-in-ebook-form. For people that donate, I'm posting a short video I made before writing this review. Damn ain't you lucky. I might post this later for everyone to enjoy, so they can hear my luxurious voice, but it will be a while! You can't wait that long, I'm sure, so just get on with it.
Oh, I forgot to mention this important point. While waiting for my food, a baby threw a steak knife at me. I'm going to repeat that because chances are I'll never have the opportunity to truthfully write those words again (I hope): A baby threw a steak knife at me. First the little bastard threw a bottle or something innocuous, I guess as kind of a warning shot across the bow. Then the little motherfucker turned around and grinned at me and being the incompetent oaf that I am, I smiled and waved at him. He was kind of cute in a murdery sort of way. I guess the little guy didn't appreciate the wave; luckily for me, he throws like a girl.
I'm sexy and I know it
6 recircs out of a possible 8 recircs (lower is better)
6.99 + taxicles (half-pizza and salad) 418 South College Road, Wilmington, NC 28403
Donations to Pete
As I mentioned before, my hosting bill is due pretty soon. Maybe you have been reading this site for a year or more and want to chip in. Maybe not - I wouldn't blame you! I'm a jerk, not a salesman.
I recently contributed some money to a Kickstarter project. It got me thinking. I like millions of dollars! Or, I figure I would, if I had them. Who wouldn't? He'd probably be a real jerk, that guy.
The gist is that if you send me five bucks and I make it to $100, not only will I buy more hosting for this site, I'll send you an ebook of the reviews featured on this site. It doesn't make sense to me either, but let's just go with it. If I get a bunch of loot, I'll put out a real book. I think that's feasible, through Amazon. If I don't make it to my goal, my site might close up shop like the disreputable hunk of garbage that we all know it is.
I had some small reason to hold off posting this, but my friends at LiquorLunch and Port City Foodies preempted me, since they're awesome.
Here's the link to my Kickstarter begfest: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ilmza/ilmzacom-in-ebook-form
Subway (Monkey Junction)
I ate pizza at a fucking Subway
I'm still working on the Kickstarter thing I mentioned previously. I'm encountering a technical glitch which they are apparently having some difficulty fixing.
I found myself at the goddamn Monkey Junction Wal-Mart the other day and it was as terrible as you might imagine. I hate that store more than I hate myself, which is really saying something. I'm waiting for my girlfriend to get contact lenses or suck a dick or whatever it was she was doing and I decided to wander around, which I am wont to do. I happened upon a Subway.
Subway is the most hit-or-miss fast food place since Jesus shat out a flock of seagulls, or however that old Bible story goes. I'm not really clear on it. Earlier this morning I was buying some wine at 7 a.m. and the decrepit old lady cashier was like, "hey, do you know the -insert my last name here-'s that go to the Baptist Ch-" No. No I don't. I had to cut her off. You had me at Baptist. If any of my family is Baptist they're smart enough to keep that information from me. No offense. Wait, strike that; reverse it. Offense.
In any case, the other day I stumble into a Subway inside of the Wal-Mart located in the hell-hole known as Monkey Junction (I think this whole place is seriously named after a monkey that some redneck had on the side of the road 100 years ago or some shit) and notice something I haven't seen before on their menu: pizza. God damn it, there goes $3.75 after tax.
Before I get into what I think of the pictured pizza, I must say that I like the idea of Subway selling pizza, sort of. My capitalist side is all for this. You have all these damn topping sitting there, and a shitty oven, why not have frozen discs of faux dough stored somewhere? Apparently some Subways already figured this out and this is one of them.
I walked up to the counter and said "Yeah, can I just get a cheese pizza," and made sort of a round shape with my hands since I'm an uncomfortable weirdo and try to act the part. Like the other day I was on a business trip and this fucking douchebag in the conference booth next to me decides to walk over and strike up a conversation. This guy had more gel on his hair than I have hair. And I'm not exactly bald, I'll have you know. Asks me where I'm from and I say that I'm from the shithole known as Wilmington. I ask where he's from because that's probably expected of me. He says Denver and just to get him the fuck away from my booth I say, "I like ... flying ... in planes." I don't often write ellipses so just trust me when I say that the pauses were so uncomfortable they belonged on The Office.
Fuck me running. The pizza. This shit wasn't as bad as it should've been. It was very close to Pizza Hut. Which I'm not promoting or anything but hell at least it's not Papa John's. It's right in there in that nebulous category of American-style pizza, named only to give me even more hemorrhoids than I've already accumulated. It tastes like WHOP or Gumby's or anything of that ilk. I hate to say it but it's not a bad deal for 3-4 dollars.
Hell, you've already stooped so low that you're at a Subway I'm sure you won't complain. Asshole.
Hope everyone dies of AIDS.
5.5 recircs out of a possible 8 recircs (lower is better)
Subway - $3.75 5135 Carolina Beach Road, Wilmington, NC