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

8May/140

Slice of Life (Indepence Mall)

Posted by Liquorlunch

[ed. note: this review is from my cohort at liquorlunch.com.]

Someone at my job organized a group trip to grab a slice for lunch and this place was the recipient of our ill-earned corporate money. When I first heard this place opened up I was stoked if only for the fact that it served beer and I could now forgo pregaming when Christmas shopping. Ask Pete to tell you about his Christmas shopping shenanigans [ed. note: don't]. Now that's a great story! This is just a mediocre review, and probably not worth the space on his site, but he forced me into it so here we are.

I arrived at the pizzeria (technically) and spent no less than 20 minutes waiting for two slices of cheese pizza. Let me say that again, in case you thought it was a typo. I spent TWENTY MINUTES in a PIZZA SHOP in a MALL waiting for TWO SLICES OF CHEESE PIZZA at LUNCH TIME. Now you may be thinking "Hey, don't they have those pre made?" Why yes the fuck they did, but the Jersey Shore reject in charge of reheating my slices thinks this process should be raised to an artform. A very slow, painfully inefficient artform. I can only hope that the kid was high and it was his first day. He was literally taking each individual ticket and slowly making each slice to order.

A "completely unexpected" rush at noon was enough to turn less than ten customers in line into bona fide full-stop gridlock. Being that I have an hour for lunch, my time is fucking precious and I was more than pissed at this turn of events, no less so since I've worked at both corporate and local pizza joints and this would not have been acceptable at either. I wanted to jump back there and show the kid how it was done, honestly. However, being the semi-adult I am, I brooded at a nearby table until my order was called. At that point I was presented with this:

I have to say, I didn't hold out much hope when I saw how thin the points of the slices were, but shockingly there was a perfect amount of structural integrity. It held up to the pizza-fold test without being overly crusty and burnt. Maybe it was the lack of booze; maybe it was the wait but this pizza was on point. Better than I've had at the other Slice locations. And this one has beer in the mall! The grease was that level of drip that suits itself perfectly to crust dipping. The cheese and sauce were more than passable. I have to say, these slices were the type that should be standard but all too sadly aren't in our world. The type of slice that is good because it is exactly what you expect of NY pies, and I admit bias when I say I didn't expect it from this place, especially after my shitty service. This is the slice you think of when you think of NY style pizza. The perfect sum of its parts and maybe a little extra.

I have to take a moment to mention how monumentally retarded their menu is, which I had plenty of time to study while waiting for my slices. Why would they have pizzas and not calzones and stromboli? Who the fuck knows. They have every single item required and yet they are not on the menu. Who does that?! Then there is exactly one sub listed on the menu (meatball) but no other ones. Why bother having bread if you don't have other subs? And then they have tacos and quesadillas on the menu. Because when I think pizza, I think Mexican food.

The absolute best thing about their menu are the wings. They make sense on the surface, until you think about how many people want to eat a food that necessitates sticking your fingers in sauce before shopping. You know, that activity where you touch and try things before buying them? And the fact that wings are their only menu item requiring a fryer, meaning they have a whole entire commercial grade appliance for ONE FUCKING MENU ITEM. Why not at least add fries or mozzarella sticks or some other bullshit to the menu? The world may never know.

I give this place 3 recircs despite their retarded menu and awful service. I hope it wasn't a one-off. Don't make me look like an asshole, Slice: get your crew in order. Also streamline that goddamn menu.

Rating:

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

Slice of Life - $2.50 plus taxicles
3500 Oleander Dr., Wilmington, NC 28403
Slice of Life Mall Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

1Mar/110

Slice of Life Pizzeria & Pub

Posted by pete

The shitwinds are blowing, here comes Round 3

This is the third Slice of Life location I have reviewed, and hopefully the last. Hopefully I will conclude this terrible blog before they spread their cancer further. I think in previous reviews I decided not to link to their site because it spammed a bunch of aural nonsense which pissed me off, so I'll stick with that. This, as far as I know, is the second location that this terrible local chain has created. As I discussed before, this place thrives off the marrow found in the backbone of drunks - Slice's lifeblood is spinewhiskey; which, incidentally, I would love to try, should it ever really come to exist. Jacking up your late night prices and charging drunks $18+tax for a large pepperoni pizza? You've no shame. Luckily your customers have no brains, so congrats. I wish Congress would pass an Alcoholic Preservation Act to protect wild hobos from the onslaught of abuses coming from rampant capitalism. However, that's the archetypal example of a pipe dream.

Hold on a second, I've got to fill out these bankruptcy forms because I just bought a fucking taco from Slice last night. Never mind, they take plastic. More tequila, por favor.

Since apparently this terrible blog is about reviewing pizza and not critiquing a thriving capitalist business model, I'll talk about the slice after showing you this photo. It looked better in person, I have to say. I'm not a fucking photographer; I'm a fatass.

In any case, this slice is bigger than that of the location on S. College and about the same size, or larger, than that of the location downtown. This discussion of size is sort of relevant when you're paying goddamn $2.70 after tax for a slice. Likewise, as a reasonable person at a bar, I threw my server a tip. It's just basic etiquette, really. I don't even fucking understand it (in this case, when I'm the only person in fucking sight, take up no valuable bar space and she did virtually no work), but having worked in the industry I am forced to live by it. So this slice cost me $3.70.  This is not a pizzeria in the NY sense, it is a bar in the college-town sense, which just happens to serve half-hearted, floppy artery-jangers as a side note.

When it comes down to it, the best thing I can say about this slice is that it is the best slice of Slice of Life pizza I have ever reviewed. It's better than what I got from either the downtown or the South College locations. The bad news is that saying such is not saying much.

The cheese was alright and the sauce, for the most part, wasn't terribly noticeable. The crust was your typical Slice crust and it was the main source of the slice's problems. It was cooked on a screen, apparently. It wasn't bad for the most part but I guess they felt the need to perforate it all over to make it as dense and terrible as physics allows. Fucking great, guys. No one else does this, and there's a damn reason they don't. Like the downtown location (and unlike the slice I got from the South College location), the rim of the crust was coated in a bunch of garlic butter. Fucking terrible. I assume that's on there to entice people to eat the crust, or something? Well, it's disgusting. The slice overall wasn't particularly awful but after eating the rim of the crust, basically all I could taste was shitty garlic butter. Fuck that.

Their menu says that their dough is made with purified water. I would have guessed clarified butter, but what do I know.

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

Slice of Life Pizzeria & Pub - $2.70
1437 Military Cutoff Rd # 101, Wilmington, NC 28403

A Slice of Life on Urbanspoon

9Feb/110

Slice of Life Pizzeria & Pub

Posted by pete

Slice of Shit

This place is fucking stupid. Pizzeria that serves booze? You had me at pizzeria. But god damn do I love booze. This should be an easy winner. Slice has new locations popping up like herpes sores in Jersey.Also I'm not going to link their website, cuz it just destroyed the fuck out of my eardrums because my shit was turned up too high and their website was made by an idiot. Guess I'll remove it from the other Slice review too. While waiting for my slice I wrote in my notes (yes I keep notes), "I dread this." Upon receiving my slice, I followed this note up with: "worse than I could've imagined." That pretty much sums it up. Jesus shitdick Christ.

Part of me wishes this picture came out better, but I'm also kind of glad it came out so poorly because this shit is painful to recollect. It kind of looks like a crust bubble up and janged this slice up, but no dice. What's going on here is that it looks like they made a vaguely okay slice and then some shitass dumbfuck took his grubby mitts and just totally mangled it, somehow, for some unholy reason. I can't think of a single time in my life that I've sent food back, but I would've sent this back if not for this stupid blog.

Also this slice is way fucking small. Really fucking small. Smallest pizza in town yet, and the most expensive. That's about what you can expect from Slice of Life in most regards. For example, here is what they consider to be drink "specials":

Garbage. Okay, back to the pizza. Similar shitty crust to the downtown location, but I dont think it had that weird garlic butter shit on it, which is a plus. The cheese was okay and the sauce was okay, in fairly decent ratios. But the crust fucked this slice right to hell (where it ate shit with Michaelangelo and Jesus, forever). It was cooked on a screen and when I say cooked, I mean burnt to shit on the bottom. The interior of the crust was no better. It was, in fact, considerably worse because it was super fucked up kinds of raw. I couldn't even finish this shit.

I always finish my food, because my mother and father instilled in me the One American Truth: Only a policy of rampant waste and overconsumption can save the poor starving children in China. The fact that I didn't finish this gross shit speaks volumes. Worst slice of pizza I've ever had in Wilmington.

Commence the recirc.

7 1/2 recircs out of a possible 8 recircs (lower is better)

Slice of Life Pizzeria & Pub - $2.70 (or something)
3715 Patriot Way Unit 101,  Wilmington, NC 28412

Slice of Life Pizzeria & Pub on Urbanspoon

28Dec/100

Slice of Life Pizzeria & Pub

Posted by pete

Another crappy pizzeria downtown

A lot of people like the pizza Slice puts out. They also serve their slices hot, which puts them ahead of Princess. I think that's probably the most positive I can get in this review. After I went to Princess I went to Barbary Coast and got a bit drunk. After that I stopped in at Slice before going to see Champion of the Sun. I figured by doing so I'd have taken care of almost all of downtown, thereby relieving me of ever having to go back to these shitty places. Also by getting sort of drunk I became more in line with the bulk of Slice's customer base. Slice of Life is the bar/pizzeria most centrally located in the alcoholic cesspool that is Wilmington, NC. So when the drunks get kicked out of bars, Slice is their primary option. When 2am rolls around, the lights get flicked on and the drunken roaches scurry for the darkness, Slice is virtually their only option.

The cheese was okay but there was too much of it. The slice was cooked on a screen and it was hella floppy. This pizza reminded me of the really terrible homemade pies my mom used to make with all purpose flour and a shitty home oven. Slice's was better but they share some characteristics. Sauce was non-descript, probably because it was overpowered by the cheese. They put some kind of butter around the rim of the pizza that has a ton of powdered garlic in it, or something. That's a real cop out, and it's fucking gross too.

slice

If you're shit-hammered downtown and you need a slab of cheese in your gullet, this would probably satisfy you. And if you love the shit out of toppings on your slice, maybe you can't go wrong because a 6-topping slice will allegedly cost you only $3.50. Which doesn't even make sense to me. The plain slice costs $2.50, making it the most expensive slice downtown. I'm going to try to break this down as best as I know how.

Assuming you want pizza right now ...

1. Do you hate yourself?

If you answered yes, go to Princess Pizza. If you answered no, continue to #2.

2. Is Slice of Life the only place open?

If you answered yes, go to Slice of Life. If you answered no, continue to #3.

2. Do you want beer with your pizza?

If you answered yes, go to Fat Tony's. If you answered no, go to I<3NY Pizza.

In terms of pizzerias downtown, that is what my boss would call "the long and short of it."

Also cheers to this place for making so much money off of drunks that they can open two new awful locations but still can't afford to offer decent drink specials.

Rating:

5 1/2 recircs out of a possible 8 recircs (lower is better)
Slice of Life Pizzeria and Pub  - $2.70
122 Market Street, Wilmington, NC 28401

A Slice of Life Pizzeria & Pub on Urbanspoon

18Dec/120

Falcone’s Italian Restaurant

Posted by pete

Great Space, Great Pizza, Great Price ... Leland

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I love the layout of this place. It's small and quaint, kind of an upscale version of a traditional NYC street pizzeria. There's limited seating (only two 4-tops that I could see) and half the seating is a large bench along the right-side wall so you're probably going to be sitting sorta next to a random hobo. I like that. I love to pop a squo next to people at bars to make em nervous, ya see. I sidle up next to 'em and give 'em the eye, ya know. Like I'm sayin', "hey, old timer, I see ya. I do. And I wanna do ya." Then I lick my lips. Knocks 'em out every time.

They also have a few stools at a counter you can sit at. This is like a fucking Chef's table so sit here if you can - and if you don't have any friends - and if you want to watch your food get made. You get a bird's eye view of the entire kitchen operation. Which was pretty cool. I mean they were pretty slow so it was just a few middle-aged Italian-y looking guys getting orders ready, slinging pizza and doing busywork, but the ability to see your food being made in front of you is kind of nebulously invaluable. Especially if you've ever seen Waiting or Kitchen Nightmares.

2012-12-13_12-35-21_138

As per my habit, I added crushed red pepper and oregano to my slice. So if you are a nancy who doesn't like spices or spiciness, do not be afraid of the above picture, dear lad. Size-wise, it's not a really big slice of pizza. It kind of reminds me of the slices you will get in-shop at Brooklyn. Also, like Brooklyn, this slice clocks in around two bucks which is a steal. As I think you can see from this picture, it was also made with some care. As I said, business was slow when I was there and they also employ the glass-display-case-of-pizza thing where pies are left out and then slices are re-fired as needed. Often, having display pies, it seems, means you are going to get pies made with some fucking integrity and love rather than some weird discs of cheese and terror, mashingly sliced up by some raging, coked-out, half-drunk and half-hungover cook in the back. I'm looking at you, Slice of Life.

The crust on this slice was alright. I'm not head-over-heals in love with it or anything but it was definitely above passable. Hell, it being properly-salted and crispy puts it above most local places. But it kind of struck me as tasting a little yeasty and all-purpose-floury. I'm grasping at straws here for something to complain about, don't mind me. The cheese was very good, whatever they used. Probably Grande, but fuck me I don't really know anything. Also, they used a lot of it. It might not seem like it from the picture, but they did. Often, as you may know, I rail against pizzerias for using too much cheese. But that is only when they use a lot of bad cheese. This was good cheese. It was fatty and greasy and lovely. The sauce was barely discernible, which is fine, if not perfect. You don't want sloppy sauce on a pizza. I'm looking at you, Avanti.

Overall it was a very well-balanced slice, and cheap. I know it's funnier when I'm blacked-out on a fifth of whiskey ranting about really terrible pizza (I'm looking at you, every one of you), but this pizza was pretty damn good.

Also, Falcone's, you guys need a website so I can link to it. Get in touch, I'd take partial payment in store credit. My brother's birthday is coming up in a month and this shit is real, I'm on a boat.

 

Rating:


Falcone's Italian Restaurant and Pizza on Urbanspoon
2 recircs out of a possible 8 recircs (lower is better)

Falcone's Italian Restaurant - $1.92 after tax
2013 Old Regent Way, Leland, NC 28451
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15Dec/120

Pizzetta’s (Leland)

Posted by pete

Oh spacecocks, don't tell me this place is turning into Slice of Life

Today doth mark the second birthday of this here blog. It's also the first time I've posted in about two months. I'm sorry about that. There's just not much pizza stuff going on in town. Well, there wasn't; now there's a new Pizzetta's location, Falcone's (reviewed shortly) and soon the old Goodfellas location will become Times Square Pizza, according to Paul Stephen of Star News/Port City Foodies. By the way, is there any good pizza near Times Square in NYC? I've never had any.

I would also like to take a second to beg you to vote for PCF in Encore's 'Best of Blog' thing. Naturally, I would ask that you vote for me, but I have an aversion to such things (hence why I didn't beg for nomination votes). In any case, please vote for PCF and not the blog where girls talk about not eating certain ingredients or the one where some girl chatters to herself every day (she won last year, super cool). PCF is a blog that deals with local shit. It's not just someone learning to type on the internet, regurgitating links she's clicked. But I digress.

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Aww yiss. More awesome pizza in Leland, right? My Oleander Pizzetta's re-review has them ranked them near the top of the list, so word of a new location in Leland was great to hear. Me and Leland have a history. I lived there, worked nearby, golfed there many-a-time, fought the police, cursed my luck, transmogrified, space aliens ... Leland is just the place to be nowadays. You can tell that even moreso by the weird space age Lowes next door to Pizzetta's. If the design of that place is the future of food stores I don't know what I'll do. I'll probably hook a tube up from my ass to my mouth and just re-ingest my turds for sustenance because that place was scarier than a rapey dolphin cock.

Now that I got that off my chest let's get down to the pizza. It should be good. It's Pizzetta's, right? Everyone is sucking Pizzetta's dick. It's gonna be good, I know it.

2012-12-13_13-01-14_600

Well. That definitely resembles a pizza in a number of ways. Let's give this puppy a chance. Stay cool. It's gonna be alright. Try to forget about the ludicrously overpriced draft beer you ordered because you are a fucking dumbass. Alright. Back to the pizza. Let us scrom a bite. Okay, a bit saucy, tastes alright but I'm having flashbacks of my first Pizzetta's review. Let's have a taste of the sauce itself. Ah, a good sauce. And the cheese, yes the cheese is also good. The crust, a bite or two from the rim. Pretty good. (Can you picture how I eat pizza when I review it? It's a freakshow). Let us continue eating this slice. It's a bit heavy, dense. The large amount of cheese and sauce kind of overpowering what, at first, seems like a decent crust. And at first it's not such a big deal because the sauce and the cheese are good.

But there is something weird going on with the crust. The bottom of the crust. Yes, I picked off the bottom part of the crust and tasted it individually. It left some weird film of gross-taste on my tongue. I even smelled the bottom of this slice (picture that, too). It was really weird, I don't know what it was. It tasted like cleaner but that can't be it, right? Fuck me I ate this shit yesterday and as I'm writing this I'm tasting this poop on my tongue all over again. My best guess, based on zero knowledge and the fact that the bottom crust was mysteriously greasy, I would say that it was the taste of burnt oil.

Burnt oil is the pits, man. It also makes no sense for the bottom of a pizza to be greasy, as this one was. You make a pizza, you slide it off a wooden peel into an oven, you pull it out with a metal peel and you slice it. Why is the bottom of the pie greasy? Using some kind of a screen? Beyond that, are they using extra virgin olive oil or some other shit that burns at a low temperature? Because it made the pizza taste foul. You ever watch a cooking show and they say something is 'cloyingly sweet'? Well this was 'cloyingly foul'.

I'm not rating this one yet. They've been open about a week and I guess I'll give em another chance. Foul pizza + bar with overpriced beer = Slice of Life. Guys, I know it seems like a good business model, but so did 2 Guys Grill until they forgot why they succeeded in the first place. Then they started dying off and getting sued and whatever the fuck else is going on with them.

Also the location is fucking horrific. I mean, the restaurant was jam-packed (probably because they just opened) but that shopping center is a weird clusterfuck of idiocy and it's beyond out-of-the-way and hidden, even for the goddamn hillbillies in Leland.

 

Rating:

TBD

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

Pizzetta's- $2.50 before tax
1144 E. Cutlar Crossing, Leland, NC 28451