I had to buy something at a local college bookstore called Raider Books in Lake Mary, FL. As I was making my purchase, the cashier told me to help myself to the free pizza and soda that the store was giving out. I’m not one to turn down free food, so I went over and got myself two slices.
I had a strange craving for Sicilian Pizza. It may have had something to do with some of the other reviews here on this website that seem to involve Sicilian pizzas quite often. Normally I don’t like Sicilian pizza all that much, and it seems I’m almost always disappointed with Sicilian Pies whenever I get them. It had been years since I ate a Sicilian pizza, and I don’t think I’ve ever eaten one in Florida (as I was looking through my pizza menus of local restaurants, it seemed most local places near me don’t even make Sicilian). To prove to myself that I still don’t like Sicilian pizza, I ordered a pie from Dalli’s Pizza in Lake Mary, FL.
I picked up the half cheese/half meatball pizza and took it home. I ate the cheese slices, and they weren’t so bad. Personally, I would take a traditional slice of pizza from Dalli’s over a Sicilian slice, but it was still acceptable. I think my problem with Sicilian pizzas is that there is too much of everything. There is way too much of the chewy crust, and because of all of the crust, there’s more sauce and cheese than you get on a normal pizza. It all seems like a bit of overkill in my opinion, and I’d much rather have a traditional New York style thin slice of pizza where there isn’t huge amounts of all of the pizza components. One last observation that I had was that while regular pizza tastes good cold out of the refrigerator the next day, Sicilian pizza tastes horrible like this. I couldn’t eat the leftovers cold and had to heat them up.
Sicilian pizza was better than I remembered, but I think I’ll stick with traditional pizza until I get another Sicilian craving, whenever that will be.
Dalli’s Pizza gets 4 out of 8 Slices
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Papa Joe’s is a local chain of Italian restaurants in the Central Florida area that used to be really popular. Their Altamonte Springs and Lake Mary Blvd locations almost always had a wait, and then they started to expand. As they opened up more and more restaurants in the area, their food and service became worse and worse. After a while I decided the restaurants weren’t worth eating at anymore. Eventually other people must have gotten the same feeling because the restaurants seemed to no longer have waits to eat, and Papa Joe’s closed all of their restaurants except for two in Lake Mary and one in Altamonte Springs.
After years of not eating at a Papa Joe’s, I decided to give them another try and went to the restaurant in the Colonial Town Center in Lake Mary, FL. Unlike in the past, there was no wait to eat and the service was good. We ordered garlic bread and a cheese pizza. The garlic bread was disappointing and was nothing more than a roll topped with that garlic butter stuff and some parmesan cheese. I don’t think there was any actual garlic involved.
Papa Joe’s pizza seemed to go into a downward spiral back when I used to eat at the restaurants more often until it wasn’t worth ordering anymore. When my pizza on this visit came out, I was surprised with the result. The pizza was actually pretty good. My only complaint was about the sauce, which I found it to be way too sweet. Other than that the pie was pretty good. It didn’t come close to King Umbertos standards (best pizza I’ve eaten), but was definitely a few steps above many other local pizzas. I think I’ll be returning again!
6 out of 8 slices.
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