After hearing about Uncle Dan’s “double-decker pizza” from a friend, I decided it was imperative that I check this pizza pub out. Located in Park Ridge on 27 South Northwest Highway 847.698.9800, where La Tasca (the tapas restaurant) once resided, I was amused at the difference in its prior décor. To put in simply, Uncle Dan’s looks like Potbelly’s.
You’re probably familiar with the story of Papa John and his pizza empire. In order to start his business, John sold his prized Camaro so he could get his first pizza oven. Now he has franchises around the world and a multi-million dollar pizza empire.
Now he’s decided to give that Camaro to the world. Via virtual reality, anyway. If you can find his original Z28, he’ll give you $25,000 for it.
The game involves a pizza box printed with the camaro, the Internet, and a Web cam. Sound complicated? It’s way more complicated than it’s worth, I promise you that. Here’s a minute-long video explaining the process:
There are a few obvious problems with this:
The idea behind the game is OK, I guess. I can understand the concept and the intent. What I can’t understand is why Papa John’s thinks this will catch on or in any way be fun. It’s cool to drive the little car around for about a minute. Then it’s just kind of pointless. I don’t think it even has turbos.
In the end, the whole thing seems like the kind of marketing ploy made by executives who want to get “online” with their product, but really are clueless about how it works. You know, the suits who are stuck in the 1990s and think that “getting on the Internet” involves magic pixie dust.
If you want to try the game for yourself, it’s free and you can print out the game token (aka Camaro graphic) from the game’s site to use. Be prepared to spend five minutes getting your camera to be positioned right to pick up the Camaro. If you have an integrated cam in your notebook, good luck.
Take it from me: it’s not really worth the effort.
I have gone time and time again to Tucci’s just to try to find a fault, and I just cannot. Maybe the green shirt the owner wears could be nicer, but outside of that, the pizza has consistently managed to impress me. Therefore I am making the statement that Tucci’s Pizza in Boca Raton, has the best coal oven pizza I have had in this city.
Had a lunch appointment with some friends from Miami so we chose Las Olas Blvd. in Fort Lauderdale as the meeting spot. Ultimately my friends picked Big City Tavern for the lunch. Big City Tavern is located on 609 E Las Olas Blvd Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301 (954) 727-0307.
I have previously reviewed the pizza at Big City Tavern in Boca Raton, which was far superior to this location. This pizza was almost hard to eat, with the chunky, spicy sauce. I ended up wiping most of it off and ended up making the most disgusting mountain of it on my plate, which I am unsure if my friends thought was attractive or not. The cheese wasn’t of great quality, and the dough almost seemed rubbery. The pizza I ate at the location in Boca Raton was delicious compared to this location. Even the presentation of the pizza at the Boca Raton Big City Tavern was tremendously better. The Boca location also had the perfect cheese:sauce ratio, which the Las Olas location was severely off on.
I find it hard to understand how two locations owned by the same company can be so far off. This is the problem when restaurants venture out and open up many locations, as might be evident with Renzo’s soon. Just because one location is doing well, does not mean the others will.
Big City Tavern, you have truly disappointed me with this pizza that you served, and I can never see myself coming back to give it another try, at least at your Fort Lauderdale location. I will give Big City Tavern 2 out of 8 slices.
I’m a huge fan of the various Umberto’s Pizza Restaurants up on Long Island (although my last visit was disappointing). About a year ago, I was driving through Deerfield Beach, FL and spotted a place called Umberto’s of Long Island. I really wanted to give the place a try based on the name alone, but I had already eaten for the night. Fast forward a bit, and I am in Deerfield Beach once again, and this time I know exactly where I was going to get pizza regardless of their previous Worstpizza.com Review.
I stopped by the restaurant and the initial feeling wasn’t the same as a visit to one of the actual Umberto’s Pizzas in Long Island. No one was speaking Italian. There wasn’t a huge selection of pizza choices either. The choices consisted of the standard pie or Grandma pizza. I ordered a slice of cheese pizza, and it turned out I got the last slice. My dining companion also wanted a plain slice, but the options were to wait for a new pie to be made or make another selection. We didn’t have much time left in the parking meter, so a slice of pepperoni was selected.
We received our slices after they were reheated and ate them as we walked back towards the car. My cheese slice wasn’t as attractive as I would have liked (too many collapsed bubbles in the center of the slice), nor did it compare to a slice of pizza from an Umberto’s up north. It tasted acceptable, but not exceptional. The same was said about the pepperoni slice. It was good, but nothing great. The pizza definitely wouldn’t be worth making another special trip to get, but if at the beach, I could see myself getting another slice. The one thing that the Long Island Umberto’s can’t compete with is being able to cross the street to eat pizza on the beach.
Umberto’s of Long Island gets 4 out of 8 Slices.
Since I was in Downtown Orlando again and remembered my previous experience at Gino’s Pizza, I couldn’t wait to try it again. Take note Big Jim when I say, that this pizza is superb, and if you ever choose to go to Dan’s Midnight Pizza, no matter how drunk you are over this place, you are nuts. Gino’s Pizza is located on 120 S. Orange Ave, 888.892.3666.
If you live in New York City, or have plans to visit sometime before mid-November, you might want to check out the deal being offered today by the deal-a-day website http://groupon.thepoint.com/new-york/. A three-hour historic pizza walk through Lower Manhattan, courtesy of one of our advertisers here, Scott’s Pizza Tours (located at 53 Spring St. in Manhattan), for $15—half off the normal $30 price.
Enjoy a historic perspective on the ultimate staple of city dining as you are guided by a Certified Pizza Enthusiast through Little Italy and Greenwich Village, stopping for slices at three of the most illustrious pizzerias in town. Scott’s tour guides are serious about pizza, as evidenced by their awesome pizza blog and these pizza tour photos. Also included in the tour is your own personal pizza survival kit (a pizza journal and goody bag). But if it’s oodles of toppings you’re after, be forewarned: This guy keep it simple. As we all know, the cheese stands alone.
Somehow, Alan Richman is supposed to be an expert on pizza. Seemingly out of nowhere, this GQ writer is somehow a pizza expert that knows the pie so well, he can name the best ones in the country and where they’re made.
He makes two mistakes: 1) He attempts to lay claim to the title of Pizza Expert and King of Pizza when we all know full well who really holds that title. 2) He names pizzas and pizza joints around the country, but fails to include any Florida pizzas on his list.
Both fatal mistakes, as we shall see.
As the real pizza expert who’s spent decades honing my craft as a connoisseur of all things pizza pie, I can tell you that Richman knows zilch. Nadda. Zip. Ze nothing.
What he does know how to do is write an extremely verbose commentary on pizza. I’ll admit that, compared to myself, his writing skills are superb and he definitely knows how to paint a picture of beautiful pizzas and sparkling taste buds. Sadly, while he’s a great painter of words, he’s picking the wrong subjects for his canvas.
Everyone knows that inventing things does not imply being the best at it or perfecting it. Richman was right with his assessment that while the Greeks and/or Italians invented the pizza, it took Americans to make it superb. Face it, in a world dominated by French and Asian cuisine, the pizza is one of the few things Americans can compete with with culinary prowess.
Note that DiGiorno is missing from Richman’s list. Good work on that too, I say that, since they have chosen to not include us as a free pizzatweetup recipient. Too bad he missed so many others that should have been on the list, though.
OK, Mr. Richman, it’s time to go to school. Some of your picks were pretty good and I give you props for boosting some lesser-known joints whose pizza is definitely worth traveling for. All that said, though, class is now in session and the Pizza Expert is going to show you what real pizza is all about.
Here’s Alan’s list of Top 25, for reference. I’ll go into what’s missing and wrong here afterwards:
1. Great Lake (Chicago)
2. Lucali (Brooklyn)
3. Pizzeria Delfina (San Francisco)
4. Pizzeria Bianco (Phoenix)
5. Bob & Timmy’s (Providence, RI)
6. Sally’s Apizza (New Haven, CN)
7. Tomato Pie (Los Angeles)
8. Co. Company (Manhattan)
9. Tocconelli’s (Philadelphia)
10. Totonno’s (Brooklyn)
11. Tarry Lodge (Port Chester, NY)
12. Frank Pepe (New Haven, CT)
13. Luigi’s “the Original” (Harrison Township, MI)
14. Gialina (San Francisco)
15. Buddy’s (Detroit)
16. Antica Pizzeria (Marina Del Ray, CA)
17. A16 (San Francisco)
18. Al Forno (Providence, RI)
19. Galleria Umberto (Boston)
20. Famous Joe’s (Manhattan)
21. Tomatoes Apizza (Farmington Hills, MI)
22. Osteria (Philadelphia)
23. Santarpio’s (Boston)
24. Niki’s (Detroit)
25. Una Pizza Napoletana (Manhattan)
There’s the boy’s list. Now for the one you should be reading if you’re looking for the nation’s top pie tossers and pizza makers. These are ones he missed.
L&B Spumoni Gardens (Brooklyn, NY)
Di Fara’s (Brooklyn, NY)
Rosa’s Pizza (Queens, NY)
Tucci’s PIzza (Boca Raton, FL)
Kitchenetta (Fort Lauderdale, FL)
Spacca Napoli (Chicago)
Ninos’s of Boca (Boca Raton, special pie they make for me)
The Pizza Expert has spoken. Sorry, Richman, real pizza ain’t for kids. Class dismissed. And for the record Sally’s is not better then Frank Pepe’s!
The other day on our way to an Ice Cream Tweetup, my son and I stopped by the beach for a slice of pizza at Primanti Bros. Pizza in Fort Lauderdale. Originally from Pittsburgh, they have 2 locations in Fort Lauderdale. The one we went to was located on the beach at 901 N. Fort Lauderdale Beach Blvd. 954.565.0605. This is probably one of the few 24 hour pizza locations in Fort Lauderdale. I would be walking on clouds if we had one in Boca Raton.
After passing through many homeless people asking me for change, we walked into Primanti Brothers. It dawned on me that I had eaten there before, probably like 9 years ago, and probably had the same dirty feeling about the place back then. I ordered a plain slice and began waiting. While I was waiting, right near the door the kid was making pizza, without a sink to wash his hands in, and without any encasement to keep away peoples sneezes and coughs. Let alone anything that flies in the front door from the outside. When the slice came out it was pretty good. I didn’t care for the sauce, but the cheese and dough were pretty good. The crust held up nicely, which I expected since it took twice the normal time to reheat a slice. Not sure if their ovens are on low, or if the pizza was just freezing.
Anyways, I would not avoid Primanti to grab a slice, but to dine there with your family is chancing it! The place is not the cleanest as you will see upon entry, but if it is late night or beach pizza you want, you cannot go wrong here. Primanti Bros. Pizza on the beach in Fort Lauderdale gets 5 out of 8 slices.
After receiving a tip from someone who used to work at another place in Boca Raton that I really liked, I decided to give Little Menna’s Pizzeria a try. Little Menna’s is located on 1619 SE 3rd Court 954-482-0914, near the Cove. I do not think I would have ever found this place, since I was unaware that there are two pizza places in the same shopping plaza directly across from each other. Seems odd that the landlord would allow this, but I guess in these hard times, ethics don’t matter.
Upon walking into Little Menna’s, I thought it was kind of cute. The decor was nice, and the whole feeling was quaint. They do not have many tables inside and only a couple outside, so if this place does get busy, there will most likely be a long wait. The lady behind the counter was plesant, and said she was friends with the owners. She must be very good friends, since she took her job passionately and seemed proud to work for them. What I found odd though, was how hard she pushed her Christian beliefs on me as a customer, but whatever, I am not there to review religion.
I ordered a slice to split with my son, and waited since they just had a fresh pie coming out of the oven. Like most pies fresh out of the oven, the bottom was a bit soggy, and since my son and I have no will power, we bit right in and burnt the roof of our mouth. You would think we would have learned by now. The cheese was really good here, and I scraped every piece off the plate. The crust had a nice taste, but I didn’t care much for the sauce. The sauce was pretty powerful and overpowered the cheese and crust. It was garlicy, and way too spicy for me. My advice would be to cut back on some of the seasoning you are using in the sauce guys. You have the potential to make a really good slice if you could fix the sauce up.
Little Menna’s Pizzeria in Deerfield Beach gets 5 out of 8 slices.