Category Archives: review

Pupatella Neopolitan Pizzeria and Friggitoria

On the recommendations of a friend and a few best pizza lists, My wife and  I checked out Pupatella in Arlington, VA.  Just outside DC, this authentic VPN (Verace Pizza Napoleta) and DOC certified casual restaurant has been said to pop out some of the best pies in town!  With humble beginnings as a pizza cart at a nearby metro station, Pupatella had made a lot of fans before its doors even opened in mid 2010.  

Going in I wasn’t sure what a Friggitoria was, but I now assume it’s because this food is “friggin” amazing.  This oak wood fired pizzeria has an oven made from the ashes of Mt Vesuvius.  At 1000 degrees, five pies at a time are cooked for one minute each until they reach a perfect char on each pliable delicious crust.  Ingredients are first rate with their heirloom San Marzano tomatoes and buffalo mozzarella imported from Naples.  I must admit that I almost didn’t even have enough space to order some pies after filling my stomach with their amazing Arancini from their Friggitoria menu.   These fried risotto balls are stuffed with sausage or eggplant and absolutely blew away the “supply y telephono” risotto balls I’ve had at other great restaurants in the area.  Nonetheless, I had to try the pies and ordered a red and a white.

These 12 inch pizzas had the best crusts I’ve found in DC.  They were perfectly charred yet bendable without spilling.   The DOC and VPN certified Margherita pizza had delicious tomatoes and cheese and was topped with basil.  Unlike other top area pizzerias, the basil seemed to be cooked onto the pie rather than added after it came out of the oven which took a tiny bit of kick from it.  This is the only thing that keeps me from putting this in the same class with the areas 4 best Neopolitan pie sauces,  Seventh Hill, 2 Amys, Pizza CS, and Mia’s.  It was darned close though!  The incredible crust, however, was better than any of these places.  The white Spinach pizza was covered in an Italian cream, pine nuts, feta, and red pepper.  It was fresh and tasty but not quite as good as the tomato sauce based pie in my opinion. 

Pupatella is a casual dining experience.  Each diner grabs their own utensils, picks their own table, orders at a counter, drinks from a bottled soda, beer, or wine, and clears their own table.    No reservations are accepted so expect a wait if you come during peak hours.  Believe me though, it’s worth the wait!

RedRocks Pizza, Old Town Alexandria, VA

If you’re looking for a 93.3% chance of getting one of the best pizzas in the DC area without waiting in that long line at 2 Amys, then RedRocks is the perfect place to go!  Rumor has it that a few days a month their regular chefs actually take time off to be with their families (The nerve of them!) and leave mere mortals in charge of making their delicious pizzas.   Luckily, during my 2 visits to their location in Old Town Alexandria, I was blown away by the quality of their pies.

You can usually spot a great pizza place by taking a peak in their windows.  If the place is full and they don’t automatically provide cheese, oregano, or hot peppers on the tables, they are probably confident that their pizza flavoring is good enough to stand on its own.  This method of spotting authentic Italian food is much better than my second method of counting the # of vowels in the name of the restaurant.  RedRocks is one of these great Naples inspired restaurants despite only having 2 vowels. 

With wood floors, marble tops, and high ceilings, RedRocks is trendy with a phenomenal pizza aroma floating through its high backed booths.  The list of pizzas available range from traditional margheritas to fancy sounding daily pies made with their homemade sausage, meats cured in house, and locally grown produce.  There is a decent sounding list of appetizers and salads but the personal sized pizzas (no slices) are why you come to RedRocks.  On my two visits, the crusts were picture perfect with delicately placed basil, buffalo mozzarella, and toppings complimenting their delicious tomato sauce.  Pictured is a daily special Mushroom pie that had a slight barbeque flavor but I enjoyed the traditional Margherita pies more.  Friends have told me that a few days a month the crust can be soggy, but on my two visits, it was top notch with great service and no wait. 

 I give RedRocks 7 of 8 slices.

District of Pi, Washington DC

Until recently, there has been a huge hole in the Washington DC pizza scene when it comes to deep dish pizza. Frustrated local foodies might advise you to go anywhere from Unos (The originator of Chicago style deep dish) to Albertos, to Armand’s to (cough) Pizza hut. I’m proud to say that a consensus is finally here! District of Pi is now serving up amazing deep dish pies topped with some of the cities tastiest tomatoes in Penn Quarter!

The hype for District of Pi began shortly after Obama came into office. Many hoped that a good deep dish would follow him from Chicago to DC but no one could have expected him to announce his favorite deep dish as being from St Louis, MO. Shortly after he flew Pi’s chefs to DC, word spread and “The Pi Truck” was born.

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Men’s Health Does Best and Worst Pizzas in America (All Wrong)

pizza_ass.jpgIf you’re having a busy day and could stand to save some time, I’ll sum the entire Men’s Health article up for you right here in one sentence: All of the pizzas listed in the Men’s Health magazine article titled “Best and Worst Pizzas in America” are garbage pies—even the ones they liked.

Now that you know where I’m coming from, I hope you’re still interested in reading. Because I’m going to show you why Men’s Health is clueless about pizza. Sure, they probably know nutrition all day long. I won’t argue that. But they definitely don’t know pizza.

That’s my job. I’m the Pizza Expert. Right? I eat pizza almost every friggin day of the week, man. I love pizza and I really, really, really hate bad pizza.

So here’s what got me fired up about Men’s Health doing pizza: they focus on the healthy aspects like nutrition and stuff, but they totally ignore how the pizza itself tastes or what it’s really made from.

In fact, right off the bat they make the biggest faux pas you can make when looking at pizza. The first thing they do is try to equate Red Lobster with pizza. Anyone who even includes Red Lobster on their pizza list is just begging to be spun in the air and buried in yesterday’s bad dough.

At least they mentioned the Jumbo Shrimp Cocktail. I might have forgiven them since they switched from “Red Lobster: pizza” to “Red Lobster: seafood.”

Then they totally blow the whole Red Lobster/pizza thing out of the water by bringing up Papa John’s. Worse, they bring up the vegetarian PJ’s. Then they offer another PJ as a substitute. Let me tell you something. Papa John’s is to pizza like Wendy’s is to hamburgers. They make a marginally good product and the guy who fronts them is a nice dude. But really, they aren’t GOOD, just not as bad as McDonald’s or Dominoes.

Then comes Sbarro’s stuffed pizza followed by Sbarro’s fresh tomato pizza. The first is like a huge New York hot dog stuffed with everything bad for you, except it’s from the twitchy guy outside the ballpark so all that stuff that’s not good for you isn’t really all that tasty or good for the gastronomy either. The second is like a garden salad with crappy bread underneath it. Do the math.

Then comes Romano’s Macaroni Grill. Here’s a tip: just because the joint and the pie have Italian/Greek-sounding names doesn’t mean they’re “authentic.” It probably means they serve sub-par food to act as a front for the real goings on in the back of the place. You know, guys named Vinnie, poker games, occasional gunfire. That kind of thing. Macaroni Grill has had some of the worst pizza we have reviewed on this site: Stay away.

Then they mention Pizza Hut. Let me tell you the difference between Pizza Hut and Dominoes… Pizza Hut has chairs and a salad bar. Otherwise, I’m pretty sure they use the same ovens and same cut-rate minimum wage labor to produce their cardboard with pepperoni on it.

Next up, Uno Chicago Grill. I can’t comment here, since I am not sure if they are talking about the franchise one, or some original one with no relation. From their description, though, it sounds delightful, which leads me to believe it is the franchise one since it just tastes so processed that it can’t be good. At this point, down to their number one pick, I’m willing to bet that if Men’s Health has it on their list and it’s not “mainstream,” it’s probably good stuff.

Now, they get into the best pizzas in America. Considering how well they did with the worst pizzas, how well do you think they did with the best picks? Exactly, they included Chuck E. Cheese on their list. ‘Nuff said.

Here’s my advice: if Men’s Health says anything about pizza at all, ever again… burn the issue. Don’t keep reading, don’t hope there’s a great piece on how to knock your thirty minute jog down to twenty-eight minutes. Just burn the issue and walk away.

Then go get pizza. Real pizza. If you don’t know where to get real pizza, surf around my site. Go ahead, skip the jog and workout today and look for a good pizza joint instead. It’s worth it.

Pizza Hut Picked As Best Pizza Restaurant by San Antonio

San Antonio, Texas: home of the Alamo, of the famous Texas Folklife Festival, and San Pedro Park.  Yet this beautiful city with rich cultural history is apparently totally lacking in pizza taste.

pizzahut-badpizzaA reader’s poll in My San Antonio Magazine listed Pizza Hut as the favorite restaurant in San Antonio. In the Express News (mobile) article detailing the Reader’s Choice winner, Roy Bragg calls Pizza Hut “eternal” and “the nation’s seminal pizza joint.”

I don’t know about you, but this makes me want to test the theory that thinly-sliced pepperoni can be used as ninja throwing stars.

Are these people nuts?  Do they have any idea what pizza is supposed to taste like?  Are they so sold on corporate America’s Big Box Pizza that they truly believe that Pizza Hut is real pizza?

I mean come on, people.  Just because “Pizza” is in the title doesn’t mean that’s what they do!

Listen, San Antonio, I’ve got some news for you: Subway doesn’t make subs, even though it’s in the title.  Matchbox Cars aren’t really cars, even though that’s in the title.  Subway makes SANDWICHES and Matchbox makes TOYS.  Pizza Hut?  They make glorified bread sticks that kind of resemble pizza.

Here’s a litmus test for pizza joints that you can use to ensure that you have likely stepped into a real pizza restaurant.  Assuming you’ve never eaten there before and you walk in the front door, have a look at the menu.

If half the items on the menu are pizza and pizza-related items (sticks, garlic knots, etc.) and most of the other half is beverages: you’re in a pizza joint.

If most of the menu is “salad bars” and “hot wings” and “Tuscani pasta”… you’re not in a pizza restaurant.

Easier To Order Bad Pizza Now

As if most of the fat bastards who are too lazy to go and pick up a pizza need this new idea……TiVo subscribers who are probably used to seeing Domino’s Pizza ads, can hit a I WANT IT button on their remote controls and get one of the worst pizzas in my opinion delivered to them.  They don’t even have to burn a single calorie to have some terrible pizza brought to their door step.

This move evidentaly comes due to the fact that walking to the other room ad typing in www.dominos.com is too hard and inconvenient.  Rob Weisberg, the VP of a marketing division at Domino’s Pizza said this is “the first step in the future of customer interactions with the brands they seek to engage with and buy from. This is the first time in history that the ‘on-demand’ generation will be able to fully experience couch commerce by ordering pizza directly through their television set.”  So basically he agrees that our society should just get fatter by sitting on a couch and getting low quality ingredients without any movement doing so.

What is our society coming to!  This wouldn’t be so bad if a local decent place offered the service.

Digino’s Pizza Lake Mary Florida

Someone recommended that I give Digino’s Pizza located at 3895 Lake Emma Rd # 151
Lake Mary, FL 32746 (407) 333-2733 Lake Mary, FL a try. I did and it was an okay pizza experience. It wasn’t the best pizza ever, but was far from the worst.

When I first picked up the regular pie, it didn’t look too attractive when I opened the box. It appeared that there was way too much cheese on the pie, with a small puddle of sauce showing through in the center. Looks can sometimes be deceiving though, because I was pleasantly surprised when I got home and tasted the pizza.

The cheese and sauce turned out to be well proportioned, with just the right amount of each. My only two complaints was that I found the sauce to be a little too sweet, and the crust could have been a little bit thinner to get more like true New York Style Pizza as advertised in the restaurant’s window. Otherwise, it was an okay pizza. It was far from the best pizza I have eaten, but I have had many far worse pizzas as well.

On my second slice, I decided to add some toppings that hardly anyone else will eat. I put about three cloves of fresh chopped garlic and almost half of a can of anchovies on the slice. I have discussed the my thoughts on anchovies elsewhere in the past, and I will restate here that they are one of the most unappreciated pizza toppings out there that would probably be more popular if more people would be willing to actually try an anchovy topped pizza. The slice was stinky, but it was good!

Based on a scale of 1 to 8, I would give Digino’s a nice average rating of 4 out of 8 slices

Best Pizza in Boca Raton

We are always in search of the Best Pizza in Boca Raton, Florida.  To date, we have reviewed places around the area 55 times.  If you have a favorite place that you want us to review, please send an email to info@worstpizza.com.  Soon we will be putting out our list of Best Pizza places in each area.  Keep checking back.

If you are a pizza place that was to debate your bad review, we are happy to explain to you why you sucked, and ways to help make it better as well.  You can email us at info@worstpizza.com too.