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Business & Tech

The Great Pizza Challenge

Marco's vs. Olde Town, a no brainer for me.

When you talk pizza on a challenge level, it almost seems unfair not to include the likes of Pizza Hut, Papa John's or Domino's.

Fair, schmair; I decided to check out the places that have less than a million employees and make less than a gazillion dollars a year.

As far as the big three goes, it doesn't matter what I say about their pizza; you already have your favorites. When I pick my choice among the top three, I not only know which Pizza Hut I'm picking but which location I'll be buying from. I drive down to the Lithia-Pinecrest Pizza Hut. I find the Pizza Hut at the corner of Bloomingdale Avenue and Lithia-Pinecrest Road  (684-8383--knew that without looking it up) has far fresher ingredients and are more liberal with their toppings, and this is a shared point of view with many of my friends. I have never had a bad pizza from there!

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Massachusetts Institute of Technology did a study a few years back that said the best meal to start a day off was a piece of pizza and a mug of beer.

This was based on the vitamins and nutrients that growing college kids required, not on the appeal factor. This study was brought to you by the same geniuses who brought us the traveling alarm clock. Remember that one? You hit the snooze button and the clock rolls off the dresser and hides until the continuous ringing gets you out of bed with a baseball bat. So. I would take the pizza study with a grain of salt...and maybe a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese.

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Now, let's talk about the bad pizza I did get. I ordered a couple of pizzas from Marco's Pizza at 5918 Providence Road near Bloomingdale Avenue in Riverview. They boast about having Ah!thentic Italian Pizza--nice play on words but I'm afraid they came up a little short.

The best item they had was the one without the sauce--the cheesy bread. It was toasted nicely but the cheese puddled in the middle, leaving much of the bread bare. Kudos for the toasting job, though. The thin-crust pepperoni pizza was good but a little too saucey with a touch too much sugar. The sugar is added to the sauce to reduce the acid in the tomatoes, not enough to change the taste of your coffee.

There was an abundance of pepperoni and not a burnt piece of crust to be found. If there's a next time, I'll order easy sauce or none at all. The original classic crust with Italian sausage I ordered is quite another story. It is still sitting in my fridge, minus two slices of pizza. I tried it hot and cold and neither one hit the spot. Way too saucey! The crust was cooked OK, but nothing to write home about and there was barely any sausage on the top.

A skilled squirrel on a pair of skis could have navigated between the sausage without tipping a flag. It doesn't matter if you have a couple of chunks scattered about. Spread the sausage for the desired effect like my next pizza place does. They say you eat with your eyes first but not if they are squinting--not impressed.

The Olde Town Pizzeria & Pasta Co. is quite a different story. This place is located at 115 W. Bloomingdale at the corner of John Moore Road, back in a little strip mall where Big Belly Burgers lives. Must be the area that breeds good food. Haven't had a bad meal from the entire mall.

I was on the way home from a meeting in Clearwater and didn't know what time I would get home so I told my wife and daughter to go ahead and pick some pizza place nearby.

As I walked in the door, my wife was walking by, stopped and made the following comment, "This is the best pizza I've had since I've been down here." Coming from Helen, that is a statement worth analyzing.

When we first met, back in the mid-'80s, she went to Ohio to visit family and returned with two frozen pizzas from her favorite pizzeria. Carried them on the plane in a freezer type of bag they used to allow on planes--back when smoking was allowed and they gave free peanuts. Back in those days; she was a size 1 and could eat a whole pizza by herself and I always thought that to be a cruel joke by the Heavens. It just shows there is an ethereal sense of humor on this Earth. I just gained a pound writing this column about pizza.

She ordered a half and half extra-large pizza with sausage on one half and pepperoni on the other. It cost $18 but my wife couldn't see spending $13 each for two mediums. I have news for the people at Olde Town; she would pay twice that now. By the time she finished a few more pieces of pie, she graduated to, "This is the best pizza I have ever eaten!"

Of course, this was the first of the two pizza joints I wanted to check out, so I heard all the jeers and cat calls from her and my daughter when my choice was Marco's pizza. The crust was perfectly done with cheese covering the entire thing and barely a bald piece of crust to be found. The pepperoni were many and even though the pizza was cut into tiny squares. There was a slice of meat for every piece of pizza. The sausage was crumbled Italian sausage. A little more work involved to get the sausage fine enough to scatter throughout, but worth it in the end. The flavor was everywhere. In case you were wondering why I put the word Italian in bold, italicized print, it's because it has to be that type of sausage for any flavor. If you try that pork-ball-sausage-type of meat stuff they use in the big chains, you have no taste and neither does the pork-stuff nonsense.

In closing, once again I realize that for a test to be accurate, there should be three subjects but you have to ask yourself; how many times a week can I eat pizza?When I was 20, the answer was a no-brainer--I could eat it three times a day seven days a week. As I've grown and my tastes have become more refined, I find that twice a week is even a bit too much.

I'll try some more pizza joints later on but for now, two will do just fine for me and, hopefully, you. Let me know if there are some places I don't know about that should really be put out in the public's eye. My experience might not come close to yours but I give an honest opinion of what happened to me. I've had quite a few e-mails, some from people I haven't heard from in 10 years, and they all recommend one restaurant or another and I'll try to get to them all. I've always eaten out at least once a week and, in some cases, four to five times a week so your e-mails are not being ignored, just postponed.

I give The Olde Time Pizzeria & Pasta Co. 4 stars and Marco's a disappointing 2.

1 Star--Wouldn't go back on a bet

2 Star--Would have to go back, but only on a bet

3 Star--If I was in the neighborhood and hungry

4 Star--Would go out of my way even if I wasn't hungry

5 Star--Would make reservations and wait in a line 

 

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