Saturday, November 28, 2009

Food Week: San Diego Pizza Smackdown

I am closing out Food Week with a taste-test. Bryan and Veronika have forever been touting what they think is the best pizza in San Diego. I have my own opinion, too, and so decided we'd settle this once and for all.

BRYAN
As a native New Yorker, Bryan claims that the best NY-style pizza in San Diego is at a little place in PB across from the library. An added quirk, he says, is that it's run by an Asian family. God bless America.

You must also bear in mind that, while Bryan touts this place as the best, he hasn't been in six years. When ordering today, we learned that the place had been sold three years ago to an exuberant Italian man named Mateo. Which I thought boded well for BO's choice--pizza from Italy.

VERONIKA
Veronika thinks Bronx Pizza is the best slice in town. This place is tiny and does a lot of take-out service, but you can also eat in their cramped little back room. New Yorkers work here instead of Asians or Italians, and they have the attitude to prove it.




MICHELLE
Since this is my blog, I get a say in the contest, and entered Costco's pizza.





The ground rules:
We each purchased one slice of plain cheese pizza from our favored establishment and brought them to Veronika's condo. We then cut each slice into thirds and put one each on a paper plate, labeling the rim with the establishment's name. One by one, we were blind-folded and tested each pizza. The taster's comments were recorded in a notepad, and each taster had to ultimately pick their favorite.

Veronika: Good spices in the sauce. The crust isn't too hard.
Michelle: Good sauce, good flavor. It has more oregano, I think? The sauce smells a little like pepperoni.
Bryan: I smell spices. The crust is thin. I like that. The sauce is flavorful. Surprisingly, the pizza's a little greasy.

Veronika: I like it. I like the mix of the sauce and the cheese. Nice consistency throughout.
Michelle: Good. Tasty sauce.
Bryan: Not as aeromatic as the other (Bronx) one. Definitely not as flavorful. But it's simple. It's not as greasy.

Veronika: The cheese isn't as soft as the others.
Michelle: Nice aroma. Smells good. It has more cheese, less sauce. It's satisfying.
Bryan: The cheese is crispy. I like that.

In the end, while still blindfolded, we each picked the pizza we'd nominated for the contest. But afterwards, we also agreed that Bronx was the most flavorful.

3 comments:

Renee Thompson said...

I loved this posting, Michelle. How funny that you each picked your own pizza as a favorite -- but, then, you seem to know what you like! (If this comment appears twice, it's b/c something goofy happened in the middle of, so I had to start over.)

Michelle Panik said...

I know! I was also surprised that we all ended up picking our original pizza. In the end, it was fun to simply eat pizza, and think more about their actual flavors than I usually do.

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