CiCi's Pizza, March 2012

CiCi's Pizza

9745 Manchester Rd. Rock Hill, MO 63119 (map link);
Phone (314) 963-7200;  www.cicispizza.com/

Pizza Style:  Thick and thin.

Oven type:  Gas conveyor.

The Skinny:  Beware the Claw Machine.

Price: $25 for 1 adult and 3 kids (under 10) with drinks

Chief Pizza eater says:  Recommended BUT.

On a weekend not long ago I promised my young pizza eater that I would take her and a couple of her pizza eating friends out for lunch.  It's not always easy finding a pizza joint that is acceptable to both young and old,  CiCi's was acceptable to both parties.  

CiCi's probably wouldn't be my first choice if I was just getting pizza for myself, but I figured I should take advantage of the situation, so I did my best to try at least one slice of every pie on the buffet.  There was everything from cheese, pepperoni, ham & pineapple to veggie.  For crust there was your standard thin crust, similar to a Papa John's or Domino's, Thick crust (I would call it pan) and ultra thin and crispy.  After trying them all I came to the conclusion that the thick crust with olive oil, mozzarella and sausage, and the ultra thin crust pepperoni were the best.  At the end of the buffet is the dessert pizza... or dessert that is baked in the pizza oven, including: brownie, cinnamon roll and a pizza crust cheese cake (It was a little vague but I'm pretty sure it was cheese cake).  Of the three the cinnamon roll was by far the best, with the brownie coming in a close second.

There was also a very small salad bar and pasta bar before the pizza, but I didn't partake as I knew I would be eating way to much pizza.  The salad bar look plenty fresh, but I'm not sure how well the pasta would do sitting on the buffet.

Once everyone had their fill of pizza it was off to the Game Room (aka: Claw Machines).  For pizza eaters under 10 the claw machines have a unbelievably strong attraction.  If given the chance I'm sure they would have spent more on the machines than the pizza.

The pizza wasn't bad and the young pizza eaters all found something that they liked,  but beware the Claw Machines as they can quickly take the value out of meal.

 Recommended BUT, beware the Claw Machines.

The Chief Pizza Eater.
GAW

The Cheesecake Factory, March 2011.

The Cheesecake Factory.

Multiply locations see web-site;  www.thecheesecakefactory.com

Pizza Style:  Hand tossed.

Oven type:  Unknown.

The Skinny:  Save room for Dessert!

Price: $10.95 for Cheese to $12.95 for The Everything Pizza.

Chief Pizza eater says: Recommended BUT.  

I don't always choose the places that I eat pizza at, some times life just toss's me a slice.  The Cheesecake Factory is not the first place that comes to mind when you want pizza.  Because members of my family like it, I end up there a couple of times a year, and although the food has been good  I dread going.  It has always been a daunting task for me to figure out what I want.  Not sure if you have every seen their menu, but it looks like the New York City phone book.  On this visit the Menu was something like 15-20 pages, and the print is quite small!

The Cheesecake Factory just list 10 different specialty pizza's in their menu and don't really have a build your own topping list.  I guess you could ask to have one made just the way you like, but not sure what the out come would be,  I may try on a future visit.  I usually like to start with a salad, but knowing the portions The Cheesecake Factory servers and wanting to save room for dessert I passed on the green stuff.

For pizza I ordered the B.B.Q Chicken pizza.  It had Smoked Gouda, Red Onion and Cilantro along with the B.B.Q. Chicken.  The BBQ sauce taking the place of pizza sauce.  All that goodness was atop what appeared to be a hand tossed crust of about 12-13 inches.  The crust was done up crispy on the bottom and edge.  There wasn't to much sauce or cilantro (little goes a long way in my book),  If anything it could have used a few more onions, but then again I love those red onions.  Had I not been saving room for dessert I would have probably ate the whole pizza even thought 1/2 or 3/4 would have been enough to satisfy my hunger.

Finally it was time for dessert and it just happens that Cheesecake is one of my favorites.  My fellow (non)pizza eater and I shared a slice of Ultimate Red Velvet Cake Cheesecake.  If your a sweet tooth and this doesn't make your mouth water I don't know what will.  Layers of Red Velvet Cake and Cheesecake covered in Cream Cheese frosting finished with White Chocolate...  It was excellent, but I probably should have saved a little bit more room for it.

Overall the pizza was pretty good and I would get it again if I'm there with family.  I wouldn't pass a regular pizza joint just to eat pizza at The Cheesecake Factory, So Recommended But, only if I'm there at the request of others.  Just don't forget to save room for the Cheesecake!

Recommended But

Chief Pizza Eater.
GAW

Little Caesars, March 2011

I can't help myself...  My coworkers say "Were getting a Hot-N-Ready, you want one?"  I just can't say no...

I have to tell you the Little Caesars down the street from work puts out a pretty good pizza for $5.  I've heard about less than desirable results with the Hot-N-Ready, but the only complaint I've ever had was that they didn't get the pizza cut all the way through in a couple of spots.

I'll take a Hot-N-Ready any day over a fast food burger joint. Plus for $5 I can have left overs for lunch the next day.

Recommended, YMMV

Chief Pizza Eater

Costco food court Pizza

**Updated 11/16/09 See New information below**

Costco Food Court is not family owned, but is a clever way for the wholesale club giant to get a few more of your hard earned dollars on the way out of the building. If you have ever done any shopping at Costco you know that the food court is a necessity. After pushing your over sized cart around the warehouse filling it with the bulk sized items of life, you will need to fuel up before taking on the parking lot.

The Menu at the Food Court includes Pizza by the slice or whole pie in one of 3 variety's cheese, pepperoni and combo (pepperoni, sausage, onion, green peppers and olives). They also have hot dogs, Polish sausages, chicken bake?, churro (deep fried stick coated in sugar), frozen yogurt, frozen coffee drink, frozen fruit smoothie and fountain sodas.

I got a slice of Pepperoni pizza and a coke, my wife had a slice of combo pizza, the bill for everything was around $5.00. The pizza's are cooked on screens(holey pan?) in a automatic oven, in one side and out the other. All of the slices are of uniform size, they use a rather large metal cutting guide to insure it. My slice of pepperoni had quite a bit of oil on the surface and when i flipped it upside down on the paper plate for a photo some of the oil was soaked up by the plate. I recommend you give it the flip even if you aren't taking a photo. After the grease was blotted I didn't have much to write about. The crust was OK, lots of cheese & pepperoni and some tomato sauce stuck between. My wife's combo slice actually looked better, except for those pesky green peppers, she didn't share so I have nothing to say about it (and my daughter erased the photo from the camera so no photo either).

If you think about the amount of love that goes into a pizza like this, it's really not bad. Just think the person making the pizza's is probably the lowest on the seniority list and can think of nothing else but becoming a checker... or at least the checker's helper.

My Slice came from the Costco at 4200 Rusty Road St. Louis, Missouri 63128, but I suspect it would be pretty much the same no matter what Costco you visit.

Recommended BUT

• Only if you are already there.
• Only if your significant other refuses to let you stop at a real pizza joint on the way home.
• Only if you are about to pass out from low blood sugar, because your giant cart is over-filled.

GAW

P.S. If you are in a twist thinking "I got'a go and get a Costco membership now", hold your horses, you don't need a membership to get the pizza, but you should re-read my recommendation.

**Update** As of 11/16/09 my local Costco requires you to have a membership to visit the food court. I don't know if this is a permanent change or just for the holidays. You have been forewarned. GAW

Cecil Whittaker's Pizzeria / Stumpy's House of Bar-B-Que.

Cecil Whittaker's Pizzeria is a regional chain with 25 locations (3 corporate owned with the rest split among 15 franchise owners) that first opened in 1983 in south St Louis County. My pie came from the St Peters restaurant. Their menu includes salads, appetizers sandwiches, pasta, and pizza. Cecil Whittaker's Pizzeria serves St Louis style, which means very thin crust and provel cheese. They also have mozzarella cheese available upon request, and a thicker crust ($1 extra) for their medium and xtra large pies. The location I ordered from is one of four very unique locations that in addition to the expected pizza joint fare, has the "Smokehouse Menu". The franchise owners also own Stumpy's House of BBQ, and offer a full BBQ menu at their 4 Cecil Whittaker's Pizzeria's.

I'm not a fan of true St Louis style pizza for one key reason, Provel cheese and won't knowingly spend my money on it. My order for this review was a small (9") pepperoni, Canadian bacon, hamburger and onion with mozzarella cheese of course (my standard variation). I also ordered a Smokehouse salad with pulled pork, with ranch dressing and sweet & smokey BBQ sauce. The crust is a uniform thickness all the way across and is nearly a perfect circle, it is perfectly able to support toppings with out any help. The bottom is golden brown and when you bite into it, it's both crispy and chewy. The sauce is a just a little sweet and spicy, and the amount of sauce is just bordering on to much for my taste, especially on this thin a crust. The toppings are all fresh and have good flavor. I do have a few small complaints about the toppings. First is that they used red onions on their salads, so why not on their pies? Second, I got that big giant hunk of onion with out a whole in it, and I really don't like it as it never gets cooked all the way through. Not so much a complaint, but you will notice in the photo above that the sauce covers the entire top of the crust, it goes all the way to the edge which leads to topping slide when the pizza is fresh and hot. If you don't sandwich a couple of pieces or at least keep one finger planted in the toppings it all comes off with the first bite. Leftovers the next day don't suffer the same fate, as the sauce thickens and keeps it all together.

The Smoke House salad (Stumpys salad) is a meal in it's self and can certainly stand on it's own. The lettuce and red onions were fresh, there was a generous amount of pulled pork and cheddar cheese. The dressing comes on the side so that you can add to your own taste. I got both ranch and sweet & spicy BBQ sauce, mixing in equal parts. The pork was very good, but may have been just a touch dry (maybe due to the car ride back to work), not a deal ender by any means.

St Louis style doesn't pass the "I'd pay for it" test, oh I'll eat it just not pay for it with my hard earned cash. Remember I'm a pizza slut, I haven't met a pizza that I wouldn't eat, but have met a few that I wouldn't pay for. Luckily Cecil Whittaker's Pizzeria offers the St Louis Style sort of (mozzarella in stead of provel) pizza. I do like Cecil's pizza as long as it comes with mozzarella cheese, but the kicker is being able to get an order of BBQ with your pizza, and at $12.50 plus tax and delivery for both the pizza (9") and salad it's a good value. Cecil Whittaker's Pizzeria (with Smokehouse Menu) is located at 620 Jungermann Rd. in St Peters, MO. You can reach them at (636)926-8121, for more information check out their web-site (click on the title link).

Recommended (if you go with the mozzarella cheese)

GAW

11,000 free pizza's and I didn't get one.

Domino's may need a bailout after giving away 11,000 medium pizza's last Monday. If you ordered on-line and typed "bailout" into the coupon section you would get a free pizza. Either somebody at the big house forgot they set-up the code, or maybe they didn't...

For the complete story click the title link.

Don't expect a review of Domino's anytime soon, unless somebody sends me a free one. Yes I'm a pizza slut and I will almost any pizza if it's free. GAW