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

Stefanina's Pizzeria & Restaurant, March 2011

Free Pizza at work, Just about the best kind.  Stefanina's was the pizza of choice.  We had Pepperoni with Mozzarella cheese.  For a St Louis style pizza it was pretty good, I will defiantly be taking a more in-depth look at Stefanina's in the future.

For now Recommended But,  get Mozzarella cheese instead of Provel.

The Chief Pizza Eater.

Schlafly Bottleworks March 2011

Schlafly Bottleworks

7260 Southwest Ave. (map link);  (314) 241-BEER x2;  www.schlafly.com

Pizza Style: Hand tossed

Oven type: ??

The Skinny:  Great Pizza, but save room for Dessert.

Price: $8 plus $1 per topping

Chief Pizza eater says: Highly Recommended.

Late last year I posted a question in the Missouri section of CityProfile.com asking, whats your favorite pizza joint?  I've got a whole slew of responses, one being Schlafly Bottleworks in Maplewood, MO.  So last week when the Mrs. Pizza Eater asked if I wanted to go out for lunch, I said I have just the place.

We arrived around 2 P.M. for a late lunch and we started with Ice tea and Chopped Salads.  The salad has romaine lettuce with red wine vinaigrette, Salemville bleu cheese, Volpi salami, pickled red onions, hard-boiled egg and kalamata olives.  The salad was excellent, I loved the pickled red onions.  


The Mrs. Pizza Eater choose to be a non-pizza eater and ordered the soup of the a Tomato Bisque.  It was rather good too, but not pizza.


For pizza Schlafly makes a Pilsner dough fresh daily,  they are a brewer first and pizza joint second.  Then you have a choice of sauces, cheese and toppings.  Your choice of sauce includes a tomato sauce or a smoked Gouda cream and garlic oil.  For cheese there is the House blend (Mozzarella, smoked Gouda, Provolone, Jack and Prairie Breeze), Mozzarella, Feta, goat or vegan mozzarella.  The topping list isn't huge, but it is interesting.  For example they don't have hamburger or beef, instead they have Bison.  It should also be noted that all pizza's are about 10 inches, filling a dinner plate.


For my pizza I ordered tomato sauce, House blend cheese, pepperoni, Bison, onions and roasted red peppers.  The pizza was very good.  The crust was fairly thick across the whole pie and cooked to give it a crispy crunch.  The toppings were all very good to, but I couldn't tell a big difference in the Bison verses fresh ground beef.  The House blend cheese probably has more Mozzarella than the other cheese's, at the table with the pizza still pretty hot the flavors melded together.  As it cooled you could start to taste the different flavors. I ended up with a couple of slices left over and they passed the breakfast test with flying colors,  nearly as good cold the next day.


I took pizza home because I had to save room for dessert.  The dessert menu is not large, but huge in quality. We ordered the Sticky Toffee Pudding.  Straight from the menu: Pudding in the Scottish sense – a very moist, dense cake. Served with warm caramel sauce and freshly whipped cream.  Let me just say this, You must save room for Dessert!  I have never had whipped cream this good before, ever!  Put it all to gather and it is Wicked good.


Schlafly Bottleworks is most defiantly worth a visit.  The service is great and if you are a beer connoisseur, they have you covered, you can even tour the brewery on certain days.  They also work at being green from sourcing ingredients locally to the building they are located in (recycled supermarket that had just been sitting empty).

Highly Recommended.

Chief Pizza Eater.
GAW

Pizza Works, February 2011

It was a cold rainy night and I was spending the night alone in my childhood hometown.  What better way to cheer up, than have pizza from one of my favorites.

I have to say upfront, that I have some history with Pizza Works.  As an unruly teenager, my friends and I would go there and  create a mild ruckus just about every weekend.  Oh we would eat pizza also.  Once I got to be of driving age and needed gas money I applied for a job at Pizza Works and actually got hired.  The manager that hired me didn't normally work when we had caused trouble so didn't recognize me, hence the job.  I actually worked my way up to Assistant Manager...  Believe me when I say I have eaten a lot of Pizza Works pizza, the funny thing is I loved the pizza as a youngster and when I worked there. And I still love it today.  I could just keep going on about how Pizza Works affected my life, but I have gone on long enough, on to the pizza.

I ordered a medium BJ special on the regular crust (they also have pan pizza, thicker and more bread like).  If I'm not mistaken it was named after one of the owners, Bruce Johnson.  The BJ special has pepperoni, sausage, onions, mozzarella and a liberal shake of Parmesan cheese.  There is a method to the ingredients,  if you ordered a pizza with those toppings it would look and taste different.  It's all about the proper ratio of pepperoni and sausage.  The pizza was cooked to a light golden brown on the bottom and the edges of the pepperoni just starting to get crisp.  It also had a generous amount of cheese.  It was a most excellent pizza and brought back many good memory's.

There are 3 Pizza Works restaurants, but I have only been in the Moberly, MO location, but I'm sure the other two locations are just as good.  Back when I worked there the crew in Mexico, MO thought they were the best, but I know better.  The only thing that would have made the visit better is if I was sitting in the back booth with my friends having a ruckus good time...

Highly Recommended.
Chief Pizza Eater.
GAW

The Pasta House Co. February 2011

The Junior Pizza Eater wanted toasted rav's for supper, and in St Louis just about the best place to get them is The Pasta House Company.

I have eaten at the Pasta House many times over the years, but never have I had their pizza.  There were three of us, but only one pizza eater.  We started with some cheese sticks and a order of Artichoke and Spinach Dip Con Crostini.  Of course we also had the famous Pasta House Co. special salad.

For pizza I ordered a small (12in) with pepperoni, meatballs, onions and anchovies.  Yes anchovies, I though I would mix it up a little.  The first thing I noticed when the pizza showed up at the table was how many anchovies it had, I have never see that many on a single pizza, ever.  Either they are very generous with the anchovies or they had a tin that had been opened for a while and needed to use them up or throw them out, I think the later was the case.  The pizza was typical St Louis style pizza with thin crust and provel cheese.  The pizza was fine, a few less anchovies wouldn't have hurt, but in the end St Louis style is just not my thing.

I will no doubt eat at The Pasta House Co. in the future but I'll stick to the pasta next time, the Rigatoni Alla Carbonara is my favorite.  It's called The Pasta House Co. and not the The Pizza House Co. for a reason.

If somebody else is paying.
The Chief Pizza Eater.
GAW

Now on Facebook!

I need 25 friends on Facebook to secure my name, so if you are on the Facebook be my friend.  Here is the LINK.

Chief Pizza Eater.

P.S.  How can you refuse that face?

G & D Pizzaria, February 2011

It's hard for me to pass through Columbia, MO with out stopping for pizza,  and this last minute trip was no different.  My self and a junior pizza eater arrived at G & D around 6pm on Saturday and found the place absolutely packed.

Well there was one empty table and we got it.  When we left about an hour later people were lined up around the building to get in, that should tell you something about the pizza.  Yeah it's that good.

We stared the meal with a Greek salad, full of olives, feta cheese, tomato's, onions, lettuce and a great dressing.

For pizza, the junior pizza eater requested a small cheese pizza, she said it was excellent, although not as good as the pizza I make (the last bit may have had something to do with not wanting to walk back to St Louis...).  She ate 3/4's of the pizza before calling it a day.  I ordered a pepperoni, Canadian bacon, hamburger and onions.  The line of people waiting to get in say's more about the pizza than I can put into words.  It really is great pizza and of a style all there own.

Highly Recommended.
Chief Pizza Eater.
GAW