Buona Vita Pizzeria

We went on a lot of "field trips" this summer since it was summer and the Thursday night line up was on its break. Nik decided to try out Buona Vita Pizzeria in Dayton, KY. Dayton is a cute little town on the river, and Buona Vita fit right in. Buona Vita is a family owned restaurant housed in an old bank, and we got to eat in a vault! Here's a hazy picture of Nik and myself in the vault :)

We ordered the Pepperoni pizza and Sara's Supreme and really enjoyed them both, as you'll see in the scoring below. Everyone was super friendly and you could tell it was a well loved family run business.

(1-5 scale, 1=worst, 5=best)

Appearance (overall): 4.42

Aroma (overall): 4.25
Taste (overall): 4.33

Crust - 4.42

Cheese - 4.17

Toppings - 3.83
Sauce - 4.00

Pepperoni Pizza (overall): 4.33
Specialty Pizza & Menu Options: 4.08
X-factor: 4.58

We all agreed that the pepperoni was really greasy, but all liked that they had pickles as a topping option! We all also were disappointed that they forgot to put the spinach on Sara's Supreme pizza. Nik noted POPEYE WOULD BE PISSED!!! I also thought that the sauce and the top of the pepperoni pizza had too much dried oregano (as you've probably come to realize that I'm not a fan of, at all). But, they more than made up for these shortcomings with their awesome, homemade (by their mom!) cookies. We ordered a few of the cookies from our server, and not knowing we had done so, one of the owners also brought us some for free! Not to mention the fact that they're already very reasonably priced.

Overall, Buona Vita Pizzeria is one of our favorites because of its ambiance, incredibly friendly owners/staff, "x-factor", solid pizza, and awesome cookies!

The Works

This summer we ventured up to Loveland to try The Works Brick Oven Restaurant. The Works is located in a very cute part of downtown Loveland, right near the bike trail, in a nice, old building with a large patio and a bell tower (but it's hard to find!!). Not only did we get to enjoy sitting outside, we also enjoyed $3 Mt. Carmel draft beer specials and fried pickles! After our delicious fried pickle appetizer, we enjoyed the Pepperoni and the California Rose pizzas.

I'm finally finding all of our pizza pictures! For some reason, they were dated as 2004...anyway, here you go:

Here's how they scored:

(1-5 scale, 1=worst, 5=best)

Appearance (overall): 4.00
Aroma (overall): 4.25
Taste (overall): 4.33
Crust - 4.17
Cheese - 4.50
Toppings - 3.83
Sauce - 4.00
Pepperoni Pizza (overall): 3.83
Specialty Pizza & Menu Options: 4.33
X-factor: 4.00

I'm not the only fried pickle lover, Kevin and Nik both enjoyed them as well. Kevin also thought that the cheese on the pizzas looked great. In Kevin's opinion, The Works had a good pizza menu, but the rest of the menu just looked good, not great. Kevin thought that the edge crust was really good, but the crust under the cheese was just good, not great. I thought the crust and cheese were both good. The pepperoni were under the cheese, but it was still an attractive pizza. But, the pepperoni pizza was really greasy and didn't have much flavor - the sauce was very tomato-y and needed more herbs/spices. I really liked the pineapple and banana pepper combo on the California Rose pizza though.

We skipped dessert in order to get some ice cream from Loveland Sweets, but The Works' Creme Brulee Pizza sounds very intriguing (I do love creme brulee!).

Oakley Pub an Grill

Let me first begin by apologizing for the incredibly long delay in posts. Life got a bit crazy this summer between going to weddings, trying to plan a wedding, and spending almost the whole month of August in Michigan for work. Alas, we're back at it. Actually, we've managed to squeeze in 8 pizza nights since the last post, I've just slacked majorly on my posting duties. So now it's time for me to play catchup, and I'll begin with Oakley Pub & Grill, which we went to way back in July, right before July 4th weekend. Thursday night is $6 pizza night at Oakley Pub & Grill, which also happens to be walking distance from our place. So we headed on down and order a Pepperoni pizza, a Margherita pizza, and a Grilled Chicken Caesar pizza.

Here's how Oakley Pub & Grill scored:

(1-5 scale, 1=worst, 5=best)

Appearance (overall): 3.17

Aroma (overall): 4.00

Taste (overall): 3.58

Crust - 3.83

Cheese - 3.00
Toppings - 3.67

Sauce - 3.50
Pepperoni Pizza (overall): 3.33

Specialty Pizza & Menu Options: 3.67

X-factor: 3.58

Kevin thought that the $6 pizza tasted like $6 frozen pizza - good, but not spectacular. But, he thought that it was a good deal based on the fact that it's his favorite local pub. I think I must have given Nik grief for not writing many comments, if any at all, so here goes his longest, nerdiest comment yet. Nik commented that the maillard reaction adds so much to a pizza. It makes it taste not like frozen pizza. Nik thought that all of the components were there, but it could've been so much better.

I pretty much agreed with Kevin and Nik's comments, noting that the crust tasted like a cracker and was really crispy like a cracker (the crispiness not necessarily being a bad thing). As you probably know by now, I think a pizza is more attractive when the pepperoni are on top, which was not the case here. On top of the pepperoni being under the cheese, the cheese on the pepperoni pizza wasn't even melted all the way! It definitely needed to cook for a few more minutes. The Margherita and Grilled Chicken Caesar pizzas are what helped Oakley Pub & Grill score better than they would have if I had judged them solely on the Pepperoni pizza. Both of these were cooked all the way through and the Margherita pizza had a nice garlicky flavor.

So although the pizza wasn't a huge hit, the Oakley Pub & Grill remains my favorite local neighborhood bar.

Domino's Pizza

Yep, that's right, Domino's Pizza is one of our stops on our quest for the best pizza in Cincinnati. Sometimes you need/want quick, cheap pizza, so Domino's, Papa John's, and Little Caeser's are all on the list. And this summer our street starting doing porch nights every other Thursday (our pizza night), so something quick is ideal after attending one of those. Domino's is right around the corner from Kevin's, so after the first porch night, we walked over to his place and Kevin picked up a Pepperoni pizza and a Buffalo Chicken pizza from Domino's. Here's how the pizza ranked:

(1-5 scale, 1=worst, 5=best)

Appearance (overall): 2.83
Aroma (overall): 3.00
Taste (overall): 2.83
Crust - 3.33
Cheese - 2.83
Toppings - 3.00
Sauce - 3.17
Pepperoni Pizza (overall): 3.17
Specialty Pizza & Menu Options: 3.00
X-factor: 3.00 (Nik wrote "dudes!!!" in this section instead of an acutal score, you'll see why below)

So, not a big surprise to me, but Domino's wasn't our favorite pizza. In fact, it has the lowest scores of all of the pizzas places we've tried so far. Here's why: the guys running the place should be in a mocumentary because they could barely run the place and it was quite comical. They some how messed up Kevin's order, but in the end we did get pizza. Also, as Kevin said, the Buffalo Chicken pizza was a let down. Nik thought the buffalo sauce on top looked like bad, squirt bottle ugly. I thought that it should have come with ranch or blue cheese on top or on the side (something with some more flavor!). For both pizzas, there wasn't enough flavor and on top of that, the Pepperoni pizza was too greasy. Overall, we all agreed that Papa John's is better, and it's a close call with Little Caesar's (although Little Caesar's at least has some awesome crazy bread, and we have yet to "officially" review both places). On the plus side, it is quick (if they don't mess up your order) and cheap.

Balboa's Grill and Pizzeria

Balboa's Grill and Pizzeria is conveniently on the drive home from University of Cincinnati to our place in Oakley, so Nik picked up a couple of pizzas on his way home. The pizzas at Balboa's are big, New York style pizzas, so two was plenty. Nik chose the pepperoni and the barbeque chicken pizzas. Balboa's focuses on east-coast style food and even imports their hoagies from Philadelphia for their Philly sandwiches.

Balboa's was a hit for all of us, here's how they scored:

(1-5 scale, 1=worst, 5=best)

Appearance (overall): 4.17
Aroma (overall): 4.50

Taste (overall): 4.42

Crust - 4.67

Cheese - 4.00

Toppings - 4.25

Sauce - 3.75

Pepperoni Pizza (overall): 4.50
Specialty Pizza & Menu Options: 3.92

X-factor: 4.08

So far, Balboa's has the highest scoring pepperoni pizza, outscoring Pomodori's! The crust was cooked perfectly and the pepperoni pizza had a nice spiciness thanks to the spices and herbs on top. The tomato sauce was too "tomato paste-y" and needed more spices/flavor, but the bbq sauce on the barbeque chicken pizza was really good. And although I try to only eat locally raised meat (besides the exception of pepperoni for pizza night), I'm really tempted to try their philly cheese steak on their Philadelphia-imported hoagie.

Betta's Italian Oven

Now that we're back to being 4 weeks behind on the blog again, I figured it's time to play some more catching up. My next choice for pizza night was Betta's Italian Oven in Norwood. Betta's is a family run restaurant that does wood-fired oven pizzas. Since the pizzas only come in one size (10"), I decided to get three (and a few of their of their homemade desserts): Pepperoni, Margherita, and the Spicy Diavolo. Since they don't have a website or menu online, I went in to the restaurant and waited for the pizzas after I ordered them. It was a cute restaurant with plenty of seating and the pizzas were done in 15 minutes. Not only were they quick, they were also delicious:

(1-5 scale, 1=worst, 5=best)

Appearance (overall): 4.25

Aroma (overall): 4.50

Taste (overall): 4.17

Crust - 4.33

Cheese - 3.83

Toppings - 3.83

Sauce - 3.83

Pepperoni Pizza (overall): 4.00

Specialty Pizza & Menu Options: 4.17

X-factor: 4.13

Overall, Betta's was a hit. All Kevin had to say was that wood-fired pizza is cool. Nik and I both noted that the spicy sauce on the spicy diavolo is really spicy and better than the regular tomato sauce on the pepperoni pizza. The pepperoni's were the "pepperoni grease boats" that so many places around here seem to go for (I prefer large pepperoni's). Nik thought the crust for the pepperoni pizza was underdone and would have scored it a "5" if it had been cooked appropriately.

What about the desserts? Delicious! Definitely try them, especially their homemade tiramisu.

Sorrento's Pizzeria

Sorrento's Pizzeria has been serving Cincinnati for nearly 54 years, opening its doors on August 10, 1956 and is still family owned and operated. Kevin headed over to Norwood to pick us up a pepperoni pizza and a margherita pizza. Sorrento's turned out mediocre scores:

(1-5 scale, 1=worst, 5=best)

Appearance (overall): 3.00
Aroma (overall): 4.13

Taste (overall): 3.75
Crust - 4.00

Cheese - 3.33
Toppings - 3.67

Sauce - 3.58
Pepperoni Pizza (overall): 4.00

Specialty Pizza & Menu Options: 4.08
X-factor: 3.83

Kevin thought that everyone there was very friendly and that it was the kind of place you could go to a few times and become a regular. Unfortunately, the pizza wasn't too hot by the time we sat down to eat it, but once it warmed up a bit in the oven it was much better. Sorrento's pizza had a really thin crust, but it was good. I especially liked that the pepperoni was a little crispy. All Nik wrote in his comments section was "hallucinations," and when I asked him what that meant/why he wrote that last week, he couldn't remember and didn't have any idea why he would write that. Oh, and he drew the University of Cincinnati bearcat symbol. (I think Nik may have had one too many beers before dinner ;))

While maybe not the best pizza in town, it's still good and the atmosphere of the restaurant more than makes up for it.