Where they all fall

Look, there really is someone besides Melissa doing Pizza Nights! Nik and I really aren't made up people that Melissa created just so she doesn't look like a glutton eating 2 pizzas in a night (actually I'm the resident glutton who eats the most pizza).

So a few weeks back, Melissa put up a top ten list on the sidebar. She explained how she came up with the overall rankings on a post when the top ten list debuted. This got me thinking about my sole prior contribution to the blog (besides of course the fact that I eat pizza and write down some numbers) where I made some graphs of our rankings. So I thought it was time to make some new graphs. Behold the rankings of all 33 places we've blogged on (we had pizza night last night, but I don't have the numbers to include number 34).

Let's kick it off with the overall rankings. As a reminder the breakdown of how we get our overall ranking:

Appearance - 10%

Aroma - 10% (remember I don't contribute to this one because my sniffer doesn't work well)

Overall Taste - 30%

Pepperoni Pizza - 20%

Specialty Pizza Options/Menu - 15%

X-Factor - 15%

Nothing surprising on the top here, since that's what's on the sidebar. I was a little surprised at first to see Hyde Park Pizzeria and The Rookwood so low on the list here. When I went back and looked though, we didn't have rankings for pepperoni pizza, so Excel put in a zero for the 20% of the ranking that gets attributed to pepperoni. In reality, they are much higher. The Rookwood isn't really a pizza place (we went because we thought they had a pizza special, but it really ended the week before). For Hyde Park Pizzeria, perhaps that's a sign that we need to revisit for a more accurate ranking.

Speaking of pepperoni pizza, how do they stack up in that category?

We can see the missing Rookwood and HPP rankings here more clearly. It's probably not too surprising that the top of the list looks a lot like the overall ranking (even though the pepperoni pizza only contributes to 20% of the overall). I think one of the saddest things about this graph though is that the top ranked pizza, Balboa's is no longer in business.

Finally, for the X-Factor.

No surprise on the top 2 here, we all loved the mission of Venice on Vine and the atmosphere of Buona Vita (felt like eating with family even if it was in a bank valut).

Hope you enjoyed these as much as me!

Mt. Adams Pizza and Deli

Last week Nik headed up the hill to Mt. Adams Pizza & Deli to use our Groupon for pizza night. He picked us up our usual Pepperoni pizza and a white pizza with chicken, sundried tomatoes, and feta cheese (and olives on half):

Here's how they scored:

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

Appearance (overall): 4.08
Aroma (overall): 4.00
Taste (overall): 4.42
Crust - 4.50
Cheese - 3.50
Toppings - 4.25
Sauce - 4.17
Pepperoni Pizza (overall): 4.33
Specialty Pizza & Menu Options: 4.33
X-factor: 3.50

As you can see, Mt. Adams Pizza & Deli easily moved in to our top ten. Why? Because they're crust was fantastic! Kevin thought it was an excellent example of a very well done "doughy" crust - the bottom was well cooked, but the inside was nice and fluffy doughy. They also have a whole wheat crust, but Nik forgot to get it. The sauce had a great flavor as well - nicely spiced and perfectly spicy.

Venice on Vine

Venice on Vine has been on our list of places to try since the beginning of our quest for the best pizza in Cincinnati, and last week presented the perfect opportunity to give it a try. It was my turn for pizza night, and The Lackman, conveniently located right across the street from Venice on Vine, had a Bell's Brewery beer tasting. So after work I stopped in The Lackman to finally get a pint of Bell's Hopslam that I've been wanting to try for the last month, and it was delicious. I then headed across the street to order a Pepperoni pizza and a Sausage and Jalapeño pizza.

For those of you who are not familiar with Venice on Vine, it provides on-the-job training to inner city residents who are trying to better themselves and their families, provided by the nonprofit “Power Inspires Progress”, run by two Catholic nuns. They work at Venice on Vine to learn the ins and outs of restaurant life to prepare for future job/career opportunities. So, as you can imagine, we really want to like the pizza. But, here's how they scored:

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

Appearance (overall): 3.33
Aroma (overall): 3.75
Taste (overall): 3.17
Crust - 2.33
Cheese - 3.58
Toppings - 3.50
Sauce - 3.33
Pepperoni Pizza (overall): 3.08
Specialty Pizza & Menu Options: 3.00
X-factor: 4.75

Just practicing my photography... :)

The main reason for the low score(s) was that the crust was not done enough/the pizzas weren't cooked long enough. The middle of the pizza was basically raw dough, though the edge crust was nice and crisp and with a delicious garlic butter. Kevin thought that the spiciness of the sauce overwhelmed the pepperoni and the sausage, while I just thought that the sauce was too oregano-y (I guess not a surprise at this point....). I was impressed that their sausage is housemade, but I wasn't impressed with the taste. While Nik liked the sausage, I thought it didn't have any flavor and basically tasted like ground pork on the pizza, which I didn't care for.

We all stronly support the mission of Venice on Vine, which is why the X-factor score is so high. I would have given them a 5, but when I went in and ordered the pizza, I could hear them complaining about having to make them since the pizza ovens are right behind the ordering counter (it was 6:45 and they close at 8). If they took their time and cooked the pizza properly (and if I got something other than sausage), I think we would've really enjoyed the pizza and the scores would have been much higher. So support Venice on Vine and give them a try, I know I will again.

Lucy Blue Pizza

....and we're back! After 4 weeks, we were finally all back in town for pizza night last Thursday. Kevin was up and chose a Pepperoni pizza and a Greek pizza (without the olives since Kevin and I aren't fans) from Lucy Blue Pizza (is it just me, or is the kid on their home page a little creepy looking?!). Lucy Blue Pizza has a few locations, but Kevin went to the Mt. Lookout location since it is the closest to all of us.

Here's what the pizzas looked like and how they scored:

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

Appearance (overall): 3.92
Aroma (overall): 3.88
Taste (overall): 3.33
Crust - 3.25
Cheese - 3.58
Toppings - 3.33
Sauce - 3.00
Pepperoni Pizza (overall): 3.33
Specialty Pizza & Menu Options: 3.42
X-factor: 3.25

Lucy Blue Pizza didn't fare quite as well as our other pizza ventures for a few reasons: the crust was bland and became "tough;" the Pepperoni pizza was too oregano-y; they had run out of spinach for the Greek pizza; thet have a very small, limited menu; and, overall it was just ok, not great. We did like that the sauce was a bit on the spicy side and the pizza boxes had cool art work.

I actually really like the Greek pizza, but was bummed about the no spinach thing. And I gave them a little higher score for the "Specialty Pizza & Menu Options" category than I would have if they didn't have as many veggie options (mainly, the mushroom and goat cheese pizza sounds good. Ofcourse, maybe we weren't eating this late enough. Nik's only comment was: "good thing whiskey Thursday was today, because I heard you have to eat this when you're drunk." So, maybe not the best sober pizza, but it might be your best post-drinking option at 2am.

Top 10!

An anonymous commenter recommended we add a sidebar with our Top 10, which I thought was a great idea. But then I realized that we need to somehow come up with an "overall" score for each pizza place we've tried. In order to do so, we had to figure out how we would weight each category, and decided on:

Appearance - 10%
Aroma - 10%
Overall Taste - 30%
Pepperoni Pizza - 20%
Specialty Pizza Options/Menu - 15%
X-factor - 15%

Obviously changing the percentages could effect the overall score for each place, but I think this should accurately reflect our favorites as a group (Jean-Paul's Paradiso is in my personal top 10). I'll be sure to keep this updated with each new post too! And if you're wondering why there's a repeated number, it's because there was a tie.

Happy eating!

Roc-A-Fellas Pizza

Well, it looks like pizza night is on hold one more week. But, I'll tell you about Roc-a-fella's Pizza, the last pizza night we had before this brief hiatus. Nik headed out to Sharonville to pick us up a Pepperoni pizza and a Sausage, Spinach, and Ricotta pizza. Unfortunately, they burnt one of the pizzas. They offered the burnt one for free, or Nik could wait for them to make another. Nik chose to wait for another, but that meant that the one pizza that was already done and not burnt sat there while they re-did the burnt pizza. Apparently the people working there were nice about the situation, but it still made it a little difficult to judge fairly since the pizza(s) was not very warm. In any case, here's how they scored:

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

Appearance (overall): 3.83
Aroma (overall): 3.75
Taste (overall): 3.92
Crust - 4.00
Cheese - 3.83
Toppings - 3.83
Sauce - 3.33
Pepperoni Pizza (overall): 3.83
Specialty Pizza & Menu Options: 3.50
X-factor: 3.50

And here's what they looked like:

Kevin and I both noted how good the crust was since they brush a garlic butter sauce on the edge, so Kevin liked the wide edge to the crust. However, the really sweet sauce is holding the pizza back. I usually like a sweet sauce, but this was way too sweet. I was also disappointed in the spinach because it seemed to be frozen, not fresh. Roc-A-Fellas Pizza is a solid NY style pizza, but I'd have to say that I've had better NY style pizza in the Cincinnati area.

Marco's Pizza

Sorry for the lapse in blogs! We haven't been able to do pizza night the last 2 weeks due to schedule conflicts, and we'll miss pizza night again this coming week since I'll be traveling for work, but we do have 2 posts that I've been lazy on getting up. So, here's the first one, from 4 weeks ago. I braved the snowy yucky weather to head up north a little bit to pick up a couple of pizzas from Marco's Pizza in Deer Park. I had gotten a Living Social deal for Marco's a couple of weeks before this pizza night, so I was able to use it and get and hardly pay anything! On top of that, Marco's always has really good coupons on their website. Despite a little slipping around, I made it up to Marco's safely. When I pulled up to the strip mall that Marco's was located in, I expected it to be you're typical take-out pizza place and was pleasantly surprised to see it had a nice, stone wall and a little sitting area where they actually served you.

I picked us up a Pepperoni pizza (classic crust) and a White Cheezy pizza (thin crust, no bacon). Here's what the pizzas looked like (after sitting in the oven for 30 minutes since Nik & Kevin had to work later than they thought they would):

And it was mine and Nik's 4 year dating anniversary, so I surprised him with a (delicious!) Palermo torte from Servatii's (and he surprised me with flowers :)).

Here's what we thought of Marco's Pizza:

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

Appearance (overall): 3.42
Aroma (overall): 3.88
Taste (overall): 3.92
Crust - 4.33
Cheese - 3.25
Toppings - 4.00
Sauce - 3.83
Pepperoni Pizza (overall): 3.75
Specialty Pizza & Menu Options: 4.42
X-factor: 4.08

While Marco's Pizza isn't our new overall favorite pizza place in Cincinnati, it is my new favorite "not too expensive" pizza place. I really like both of the crusts and the sauce, but unfortunately the cheese brought the pizzas down. Kevin agreed, saying that it was otherwise very good pizza, especially given that with coupons it's relatively inexpensive. I thought that the crusts were perfectly done, and Nik thought that the thin crust was like a Ritz cracker and that the cracker help up in the oven pretty well. I thought that the Pepperoni pizza was salty (in a good way) and a little greasy (but it did sit in the oven for 30 minutes once I got home). And I thought that the White Cheezy pizza was REALLY good with a nice crackery crust. What really helped out the Specialty Pizza & Menu Options and the X-factor was all the crust options and the on-line ordering system. The on-line ordering is super easy and you get to choose:

• type of sauce
• amount of sauce
• crust topper: garlic butter, parmesan, or roma (for free!)
• bake style: regular, well done, etc.
• pizza side: garlic butter, marinara, ranch (for free!)

I would definitely pick up pizza from Marco's again, I just wish it was a little closer.