The NEWEST Tulsa pizza place...Marleys.

Marley's was our final stop on our quest for excellence...and excellence we did find. As pizza perfection finders we truly believe that we have found some great pizza places in Tulsa that have not been receiving the attention that they deserve. This week we will have a closure dinner at Hideaway, and potentially rank our favorite places now that we have eaten at each of them. The journey has been long and treacherous, but our sacrifice was well worth it as we believe that we can now give our friends and family suggestions as to where to receive the best pizza Tulsa and the best value and atmosphere. Now onto Marley's....

Marley's is a new pizza restaurant at 71st and Sheridan serving Chicago Style Pizza. I was very fond of this Chicago Style Pizza. Sometimes after eating this thick style of pizza I feel ill for hours, at times even days. There is just a large amount of grease and cheese, and my body just doesn't know how to respond to this. Marley's did not affect me this way. Marley's had a great combination of thick crust (not too thick, just thick enough), cheese, sauce and toppings. I thought it was a job well done. I think Marley's will succeed in Tulsa. While I did enjoy Marley's, I think that Chicago Pizza is probably more enjoyable for the males. Take that as you will.

Marley's scored pretty well on our rating scale this past week. The pizza received a 7.6, which is pretty good. The atmosphere received a 3.9. I personally didn't feel the atmosphere was anything to rave about, but it was a fun place. The value of the pizza was a 3.7. It was more fairly priced than Savastanos and in my opion, just as good.

I hope you have enjoyed our pizza journey, and hopefully we will soon write a final blog wrapping up thoughts on our pizza quest.

Cute

Love. 

Amy Ann plans on framing this and putting it on her bedside table, so now matter what way she faces, Russ is there.

Two of my favorite people. 

Leftover cheese bread.

Yummy pizza.

Pizza dip...pretty freaking good. 

Aw Hey Mambo Hey.

Hey Mambo

Hey Mambo, one of Tulsa’s newest restaurants, hosted the team for our 11^th consecutive week, scowering T-Town for the city’s best pizza place.  While the name may sound cheesy, this restaurant does not mess around.  From the brick wall interiors, to the dark lighting and expansive wine list, Hey Mambo creates an atmosphere best suited for a Friday night date (or in our case, 6 single people on a Tuesday night).  They even had breadsticks that looked more like table decorations, although extremely tasty!

Hey Mambo’s pizza menu consists of a more sophisticated selection of specialty toppings and pizzas.  Some of the toppings include: baby spinach, pine nuts, prosciutto, carmelized onions, feta and gorgonzola cheese, pepper bacon, smoked gouda, salmon, and fried sage (Thankfully not all of these toppings are on the same pizza). 

We selected two pizzas.  The first was the “Thasta Spicy Meatball” (or as Libby might say, “man pizza”) which included homemade spicy meatball halves, carmelized red onions, red pepper flakes and mozzarella.  The second was “The Big Cheese”, which might be the best cheese pizza I’ve ever tasted.  With mozzarella, feta, parmesan, olive oil, romano and gorgonzola, this pizza had tons of flavor.  This pizza significantly contributed to the high ratings from the group.

Overall pizza score: 8.83

Atmosphere: 4.5

Value: 2.5

Hey Mambo was certainly one of the best restaurants we’ve been to so far.  This place will definitely be seeing repeat business from our group.  Plus, the center of the universe is only one block away.

Pretty tight atmosphere.

John and the breadsticks...what an artistic picture.

Why do i love being weird?

Profile pic!

Probably the best cheese pizza ever!

Top That

Last week took us to a tasty pizza place called Top That near 81st and Memorial. Since it is newly opened none of us really knew what to expect. Boy were we surprised when we found out you could get a pizza for $5.99 with an unlimited amount of toppings! I think I speak for the whole group when I say that this may very well have upped our value score...and possibly our overall pizza score as well all acted a little like kids in a candy store. 

I think It was Rachel who said it best, "Basically this is Subway for Pizza." What a novel concept! You go through the line and start by picking your pizza crust (choice of 3), sauce (choice of 5 - I think - including an Alfredo, various reds, and a garlic/olive oil combination), and then pile on the toppings. The pizza then goes through an oven while you watch and out comes the finished product. It all happens pretty fast. In the end I think we were all pretty happy with our pizzas. Although I will say I don't have a future career in making tasty topping combinations....

On to the scores. Pizza scored a 6.7 which is not our highest but also not our lowest. Value got a 3.8 which is pretty good. Lastly atmosphere got a 3.3. Honestly I don't understand this one, but there were a lot of other people voting. We do have to keep it fair on this here blog. Overall I would say we all liked Top That and thought it was a good concept. I don't know why I am about to say this, but I think kids would really like it. It seems like it would be a good way to please a family what with the create your own with all the toppings you want and all of that jazz. And with that random comment I conclude my blog post on Top That pizza.


The night of awkward pictures...

The group.

My pizza. Yum Yum.

Cutie Betsy.

Amy Ann loves this picture.

I felt I had to be fair and put up a very attractive picture of myself.

Nice.

Joe Momma's Pizza

I would first like to apologize for being so late on this blog post. I know that people have been very upset by this, and probably crying themselves to sleep at night. For this, I feel some extreme guilt.

Last week we ventured downtown to Joe Momma's Pizza. Dang. This place was good. Our little crew sat in the back room, which was a bit reminiscent of Grandfather's House at Silver Dollar City. For you who have not been to Silver Dollar City, this means that the room was slanted. I don't think that Joe Momma's meant for that to happen, but it brought back some great memories of my childhood and consequently upped my score for their atmosphere.

Joe Momma's truly is a fun place. It was extremely busy, and it was the first time we had to wait somewhere for a table. This is because Tuesday nights are $5 pizza night, which is an excellent deal. The guests and wait staff at Joe Momma's were very eclectic, which as a people watcher I thoroughly enjoy. Being right in the heart of downtown also makes this place very fun to visit. Not to mention that right next door (you can look while you wait for a table) is a t-shirt store that sells awesome Tulsa t-shirts. I'm talking awesome. They had Camelot hotel t-shirts! Unfortunately, I listened to some poor advice, and waited until after dinner to buy my t-shirt in which case the store was closed. I'm still in mourning. This is all irrelevant, but I didn't want you to make the same mistakes that I have made, and I wanted you to know there is entertainment in case you have to wait.

Ok, so lets talk scores here. The first score I would like to announce is the atmosphere. The rocking atmosphere scored a whopping 4.4. Not too shabby. The pizza value is a 4.5, which I would attribute to $5 pizza night. And the overall score is a 7.9, which I would say is pretty stinking good. I think each of us would recommend Joe Momma's to a friend.

Yummy pizza. We started eating to quickly to get a picture of a whole pizza.

This is what almost every boy ordered.

Happy girls. 

Creeper.

Didn't want to leave John out. 

Definition of Zach and Christian's relationship. 

I had to add a special picture of Russ and Amy Ann, because AA was the photographer and didn't get a picture of them.

Umberto's Pizzeria

Well, well, well.  Here we are in the 150^th consecutive pizza week (or something like that) and it is something to celebrate!!  I’m going to go ahead and assume that everyone had a workday about like I did yesterday which would mean that we all needed Pizza Night pretty badly last night.

Pizza night got pushed up an hour last night because some of us (slash all but one of us) had assorted places that we needed to be at 7 o’clock.  Thus, around 7PM eastern time (6PM central), a force of 8 strong converged upon Umberto’s Pizzeria at roughly 21^st and Harvard.  This is their story.

John Lawrance and Christian Roderick (myself) were the first on the scene (separate cars though…better for the environment).  As I got out of my car and saw John getting out of his at the same time, it was like looking in a mirror.  Everything I did, he did.  Plus, we look fairly similar…so it was kinda trippy.  BUT that only lasted a few moments before Christopher Wy-Guy, London Read, Betsmurphy, and Carol Francis showed up.  I was immediately relieved to see that a couple of them had at least thought to throw on something blue for the night.  I didn’t want to be the only one wearing blue.

Betsy looked taller than usual…

I stole this picture from some guy on flickr whose flickr site said that if I didn’t give him credit, he would be very upset.  So here’s his credit.

UMBERTO’s PIZZERIA!!

Umberto’s is one of my personal favorite pizza places in Tulsa.  I might even go as far as to say it’s one of my staple lunch restaurants in Tulsa.  Thus, I was very interested to see how it would stand up to the critiques of such pizza connoisseurs as @jlawrance, @dcurzon, @racho28, etc.

Betsy was the first to order; mostly because she ordered so fast that it would have been almost impossible for anyone else to collect their thoughts enough to construct the sentence needed to place an order before she was done.  Betsy is one of the few that have stayed true throughout this entire experiment to a single flavor(?) of pizza.  Betsy ALWAYS gets pineapple and Canadian bacon.  I have to respect her dedication to the control factor as she goes through this experiment. 

I’ll also give @cwylie8642 a shout out here as he has stuck with his original order of 3 slices of cheese pizza every week that it was possible. (not to be confused with a single slice of 3-cheese pizza Libby)

So Betsy placed her order followed by @somebody who was followed by @somebodyelse and slowly we all cycled through the line placing our various orders.  As there were only six of us, we went for a booth that looked like it could fit us all.  But then, surprise!, D. and E. Curzon showed up right as we sat down.  It was either find a new table or squeeze in.  Guess what we did.

The pizza came out quickly with Wylie’s coming out first (as is always the case when you order plain cheese pizza).  I think we were all pleased to find that this restaurant finally offered Rachel a new weird something to put on her pizza.  I guess I had just never thought that putting mandarin oranges on a slice of pizza with any form of bacon, albeit Canadian, could be good.  Honestly though, Rachel usually makes good choices so I bet it was pretty good.

Also, please notice Dustin in the background .  He’s talking about something.  Also, notice the blue…

Personally, I was happy to find that Umberto’s offered a full spread of shakable spices to add to your pizza.  The most important of these was obviously the garlic salt which can actually make or break an entire pizzeria sometimes and can almost always make or break a slice of pizza.

I think we’ll take this moment to go ahead and pan around the table to catch a shot of Emily, the Libster, and John.

I see you wearing that blue Libby.

Then if we pan around a bit further to catch the two remaining undocumented attendees…

And I know that SOMEWHERE, on SOMEONE’s camera from last night, is a really great picture of that cutsie little Wy-guy with his head buried in Christian “The Hunk” Roderick’s shoulder with Rachel giving something between a skeptical and a jealous look.  Whoever you are, we need to get that picture on here…PRESTO…no wait…PRONTO.

This brings us to the ratings.  Umberto’s received a fairly average rating in the Pizza department coming in at a 7.4/10 (rounded).  Initially, I was surprised by this considering how much I love this place and how much everyone seemed to be enjoying his or her peeeeeetza.  But after some thought, I think what it comes down to is that by this time in our experiment, we have developed some pretty high standards for pizza.  Having been to places like La Roma, Brother’s Pizza, etc, we have gotten to the point where “pretty good” pizza just doesn’t warrant more than an average rating.  And I have to agree with the group overall, Umberto’s is definitely good but it doesn’t quite stack up to some of the other gems Tulsa has to offer.

Value.  I’ll start by saying that this is the only time I have ever given a rating of 5/5 for value.  I feel like this might be directly correlated to the fact that I only ordered a single piece of pizza last night and abstained from getting a drink whereas I usually get at least two pieces and a large drink.  Thus, I was very happy with my total cost of just over 3 dollars for the meal.  After the reviews came in, it appeared that the group was relatively happy with the prices at Umberto’s.  The final tally brings us to a rating of just under 3.8/5 for value which I don’t believe is the highest we’ve seen but is definitely a solid number.

The last category we have is Atmosphere.  I’ll tell you right off the bat that Umberto’s got a 4.1/5.  That’s a pretty solid review for atmosphere and if I can go ahead and presume to know why everyone gave Umberto’s a solid review in this category, I would say that it is most likely a combination of the restaurant location and the close quarters that we got to share at the booth.  It is common knowledge that everyone is happier when he or she is forced to be PACKED into a booth with great friends.   It just makes people happy.  Also, with the location being 21^st and Harvard, the restaurant has a bit of an “Old Town” feel just because that part of town is starting to be a bit run down and such.  I personally think it’s kind of a cool part of town and I think that’s part of why it received such a solid review.

So as a whole, Umberto’s didn’t seem to blow our connoisseurs away or anything but it also definitely didn’t disappoint anyone.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAND, after the dinner was over, most of us showed our blue colors and carpooled over to the BOK Center to see our favorite NBA team get stomped by the Memphis Grizzlies!!!

Even though the Thunder got beat pretty bad, it was still really fun to see them play and to hang out at the NBA Exhibition game with such great friends.

Overall, it was a wonderful night and I just LOVE my friends.  I do wish that Russ and Amy Ann could have been there though.  They were definitely missed along with Luke and Zach.  But at least we were still able to have some semblance of a good time!  ;)

Thanks for reading (if you actually made it all the way to the bottom),
Christian

New York Pizza....4 guys, a girl, and a pizza place.

I apologize for being so late on the blog this week. I have been in turbo mode for approximately a week, and have neglected one of my top priorities...that being said, let the blog post begin.

Unfortunately, this week we had many missing key components to our group. There were only 5 of us at pizza night last Tuesday. I'm not saying it was any less fun, but I am saying that the voting may not be as fair as it typically is. I must also add that the more pizza places we visit, the more difficult the voting becomes. In my personal opinion, we have yet to visit a bad pizza place, so hats off to you Tulsa, Oklahoma for only allowing good pizza in our town. I should probably knock on wood, since we still have 6 places left to go. I'm also happy to announce that I am not tired of pizza, i still look forward to eating it every single week. If there is anything positive coming from this experience (other than spending time with some solid people, and increasing my waistline) I'm becoming a pizza connoisseur (aka pizza snob). It's just another activity to add to the resume...who wouldn't want me now? 

Ok, onto the voting for this week. This past week we visited New York Pizza at 48th and Harvard. I feel obligated to tell our readers that we have had some cheaters at pizza night recently, that have been bringing down the overall average of our pizza score. I'm not going to say names or anything, but there have been people ordering calzones, and have then scored lower. I don't remember this being calzone night, but it's whatever. The scores this week were lower than usual, I think part of this is because the group was smaller. The score of the overall quality of the pizza was a mere 6. Don't let this score discourage you from eating at New York Pizza. I still thoroughly enjoyed my pizza, and would eat there again. It just may not have been as good as the others. For this post I must add the range of scores for the quality. I think the scores from this week (if i remember correctly) range from a 4 to a 9. This is where pizza choosing skills came into play. Some people may have just made poor life choices...but who am i to judge. The score of the value of pizza came in at a 3, and the atmosphere came in at a low 2.4. We may have been a little harsh this week, but the pizza and the company was still good. 

John all dressed up for pizza night...and being a loner because of it.

John really excited to be sitting next to Wylie at pizza night. Im not sure if the feeling is mutual.

My pizza. Yum yum, Canadian bacon, ricotta, and pineapple. I was a fan.

Luke was even more excited than me. That's saying a lot.

Wylie eating his regular pizza choice...cheese.

For some reason I did not have a picture of Christian at pizza night, and I felt bad about this. Therefore, pretend like there was a bike race happening on Harvard, and Christian wanted to lay on the concrete and watch while he was waiting for his pizza.

La Roma...Mobster's Paradise

Okay so I know you have all been waiting with bated breath for such a time as this. I also know it is a bit late, however this is being written by Betsy, which as you probably could expect can't seem to get things done on time. 

This week the pizza perfection finder squad randomly chose La Roma as our pizza destination. Let me set the stage for you so you can get some idea as to what we all experienced. You drive up to La Roma, located in a rundown albeit shady strip mall at 61st and Sheridan. When you walk in the door, you get the idea that Italian (or perhaps Lebanese) mobsters must have some kind of illicit rendezvous in one of the darkened corners. Needless to say, La Roma has quite a quaint feel, which is always a recipe for awesomeness. Looking at the menu at La Roma, you immediately see the Lebanese/Italian selections, including baklava and other sweet treats. You aren't able to order pizza by the slice at La Roma, however I feel this enhances the quality of the pizza, because all the ingredients are able to be cooked under the cheese, which let's be real here, is an important component of a good pizza. I ordered my usual-Canadian bacon and pineapple-(If you haven't ever eaten this delicious concoction please put your shoes on immediately, grab your keys, and go to your nearest pizzeria. You won't be disappointed.) I must say as far as pizza quality goes, La Roma was my favorite. The folks over there have perfected the crunchy:moist ratio of the crust. Anyway, enough is enough. I know you are all dying to hear how the vote went down so we'll just get straight to the point.

In the category of taste-(remember this category is rated 1-10) the pizza perfection finders found La Roma's pizza a 7.9 ((personaly i rated it a 10))

In the category of Value (1-5) the score was 2.8

In the category of Atmosphere (1-5) the score was 2.5--perhaps this had to do with the mafia feel to the place.

All in all, La Roma was a good experience, and I think everyone would go back-I definitely would. That's all I have. Come back next week for a whole new evaluation and adventure! 

Pictures to come...