Brothers Pizza

Brothers Pizza (No apostrophe – I looked it up)

In search of Tulsa’s best pizza, the team ventured down south (swimsuits and hazmat suits in hand... ready for the oil spill) to Brothers Pizza.  The swimsuits would have been better left at home due to the chilling temperatures that greeted us upon arrival.  Perhaps the temperature was set so low in expectation of the numerous pizza enthusiasts expected to occupy the establishment.  Thankfully the laid back atmosphere was such, the pizza loving team could adjust the temperatures based on our own internal preference - a true sign of a quality restaurant.

According to urban legend, Brothers Pizza was established out of a breakup between former Hideaway employees.  Regardless of the urban ledged, it is impossible to eat at Brothers without wondering if it is simply a rebranded version of Hideaway… or possibly a hideaway takeout order placed in a new box.  To commemorate the elaborate resemblance to Hideaway, we came up with several tag lines that could be used to describe the Brothers Pizza experience:

-Just like Hideaway but cheaper

-Hideaway’s twin brother on quality and it’s little brother on price (notice the brother theme)

-Our pizza names are just as creative as Hideaway, our quality just as good, but our prices are just cheaper

-Think of us as the hole-in-the-wall version of Hideaway.

One of the great things about Brothers Pizza is the table is transformed into a giant canvas, complete with crayons… otherwise known as the 19^th century version of giving a kid an iPhone to keep him or her quiet.  This plan worked to perfection, as all of the kids of the group were thoroughly entertained.  This resulted in an average atmosphere score of 4.33 out of 5 – the highest rated atmosphere yet!

The team was feeling very eclectic on this evening, ordering 5 different types of pizza and one sandwich.  Pizza selections included: Big Brother, Little Brother, Mama Mia, Three Cheese, and Hawaiian Delight.  Apparently the quality was top notch, with several perfect scores.  All together the average pizza score was 8.33 out of 10, just slightly lower than the previous week.

The term value encompasses many intangible assets, not necessarily in direct correlation with the price tag.  This group was able to recognize Brothers value, rating the pizza 3.67 out of 5.  This was surely due to the large selection of specialty pizzas, all available for $12.99.  In addition, Brothers has a daily special for each day of the week – a great way to watch the budget during this soft economy.

It’s clear the pizza team though very highly of Brothers Pizza.  Between it’s hole-in-the-wall feel, eclectic pizza, and excellent value, this establishment will likely be close to the top of the list for best pizza
in town!

Cute Friends

This picture is for you Christian.

Studying the menu intently...and coloring.

The beautiful picture that Rachel drew...definitely upped the atmosphere quality.

Fun coloring.

The menu....and look at the giant pizza box.

The group.

Pesto pizza...yummy.

Another good one.

                                  

Savastano's

It’s as far south as we’re going to go as we tour around Tulsa in search of the most delectable specialty pizza the town has to offer.  Savastano’s was, at least by my definition, on the southern fringe of south Tulsa (though who really knows? People define south Tulsa, mid-town, downtown, BA, etc so differently it’s hard to really know).

I’d like to walk you through my entire first experience at Savastano’s under the assumption that it was generally the same for all of us who sampled its flavor just last night.

I drove over to Savastano’s with another member of the crew (Parsy-pants) and really had a wonderful conversation on the way over.  I believe it did quite a lot to start the night off on the right two feet.  Also worth mentioning is that Luke looked really good last night. He was wearing these specs with his work clothes and I think we all couldn’t help but notice how lovely and grown up he looked.  I know I was having trouble guarding my heart.

We got out of the car and headed towards the restaurant where (bless my soul!!) Russ and AA Arnold were chillin waiting for everyone else to show up.  Russ was wearing shorts so it was pretty nice.

To jump forward a bit, once everyone showed up, there were 10 of us if you count the 45 minute late arrival of future CEO of the world Dustin Curzon (which I do count).  It was a nice size group though I must say there were some people missing and you could definitely feel the holes around the table where their presence should have been (you guys know who you are).

We took a little time to decide on what we wanted to order but when we finally made the decision, we went with two large deep-dish pizzas: one with pepperoni and Italian sausage and one with spinach, garlic butter, and chicken.  We had noticed the note in the menu informing us that there would be a 45 minute wait for the deep dish pizzas so we also ordered a couple appetizers and a few of us started in on the beers.

Because I am the one writing this, I guess I get to make my own personal opinion the opinion of the group in a sense.  So I’ll go ahead and say that we all really enjoyed having the food take that long to come out.  I mean sure, some of us had places to be and things to do later, but the long wait BEFORE the food came out really made everyone have to just surrender to the time dinner was going to take. And I really think we all greatly enjoyed getting to laze around at our outdoor table in the wonderful weather and just talk to each other. 

I believe it was due Savastano’s ability to facilitate a nice, long, and relaxing hangout experience that it received an amazing 4.2 out of 5 for atmosphere!!  That is our highest yet by a large margin and it strengthens the argument that creating a place that is comfortable, low-stress, and facilitates friendships is a more important aspect of atmosphere than having really old paraphernalia on all the walls and dimming the lights.

Skip forward a little bit to when the pizza came out.   AAAAAAAAHHHH!!! It’s very exciting.  The pizza looked absolutely amazing and you could tell, just by looking at it, that it had at least 6 heart attacks worth of cheese on each slice.  It’s a little hard to fairly compare Savastano’s pizza to the other restaurants we’ve visited.  It’s a completely different food in a lot of ways.  However, in the end, you’re still taking bread, putting some sauce on it, covering that with cheese, and adding the requested toppings.  So maybe it’s not has hard as we thought to compare the two.

I won’t get into my personal opinion about the pizza other than to say that I’ve eaten the leftovers for both lunch and dinner today and really all I want right now is more.  But we’ll let the numbers do that talking as we reveal that Savastano’s received an astounding 8.5 for pizza!!!  OH. MY. GOSH.  That’s a good score. 

I really can’t speak for the whole group as to why we seemed to unanimously agree that this pizza was theSHIZ.com, but I will say that I really appreciate the large amount of cheese.  Sometimes Chicago-style pizza has too much sauce in the sauce to cheese ratio, but Sav’s really stepped it up on the cheese end of the bargain and the results were very pleasing to the millions of bumps on my tongue that God gave me for tasting things.

At the same time though, I’ve heard people in the group say that they’re not that into the whole “mountains of cheese” thing so who knows what those people tasted in the pizza that caused them to also give it such a good rating.  The point is though that we seemed to like this place quite a fresh bit.

And the last rating that we come to is the blemish on the overall score for Savastano’s.  Sav’s was only able to pull a 2.7 on the value scale.  That’s our lowest value so far.  A large part of this is probably attributable to the fact that we had a $139 ticket for only 10 of us.  However, once you take out the beers, other drinks, and superfluous appetizers, the pizza really comes out to about $2.75 a slice which is actually very comparable to the previous places we have been.  Considering how highly we rated the pizza itself, you would have thought our value would have been higher.

Who can say why the numbers do what they do though?  The one thing we know is that the numbers NEVER lie.  When you are trying to give a review on a restaurant and you stick to only words and qualitative ratings, you’ll never truly know how good it was.  But when you assign a number to it, you might as well be etching it into stone tablets. 

I do think that part of the reason the value was low was due to the fact that we didn’t eat all the pizza and thus, we ended up having to pay for slices we didn’t eat. (though this ended up working out well for me personally because, as I told you earlier, I have greatly enjoyed some leftovers.)

At this point though, I have typed for far too long and most of you are absolutely sick of reading my words (that is if you’ve even gotten this far).  So I will stop even though honestly, I could probably go on at least twice this long about this wonderful little South Tulsa gem.  I was a huge fan and definitely plan on going back. (and I didn’t even get to mention how wonderful it was when Luke, Wylie and myself played some epic shuffleboard inside after dinner!!  Story for another time…)

SAVASTANO’S!!!!

Part of the crew having some intense discussion while waiting for our fabulous pizza to arrive.

Russ is the new Luke...lookin good Russ.

Dustin is ready to smoke his Mozzarella stick.

Cuties.

Seriously, the boys don't know how to be normal. This concerns me.

The glorious pizza.

Yummy cheesy goodness.

Pie Hole

Last night marked the third night in our quest for excellence....the one and only Pie Hole. I think this was a quite overwhelming experience for the workers over at Pie Hole. We had quite a large group, and there were only four tables to accommodate us. I think this caused stress levels to soar for the Pie Hole employees. Fortunately for us, this did not affect their pizza making skills, nor the fabulous company of the pizza perfection finders. Last night was definitely another successful pizza night, and took the group one step closer to finding the greatest pizza in all of Tulsa.

And now the results of our ranking of Pie Hole. The overall pizza score for Pie Hole was a 7.6, which was higher than Mario's or Uncle Vinny's by a whole point. We felt that the ingredients at Pie Hole were very fresh and extremely tasty. They used fresh spinach, fresh garlic, fresh onions, and had 500,000,000 options of topping for their pizza, not to mention they have specialty pizzas daily that looked delicious. The flavor was just fabulous. The overall average for value was a 4.2, which is around the same average as the other two places we have visited. So far, we have seen great prices, for the pizza we are receiving. Hats off to all you hole in the wall places in Tulsa...our wallets appreciate you. A slice of pizza at Pie Hole is $2.25 and each additional topping $.25 (I think). Very fair. The atmosphere of Pie Hole received a 3.2, which is a little higher than the other two. This surprises me a little bit, because this place is a bit smaller then the other places we have visited. Maybe it has to do with the pretty green walls? Eh. Probably.

Last night, we all realized that we are getting pretty serious about this pizza search. It is no longer about fun and games, it is about sweat and determination. We WILL find the greatest pizza in Tulsa, no matter the cost( I can say that, because I haven't spent more than $5 each week).

This is what happens when you refuse to take a normal picture Luke.

The beginning of table number 1 - we were sadly separated

Half of the group - I don't know why I did not take a picture of the other half. 

 

 

Uncle Vinny's II

Last night marked the second convening of pizza night at Uncle Vinny's New York Pizza, and what a night it was. The company this week would, for sure, rank a 10. We had a group of around 15 people, almost doubling in size. We feel like pizza night #2 was a complete success. There were two very special things that I particularly enjoyed about Uncle Vinny's: 1.) I enjoyed watching the pizza chef twirl the pizza dough around his hand. He would throw the dough up in the air, and spin it around in order to make the crust. When people have these kinds of special abilities, I automatically respect them. I just don't possess these kind of abilities. 2.) I had the opportunity to enter a drawing for a.) a $500 gas card b.) a flat screen tv, or c.) a chance to win a membership to a gym. Not only did I get to eat some good pizza, and be entertained by the flying dough, but I have a chance of being a winner. I like this.

Back to business...THE PIZZA and our rankings. This week we added many more taste buds to our judging. We also implemented a new system. People were not allowed to see their fellow friend's votes, so they would not feel pressured to vote a certain way. We thought this was a wise decision. In case you forgot our scale, we will give you a reminder. We came up with three scales to rank our experience: our pizza (flavor, quality, deliciousness, texture, etc.), value (the price of the pizza along with the flavor), and overall atmosphere (how well did they decorate?). For the pizza scale, we decided a 1-10 (whole numbers only please) scale was in order, because this is obviously the most important quality. The atmosphere and value are set on a 1-5 scale, because it just makes things easier. The rankings for Uncle Vinny's were a bit lower than Mario's. Not significantly, but they were still lower. The overall quality of pizza ranked a 6.07, compared to last week's 6.625. The value of the pizza scored a 4.47, compared to last week's 4.875. Lastly, the atmosphere of Uncle Vinny's was a 2.73 compared to Mario's 2.75. That was a close one.

Mario's and Uncle Vinny's were very similar types of pizza...both New York Style. I would eat both again...I would even go so far to say that I would eat them both again regularly. They are both delicious pizza places, and both restaurants had very nice workers. They positively interacted with us, and we have yet to have a negative experience. And now for our pictures....

The glorious menu...check out the rockin prices.

Waiting in line...very excited for our new pizza experience.

Dustin happened to match the decor....it was very special.

Amy Ann and Emily are just so happy to be at Pizza Night.

Some of the boys...looking good Luke.

Betsy and her yummy pizza.

The classic pepperoni.

Cheese knots...we had some mixed reviews on them. I personally enjoyed them.

The Supreme.