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...

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.