Today we ended up at a new Italian restaurant called Pisa Pizza located in Mesa. Upon entering there is a seating area lined with a wall that separates it from the main dining section. As you proceed to your table you are surrounded by what looks like a small Italian town with murals and fake windows. The restaurant was very clean and the service was fast.

Being a group of 8 we ordered three 18″ pizzas. One was a three cheese with peperoni, another was their “special pizza” which was composed of meats and vegetables, and the last one was pizza Ala vodka. We also ordered three bruschetta portions to start. The appetizers were amazing. The bruschetta tasted very fresh and had a unique tomato/cheese mix. The pizza was great as well. I only tried the three cheese and the Ala Vodka. Both had different seasonings and awesome thin crust.(they offer pizza in both thin and thick crust)

Overall the service was extremely friendly and even gave us complimentary garlic knots to start. Our waitress asked us on a scale of 1-5 what we thought. I would have to give them a 4. All ingredients were tasty and not overly greasy or stuffed with too much garlic. I would recommend Pisa Pizza for take out or to eat at the restaurant.

We brought in some Little Caesar’s today for lunch.

General thought:  They’ve managed to pick up a bit of slack since the paper-thin pizzas that came two-to-an-oversized box in my childhood.  The crust was thicker, although still much thinner than Chicago style, and the toppings were sliced larger.  Both the sausage and pepperoni pies did seem to have a fair amount of topping.

However, the Crazy Bread never changes.  Still incredibly soft and doughy, primarily tasting of a sprinkling of cheese on top.  It’s hard to compare it with anyone else’s breadsticks, since it seems designed differently– to be crustless for kids.

General conclusion:  They’re ready to compete with other national chains.

We brought in some pizza from Papa John’s for lunch today.

The size of the pizzas themselves was a bit unimpressive.  Although the toppings were sufficient, I notice a trend towards smaller and smaller portions– there are still places where a large is 18 inches; these appeared to be 16.
While I used to think of their crust as very sweet, they seem to have reformulated to be a bit less sweet.  I tried the ham-pineapple-tomato pie, and found it lacking in ham, but generally well balanced.  The pepperoni pizza, in contrast, had plenty.  The sauce was sufficient to not end up dry, without being soggy.  The overall experience was competent, but it was more a ‘pick it as a local choice’ level, not a ‘come from across town’ special.

First Impressions

While Pizza Fusion is non-descript out front– aside from the obvious fleet of unusual delivery cars– the inside is heavily decorated in both environmentally-friendly fashion, and information explaining how indeed the setup is environmentally friendly.  Plenty of small touches– bookshelves on the walls, chalkboarded special offers– give both an attempt to be a trendy bistro and a neighbourhood drop-in centre.

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Pizza Fusion is located off of Mckellips Rd. between Higley and Recker. Having heard mixed reviews on the place we decided to give it a try.

Tree huggers will love this place was my first reaction.  I’m far from one so all I cared was how the food tasted. Upon entering we were seated almost immediately. Our waitress (Ashley) then welcomed us and explained the restaurant. Everything there has some type of environmental friendly story behind it. The toilets use about half the water as a normal toilet. The menus are made of bamboo, which is easier to recycle. I was just hoping the pizza was not recycled.

The food at pizza fusion is built around health. The soda is made of pure cane sugar which was actually quite good. I would recommend trying the black cherry soda. The pizza is made of all organic ingredients. We decided to get a few pizzas. We ordered the Seattle, the Greek, ham and pineapple, and another with pepperoni and sausage.

Overall the pizza was good and I didn’t feel like you normally do when you finish eating a bunch of greasy pizza. Maybe that’s because everything was so “organic” and “healthy”. I think Pizza Fusion is kind of a cool place that you should go try at least once. It is a bit pricey so don’t expect to pay a few bucks and get full. That may be the only downside to this “tree hugger wonderland”.

Today we wanted somewhere close and somewhat fast. We decided we would try out Streets of New York located on Superstition Springs Blvd. & Power in Mesa, AZ. They serve pizza, sandwiches, & salads. We were a group of about 10 so we decided to just get some pizzas to share. We went with three thin crust. We had a pepperoni, a new york combo, and a ham and pineapple.

The pizza was good. Not the best pizza I have ever had, but it was pretty good. The place has a good atmosphere. Would be a good place to go with some friends and catch a game. I believe their sandwiches and salads are pretty good as well. If you are in the area, go ahead and check it out.

There was a toss up today as to where we should head for lunch. No one had any ideas or was too enthused to make a decision as to where we should. In the end we settled on the Streets of New York. This seemed like a fitting option for all as it was not to far away and had a little bit of everything so that we could all do our own thing. (more…)

We tried several pies from Hungry Howie’s recently.  Although their common locations– inside gas stations and strip malls– is unlikely to create much good faith, the pizzas themselves seemed moderately competent.

The pizzas were moderately well-topped.  A supreme pie had the usual assortment of toppings, cut into fairly large chunks and thoroughly covering the pizza.  The ham and pinapple was less impressive in comparison, with relatively little pineapple.

Hungry Howie’s main gimmick is the addition of seasonings to the crust.  While sesame seeds added a mild taste and pleasing crunch, the garlic-butter topping was overpowering and vaguely artificial tasting, yet somewhat addictive.

Conclusion

We’ve had worse pizza.  All the time.  If they’re price competitive, they’re definitely a reasonable alternative to other local pizza chains; the seasoned crust options also add variety, although hardly serve as “really authentic”.

Coming from an Italian family, I am always on the look out for new places to eat that offer a good home cooked Italian meal. I have lived in Arizona for about 25 years now and there have been very few Italian places that I would consider being authentic except for the restaurant my wife and I tried tonight.

Giovanni’s Little Italy located in Gilbert, on Gilbert Road just north of Guadalupe, was a delightful surprise. From the outside it looked like a busy take out place, but there is a cosey little dining room just inside that gives you a great view of the kitchen. There are only a couple of tables in the cafe style room so it is a great place to bring the family or that special someone for a nice time to dine and talk.  The atmosphere is casual with the setting of a New York style Italian cafe (did I mention the owners are from up state New York) that is warm and friendly.

Service

As soon as my wife and I walked in the door we were greeted with smiles by the counter staff and seated our selves. Our waitress quickly took our drink orders and progressed to the salad and fresh bread quickly. Mimi (part owner) and all of her staff (family) stopped by the table to bring refills and just to see if we needed anything, it made us feel really welcomed.

Menu and The Meal

The menu offers a variety of pastas, hot or cold subs, hot or cold paninis, pizzas, calzones, salads, appetizers, and different choices of wings. Oh, and don’t forget cannoli for desert. Every item on the menu was at a good price, another plus for families. I had the baked ziti which is a fairly simple dish but can be poorly made with too much sauce or over doing it on the cheese. In this case, I enjoyed every bite. The sauce was had just the right amount of spices and did not drowned the pasta. The ziti it self was cooked well and not over baked. To top it off, the layer of mozzarella cheese was great! However, the topper to my meal was the meatball. I do not say this about too many people’s cooking, but I have never had a meatball that tasted like my mom’s homemade meatballs. Excellent!

My Recommendation  

I would have to say that my family and I will be back! The service was great, the food came quickly and was good Italian comfort food, and the atmosphere was enjoyable. Most of all, were can you get a good Italian home cooked meal for two people under thirty dollars? I did notice that Giovanni’s has good lunch specials, their full menu is offered as take out, and they catering too. The owners Giovanni and Mimi Baglio would love to have you there. Click here to check out their website. I know we will be back.

Atmosphere 4 Starts

Service 5 Stars

Food 4 Stars

Total of 13 out of 15 Stars!

CiCi’s Pizza Buffet just opened up a new location here in Mesa on the corner of Higley and Brown. Being a fairly large fan of pizza I was excited to see a pizza buffet open up close to the office but boy was I disappointed. CiCi’s is horriable! They should honestly think about changing their moto from “Almost too good to be true!” to “Almost too bad to be true!”

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