All photos courtesy tcp909 on flickr.
We poked, prodded, measured, and quantified the wares from eight Ottawa pizza joints – all in the name of delicious, delicious science. Every respectable urbanite needs a good, easy and cheap pizza in their take-out repertoire, and this episode of Apartment613 Science! strives to arm you with the information you need to make informed pizza decisions.
To set the scene: a team of eager Apartment613 editors and volunteers show up armed with a bottle of wine and enough cash to order a pizza. We develop a shortlist of pizza places, collect phone numbers and prepare timers. Each pizza is judged primarily on personal reflection of taste, with attention being paid to toppings, sauce, crust and temperature. To help compare apples to apples, the order has to be the same at each place – one medium vegetarian pizza. Here are the results!
House of Georgie & Sorento’s Pizzeria
211 Gilmour Street, Ottawa
Overall Score = 4.1
Delivery Time = 29 minutes and 30 seconds
Price = $19.35
Hotness = Hotter!!
Final Word: “Dear sauce maker: get your s@#$ together.”
House of Georgie is an Elgin Street staple best known for its gravy pizza (what do you expect for a city that borders on the land of poutine?) However, our tasters came to the conclusion that there may be a reason Georgie’s likes to cover up its pie. While some praised the pizza’s “cheese oriented aesthetic,” there was definitely conflicting feelings on the tomato sauce: one judge deducted points for its “unacceptable basil content,” while another claimed it had “24 less herbs and spices than KFC.” The crust, which some felt had a distinct baking soda taste, didn’t fare much better. Overall, House of Georgie earned censure as “glorified frozen pizza.”
Pizza Shark
569 Gladstone Avenue
Overall Score = 5.3
Delivery Time = 35 minutes and 57 seconds
Price = $17.80
Hotness = hot!
Final Word: “More of a carp than a shark. Maybe even a trout.”
Pizza Shark makes a pie that appeals strongly to some, less so to others. When some of the judges stated their opinion this was a solid pizza, others questioned their culinary maturity, saying “12 year-olds would like Pizza Shark.” The sauce hawks were appeased by the “distinct rosemary taste” and the fact that it seemed like “they shook a little Clubhouse Italian spice over this one.” However, despite a “good cheese to crust ratio,” some felt that the pie was a bit soggy in the center, and overall the pie failed to blow us away. We do give Pizza Shark props for being fun, bringing home the prize for the best graphics and a pretty funny animation on their site. As one judge said: “I do love that Pizza Shark exists.”
Gabriel Pizza
277 Bank Street @ Somerset
Overall Score = 6
Delivery Time = 28 minutes and 19 seconds
Price = $20.33
Hotness = hot
Final Word: “YAY for whole tomatoes, even if they are paler than Robert Pattinson.”
Gabriel’s may be trying to compete with Bridgehead and the Royal Oak as the most ubiquitous Ottawa chain: their website lists 22 locations throughout the NCR. If you really like green olives, this is the pie for you. Even the tasters who are fond of olives found the abundance a little overwhelming, especially since the pizza’s toppings were not the best quality. Nevertheless, judges appreciated the pie’s “good topping coverage” and the way that the “cheese gripped the toppings.” What pushed up most marks was the “good, solid, crispy crust” that managed to pass muster even with this diverse crew.
Calabria
193 Bell Street North
Overall Score = 6.6
Delivery Time = 31 minutes and 50 seconds
Price = $18.20
Hotness = medium heat
Final Word: “The sauce tasted like bruschetta.”
Calabria, thy name is controversy. Conflicting assessments of this pie made a definitive description hard to come by. Case in point: one taster commented “good bloody sauce flavour,” while another noted “overwhelming sauce flavour – BLAH.” It seems that if you like to pay attention to sauce (which it seems we do), this is a good choice: judges remarked that the sauce “tasted like bruschetta” and contained a “strong basil flavour,” although overall the pizza suffered from a “salty taste.” The difference of opinion carried on to the crust: some found it “chewy like a baguette” while others said “a bit soggy in the centre.” The “hints of parmesan” and “more fresh tomatoes” were also a hit.
Pavarazzi
223 Laurier East
Overall Score = 6.7
Delivery Time = 50 minutes
Price = $20.65
Hotness = hot!
Final Word: “Good balanced pizza – greasy enough but with thin toppings.”
Centrists take note: this is your pie. Pavarazzi succeeded with our judges largely because of the equilibrium their pizza struck between cheese, sauce and crust. While there were some extreme comments uttered, from “I loved it” to “I can’t remember anything special,” the phrase “good balance” embodied most of our feelings. On the down side, the delivery took a remarkably long time, especially considering this was one of the joints closest to Apartment613 Science Headquarters in Centretown. We also found the service a “wee bit surly,” although maybe it was because they bumped into the other deliverymen at the door.
Preston Pizza
125 Preston Street
Overall Score = 6.7
Delivery Time = 1 hour and 5 minutes
Price = $17.97
Hotness = warmish hot
Final Word: “Something sweet and spicy – cinnamon? Nice change from the rest.”
Preston Pizza was sweet… literally. As one judge remarked, “whoa – sauce. Somethin’s up.” It took another judge a little detective work to discover there was something under the cheese: “it had sauce. But it was sweet.” The crust on this pizza was also a hit, causing the crust lobby to finally speak up against the vocal-but-witty sauce fans who’d previously been dominating the comments. Tasters were mixed on the cheese – it was either too much or too little – and we found the pie slightly smaller than than the others. While some liked this “sweet” pie better than others, everyone felt that it at least stood out from the pack.
Bronson Pizza
368 Bronson Street
Overall Score = 6.9
Delivery Time = 44 minutes and 15 seconds
Price = $18.24 (or $25.98 for two)
Hotness = really hot!
Final Word: “The tomato and olive reign of terror is over.”
“Mushrooms!!!” That’s what we yelled when the Bronson Pizza pie arrived. Of course, the taste of mushrooms isn’t necessarily a positive for everyone. But our outburst speaks to the quality of the toppings, for although there were mushrooms on almost all the other pizzas, this was the first time we noticed them. But what were the other factors that caused one judge to declare this pie the “dominant force in pizza”? Well, the gooey, stringy cheese was “perfect,” according to one of our taste testers. Another found the pizza “aesthetically pleasing,” while a third remarked – with some surprise – that it felt like it was “actually baked, not microwaved.” Of course, not everyone was drinking the Bronson kool-aid: some found their pie “too chewy,” others claimed it was “slightly soggy” and our resident sauce hawk declared there was “not enough sauce.”
La Favorita
356 Preston Street
Overall Score = 7.7
Delivery Time = 32 minutes and 5 seconds
Price = $21.47
Hotness = very hot!
Final Word: “I wanted zucchini – and it came! They get top marks for being psychic.”
Since vegetarian pizza is inherently about the fixin’s, it’s not surprising that a “topping oriented pizza” took the top place. High points were given for the roasted veggies, the pizza’s “topping aesthetic,” and its “shiny” crust. Multiple types of cheese also set this pie apart: as one judge said, “parmesan is an automatic win.” However, this win comes with a caveat: this pizza was a distinctively different style from the greasy goodness of the others, making direct comparisons a bit more difficult – someone actually said “it makes me feel like I’m eating healthy.” So if you’re looking for a guilty pleasure this one might not make the cut, especially since there was “not a lot of cheese.”
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