The Orange: Regina

At the moment 'The Orange' have an offer where you can get any pizza for £4.99. Orange are good at offers. 'Orange Wednesdays' made Wednesday my third favourite day of the week. My favourite is Thursdays because it means it's almost the weekend and, like Christmas, the real fun is in the anticipation. Sundays are my second favourite because you're encouraged by God to be lazy. I think one of the cons of being Jewish, besides never being able to lick a pig, would be having your Sabbath on a Saturday. It must suck having to sit around putting effort into not doing anything while at the same time your less Yiddish friends are running around having a blast, probably eating hot dogs and having sex without  a blanket in the way. But then I guess you'd get to go wild on Sundays so it all balances out.

In Orange all the staff wear these disgusting lime green sweatshirts with matching New Era caps. Most of them seem to be typical Hackney yoofs, sporting delightful almost-beards and some pretty imaginative ways of wearing their caps. One guy had perched it so far forward on his head that it was covering his eyes and he must have been operating the till by detecting rebounding soundwaves.  He was Daredevil if Daredevil had chosen to sell pizza instead of being a ninja.

I was pleasantly surprised with this pizza. They actually had a proper pizza oven and for a cheap takeaway pizza the base wasn't a total stodge fest. Sadly it's on Kingsland Road, almost directly opposite where I work which means it could end up being way too convenient, so the chances of me finally becoming a supreme fatty are looking pretty high.

I should perhaps point out that Orange the phone people have nothing to do with Orange the pizza place. They just have the same name. I wouldn't want anyone making an idiot of themselves because they tried to negotiate margerhitas into their talk plan after I'd misled them.

7 out of 10

Also posted on CuiZine

Fear and Loathing in Old Town East: Yellow Brick Pizza, 892 Oak St, Columbus, OH

Hype: Everybody's talking about this place. We think it's just because there's nothing else going on in Old Town East. Lots of cool people with nowhere to hang out. Let's see if it lives up to the legend.

Scene: Kitschy 8x10s of Charles Bronson, Charles Barkley, and a Young Charlie Sheen line the walls with at least two Beatles posters and an ad for the Ohio Roller Girls. I guess the management admires Liz Lessner's ability to make CCAD grads feel right at home while they wait tables. It looked like the apartment of three 22 year old girls who had way too much money to spend on e-bay.

Right when we walked in we noticed that they are selling slices for $3.50 each. With beer at $4.50 a draft and hot chicks with straight-out-of-the-brewery-district dudes at every table we didn't feel welcomed. Everything seemed so forced. First an overpriced and ironic hot-dog shop and now they try to take away pizza?
The Pie:
Crust- The only truly weak link in the pie. It was pretty thin for a hand tossed pie, but lacked the crisp needed to either stand up to the toppings, or the texture for a really great NYC fold-up. We could tell they had something in mind with it, but it just didn't work.
Sauce- Fresh and zesty. Tart and tomato-y. Good.
Cheese- Abundant and real. I think this was the highlight of the pizza.
Peps- Pretty good. Some folded, most not. Good spice, but not overbearing.
Overall: The pie was decent, but the environment was custom made for young junior executives to feel perfectly safe, yet artsy in their new cool neighborhood. To make matters worse, we just kept thinking about how we cold be at Hounddog's drinking a pitcher of Bud and eating better pizza for only 10 bucks. Sure we would have to listen to Fugazi again, but the music here wasn't much better. Hounddogs has half the irony for a quarter of the price. Throw in a few pool tables and a dart board and it seems like a no-brainer. If we lived in this hood we'd be creaming our skinny jeans over this place because Old Town East sucks, but we don't so I have no intentions of ever returning to this place again. Josie's is just as far, and Yellow Brick Pizza is no Josie's. 3/5. Should have listened to my old man...

Due Sardi: Due Sardi

You know how sometimes bands release a song with the same name as the band, like "One Night Only" by One Night Only* or "Love City Groove" by Love City Groove? That's basically what Due Sardi have done, but with a pizza. I imagine that happens when a band is so thrilled with the name they've come up with they want to stick it to as much stuff as they can. Sort of like how George Foreman thinks 'George Foreman' is such a shit-hot name he wants to give it to as much stuff as possible. Like all six of his sons or his most favoured child, his grill.

Due Sardi is a Sicilian establishment down the bottom of Kinglsand Road next to Jaguar Shoes and Catch. This is the first pizza I've had for a while that tasted like it was made by a real-life, honest-to-the-Catholic-god Italian from Italy. I don't know if the guy who cooked this was actually Italian, but if not they certainly do a good impression of one. Much better than mine, but then all I really have as influences are the chef from the Simpsons and Mario, so it's not my fault my Italian accent is borderline racist.

It had pepperoni, red onion and pecorino cheese on. Although, as you can see in the photo, the pizza base was kind of wonky and the onion distribution was a little haphazard I feel these imperfections added to the authenticity. I could imagine this pizza being made in the hills of Sicily in some old, stone shed containing a woodfired pizza oven, surrounded by olive trees that rustle in the warm Mediterranean breeze and a bunch of old dudes with moustaches sitting around eating bruschetta and chuckling about how awful daughters are. If that's the case and my taste buds have nailed it I should also commend the delivery guy for how quickly he must have bombed it through Europe on his little moped. Sicily to Dalston usually takes more than twenty minutes.

9 out of 10

*I've just remembered the song is called 'Just For Tonight', not 'One Night Only'. Although they're different words they mean more or less the exact same thing so my point still stands, as does my laziness because I can't be bothered to think of another example to replace it with.

Simultaneously posted on CuiZine 

Pizza East: Spicy Sausage, Mozzarella, Padron Peppers

Pizza East is a restaurant on the corner of Shoreditch High Street and Bethnal Green Road; if you know the area, it's where T-Bar used to be. I went to T-Bar once about five years ago and all I remember is that it was really hot and everything was kind of orange. It's possible I've confused this memory with the Britney Spears Slave 4 U video, but what I do know for certain is that I kept buying really expensive beer and reluctantly danced to minimal techno. Basically it was awful and when I die, for all my sins, I will wake up in T-bar and never be able to leave.

I'm much happier with this incarnation, I can't imagine an instance where I'd prefer minimal techno more than pizza, but then I can't imagine an instance where I'd prefer minimal techno more than lying in a bath full of angry fire ants, so that comparison may not carry much water. Even so, Pizza East, I like what you've done with the place.

Another thing I liked was how all the waiting staff had matching Levi's, Converse, and high levels of Italian sexiness. That was a nice touch. I'm pretty sure I fell in love with our waitress about eight times. I do however have one small criticism, I feel the menu should point out that it is totally literal in the toppings it says your pizza will have. You'll notice in the pizza description above there is an absence of the word 'tomato'. Under the weight of my skull-crushing naivety I assumed that, considering it was a pizza, it would have tomato on, in the same way I'd assume that because it is Lindsay Lohan's nose, it would have cocaine in. Apparently not (I can only vouch for the pizza, I have not personally checked the contents of Miss Lohan's nose and, as of writing, have no plans to).

This was a shame because everything else on the pizza was really good, and I had a slice of my friend's pizza, avec tomato, and it was delicious. Obviously this made the gaping hole in my pizza about a eight times worse and, as a result, too salty because of all my tears. With hindsight I regret not asking our sexy waitress two things. Primarily whether my pizza would have tomato on but also whether she felt it was too soon in our relationship for her to spend this Christmas with my family and I.

7 out of 10

Josie's Pizza (952 w broad st, Columbus, (614) 224-9637)

Hype: We've been talkin bout visiting this joint for like two years I guess. It just seems so far away and we didn't know if would be good. People said it was, but people say all kinds of things you know.

Scene: It's across the streetish from the Florintine Restaurant. They only have one pizza on the menu. The neighborhood is decently run down. Inside you will find some booths and a lunch counter in the back. Some ladies working looked related.

The Pie:
Crust- Perfect. Thin, buttery, crispy from edge to center. Held up lots of cheese and absorbed abundant sauce effortlessly.
Sauce- Sweet. The ladies were not shy in applying it, but I've had much better.
Cheese- As you can see from the photo they hooked it up. It was nicely brown and flavorful. One problem: they put it over the peps.
Hidden Peps!- They were under the cheese, so naturally, they were not toasty, which made the saltiness less acute than on a NW Columbus pie. They did mix well with the sweet sauce though.

Overall: Nice pie. It was a welcome departure from the north end while still having a thin crust. It's worth a visit. 4 of 5 pies.

Chicago Town: Ltd Edition X-Factor Takeaway Pizza

Just in case you never talk to anyone ever, sprint past tabloid stands with your eyes shut and the only time you leave your sealed-off, soundproofed cave is to go to the frozen food section of Sainsbury's, Chicago Town have kindly come up with a pizza to remind you that it's X-Factor time. Unsurprisingly it's an unhealthy, artificial cheesefest, and the pizza's not great either. Zing! How do you like those apples Slime-on Bowel? 

I never really understood that phrase, because I like really apples. I'd probably put them in my top three fruits of all time, along with mangoes and satsumas. (I find oranges too much hassle to peel and they're too big whereas satsumas are kind of like natures fun size Mars Bars; way more manageable). Point being, if somebody asked me how I liked those apples, chances are I'd probably say something like "yes, they were delicious, thank you" which would no doubt lead to an awkward silence. 

This pizza was kind of boring. I usually like Chicago Town but this one was just a bit "meh", less a pizza, more of a pizzzza. I think I need to start branching out into more interesting pizza places in London. If you've got any suggestions then please, by all means, suggest away, because this guy left the mustard as uncut as a DVD rerelease of Cannibal Holocaust. 

4 out of 10