"When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie ..........."


"When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie............."

Now, this lyric doesn't make me remember Dean Martin - it just makes me hungry for pizza! I can't help it, pizza is my favorite food, even though I feel like it should be something more sophisticated.

At this point, I've given in and decided that if I like pizza that much, I should know all about the best places to get pizza in New Jersey, my new home. So, I've started a pizza tour of New Jersey and what else makes sense but to start a blog about it........



Pizza Rules

Pizza Rules:

Over the course of my life, my dad has passed on a few key things, including an appreciation of whiskey and the belief that pizza is not pizza unless it has pepperoni on it. So, I will be sampling the pepperoni pizza at each restaurant and then I will try whatever is considered the "specialty" of the place. The sauce, crust, and topping of each pizza slice/personal pie will be given a score from 1 to 5 and an overall score will be given. Then, an "originality" score will be given based on the ambiance of the place, selection of types of pizza, etc.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Rogue Pizza

I went rogue this weekend and had pizza without everybody (sorry guys!). It was Friday night and I just couldn't take another day of leftovers - pizza and a bottle of wine was much better! So, I went to my favorite local place, Piccolo Trattoria and got a slice of Brooklyn and a slice of bruschetta (don't worry, I've had the pepperoni before and its fabulous!). Pizza was yummy!

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Second Pizza: Federici's

So, the second pizza outing was successful. A group of 8 of us (pizza is popular!) made it to Federici's pizza joint in downtown Freehold. Overall, we had a great time. But I'm not sure if this whole rating system thing is going to work, because I did not really like this pizza but somehow I still gave it a rating of 3. I seem to have a problem with giving low rating scores, even inanimate things like pizza. Am I worried about hurting pizza's feelings? OK, this seems like a personal issue that needs to get solved on a different kind of blog. Let's get back to the pizza......


I shared a pepperoni pizza with Nicole this time around. The pizza sauce was pretty good (score =3) with hearty tomato flavor but not many other strong seasonings. The crust was thin and crispy (score =2) - very cracker-like, which is not my favorite kind of crust. The pepperoni (score = 2) was very unevenly spaced over the whole pie and made the pizza pretty greasy (I had to "drain" the slice each time before taking each bite). So, it really seems like I should make this a 2 score overall - do you think the pizza will be offended?

Sunday, March 6, 2011

First Pizza: Due Mari

So, we started the great NJ pizza search of 2011 at Due Mari in New Brunswick. It's not a typical place to get pizza and a few beers (most people there were looking for something more fru-fru like a glass of wine or a nice goat cheese spread) but I have to say it was pretty good with an overall score of 4.

I ordered the pepperoni pizza (it was a 12" personal size so I could only order one kind). The sauce (score =4) had a savory tomato flavor with strong seasonings of what I could identify (with some help from Nicole) as oregano and basil. The crust (score = 4) was thin and crispy but it still had a lot of flavor. Interestingly, the pepperoni was baked under the cheese, which I give a topping score of 3 for creativity. I also tried the cheese, sausage, and white pizza (thanks to all my friends!) and that about covers the whole menu, which led me to the score of 2 for originality since the variety of pizza was pretty limited. Again, overall it was really excellent pizza - a good start!!