Pizza Quest vs Papa John

As far as high street pizza delivery companies go I've always had soft spot for Papa John's. Unlike Domino's their pizzas don't taste like they should have a "Made from 100% Recycled Materials" stamp on the base, and unlike Pizza Hut I don't feel like I'm committing a cardinal sin against blood pressure when I eat one. Look, here's me being pretty happy with a Papa John's. That said, I have recently been on the wrong end of a rather nasty trait within Papa John's delivery policy: laziness. Now I know this is a bit like Josef Fritzel calling the NSPCC because he doesn't like the way his next door neighbour shouts at his kids, but humongous hypocrisy aside, for a pizza DELIVERY company Papa John's sure hate DELIVERING.

Here's the premise: I was at work, I wanted a pizza, I went to Papa John's website to order one, I was told I was outside of their delivery area, I thought this must be a mistake because there is a Papa John's literally five minutes away, so I e-mailed them.

From: Me
To: Papa John's


If I was on a moped, it would literally take me 5 minutes to get from your store to my house yet somehow I am still 'outside' the delivery area. May I suggest upgrading from horse drawn carriages to actual motorised vehicles so that you can deliver to people outside your immediate eyeline. You cannot be serious.

P.s. http://pizza-quest.blogspot.com I will bury you 'John', BURY YOU!!!

 *******

From: Papa John's
To: Me

Dear Joe,
Thank you for your recent email.

In order for me to fully investigate this matter I would be grateful if you could recontact me with your full postcode.

Once I am in receipt of this information I will then be in a position to fully investigate this matter and respond to you accordingly.

In the meantime I would like to thank you for bringing this matter to our attention and I look forward to hearing from you in due course.

*******

From: Me
To: Papa John's

Yes, hello.

The address I was ordering from was E8 2PB. Good old Google maps says it would take a whopping five minutes to drive there from the store. I'm curious as to what the cut off point in journey time is for a trip to not be worth it? 4 minutes? 3 minutes? The few seconds of airtime a pizza thrown like a frisbee has before landing?

Forgive the whole "bury you" threats on my previous e-mail, I was just really hungry. REALLY hungry.

Joe

*******

From: Papa John's
To: Me

Dear Joe,

Thank you for recontacting me with the information I requested.

I have now had the opportunity of investigating this matter and I can confirm that your address lies just outside of the specified delivery area for this outlet.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this may have caused you however Im sure you will appreciate that a boundary has to be imposed at some point.

Please do not hesitate to contact me should you require any further information.

Kind regards,

*******

From: Me
To: Papa John's

Dear *****,

Thanks for getting back to me. I understand that there has to be some kind of boundary, but it's not like I was ordering a pizza while sitting in my little wooden shack in the Himalayas. I was literally five minutes away. I mean, why bother having a phone ordering service at all when, to get it delivered, people have to be so close to the store they could just shout their order at you? You could save a fortune on phone line rental; money that perhaps could be put towards hiring a second delivery boy, maybe this time one without a crippling case of agoraphobia.

 I'd be very interested to know where the 'imposed' boundary of the Hoxton Street branch lies. This is my local Papa John's you see, (that's 'local' as in the generally accepted definition of 'being within the same geographical area', not the Papa John's definition, which is apparently 'being within arms reach without having to stretch too much, or get out of my warm, comfy chair '). I very much look forward to hearing from you.

 Regards,

               Joe

*******

This was last week, and since then I ain't heard shit.

Bloomsbury Bowling Lanes: New York Hot

In the photo, on the corner of the table, that's a regular box of Tic-Tacs. As you can see, this pizza was huge. 26" in fact. In dick terms that's about four and a half average male dicks or twenty-six average Danny Devito dicks. That's a lot of Danny Devito dicks. I was going to go on to how it tasted but I realise that's going to sound a bit gay straight* after all the dick talk, so I'll chat about bowling instead. Bloomsbury Bowling Lanes is in west London, near Holborn and Russell Square. They have this whole 50's Americana vibe going on, which is fine except some of the bowling equipment is actually from the 50's and looks so old it's about to explode. The conveyer belt that brings you your bowling balls back nearly resulted in us getting our fingers crushed about ten thousand times. I guess all the danger adds to the wild thrill that is the extreme sport of ten-pin bowling. Surprising no one, I suck at bowling.

They have a diner there with actual, leather-lined booths and everything on the menu is stereotypically american. Hot dogs, burgers, corn dogs, religious fundamentalism, milkshakes, French toast, basically anything a yank away from yankland could want. Most importantly though, they have 26" pizzas. I have to confess, and I don't know whether this will cost me respect or perhaps earn me some: I didn't eat this pizza all by myself. I had help. But only from a girl which is almost as good as no help at at all, amirite lads? Lads? Chest bump?

You'd think the issue of quality over quantity would arise with pizza like this, but it didn't because this pizza was really, really good. And massive which meant there was a lot of the good to be had. I was tempted to give this 10 out of 10 but I'm kind of reluctant to because I think I'm saving my first 10 out of 10 for a pizza that I just 'know' is the one. Bloomsbury Bowling Lanes pizza, I can't marry you but you will always be a immensely important pizza in my life. Always.

9 out of 10  

*"gay straight" LOL.

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

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

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

Cirrick: Mixed Pidde

I know what you may be thinking, the 'Z' button on my keyboard is broken so I'm using the 'D' one instead and hoping you won't notice. What a silly idea, of course you'd notice, you're not an idiot,* and anyway, my 'Z' key works fine, look: zzzzzzZZzZzzzzzZzzzzzzzzZZZZZzzZZZZ.

'Pidde' is actually what Turkish people call pizzas. It sounds too much like 'piddle' for me, which isn't something I want to be thinking about when I'm getting down to some intense cheese ingestion. I think they should just stick with 'pizza' or if they're going to be picky about it, 'Turkish pizza'. Less of this 'pidde' nonsense please. Basically Turkey, if you could kindly readjust your entire dialect and culture to make your food sound more appetising to a pedantic, whiny English boy that would be just super.  

Cirrick is a Turkish restaurant in Hackney. When we asked the waiter for any recommendations he said we should get Chinese food. I didn't say at the time but I felt this was poor waiter-ing. Does he not realise that were we to take his advice and leave to get Chinese food instead then his restaurant would miss out on our valuable cash-money? This would lead to a dip in profits, which could result in cuts in staff and he might get fired? 

Maybe that's what he wants, maybe he hates his a job, but doesn't have the guts to quit, maybe the restaurant owner is a sweet old man, whom, even though the waiter hates his job and wants to join the circus, he doesn't have the heart to leave. If this is the case I'm sorry I judged you so harshly Chinese-promoting-Turkish-waiter. You have a good soul and I almost feel guilty that I did not storm out to buy noodles. Next time I come in I will tell the manager that you squeezed my thigh for eight seconds and would not stop even though I asked you twice. I'll shave and wear a Digimon t-shirt as well so I look younger, which will make you look creepier, and make it more likely that you'll get fired and put on the sex offenders register. It's cool, I don't think the circus gives a shit about rapists.

Despite a name that sounds like a phrase used during potty training, it turns out Piddes's are pretty good. I couldn't work out what cheese it was, it wasn't mozzarella, but it was tasty. Also the bread was good. Well done Turkey, (the country, not the bird, I don't want those guys stealing any of Turkey the country's credit, so back off Turkey the bird).

8 out of 10

* I have no proof for this, in fact it's quite possible you are an idiot, perhaps even likely, after all, you have chosen to spend precious minutes reading about some pizza I ate this one time.