Little Five Points Pizza in Atlanta, GA

It was 1:00 AM and I was looking for a late dinner in Atlanta. I thought about going to Majestic Diner, but I've done that and was looking for someplace new to try in my food travel adventures. That someplace ended up being a restaurant called Little Five Points Pizza in the neighborhood that shared the same name.

I ordered a slice of plain cheese and a slice of their white pizza. Both slices were quite large and I probably would have been full with just one. The cheese slice actually reminded me of Lazy Moon in Orlando. Large, but messy and could have been left in the oven a little longer to have the cheese a little more melted. The white slice was interesting. Most white pizzas don't have tomato sauce, but this one did. It seemed like a normal slice topped with ricotta, more mozzarella, and an insane amount of garlic. The white slice was my favorite of the two.

The pizza here was alright. Nothing wonderful, but it worked for dinner at 1 AM. It seemed like they catered to the people stumbling in from the nearby bars, so perhaps large slices of messy pizza works. This is my third experience with pizza in Atlanta, and I can't say I was really impressed with any of my slices in the city. Does Atlanta do good pizza?


 

Pizza Rustica in South Beach, FL (Washington Ave.)

A while ago I visited Miami and tried the Pizza Rustica on Lincoln Road in South Beach. The pizza was pretty unique with huge slices with creative topping combinations. I was recently down there once again and passed by another Pizza Rustica location on Washington Ave and decided to give them another try.

This Pizza Rustica was slightly smaller and didn't have the crowds of people gobbling down pizza like the other location had. There was only one other customer actually eating in here and then a couple more people occupying the outdoor tables with no food. Apparently you can get more than food at this Pizza Rustica as well. While I was waiting for my slice to warm up in the ovens, a man walked in and offered to sell me drugs, which I declined. I was here for pizza, not other mind alternating substances! Interesting crowd at this Pizza Rustica...

I had a slice of the Caprese Pizza. This rectangular slice was topped with tomatoes, basil, kalamata olives, and fresh mozzarella. While the toppings here could have had potential, the slice was overall disappointing. After being freshly reheated in the oven, this slice had a very soggy crust with no crispiness at all. The mozzarella was hardly melted and the other toppings didn't seem to adhere to the cheese like normally happens on pizza. They were just sitting on top and all fell off as I was eating the slice.

I wasn't a fan of the pizza at this Pizza Rustica, nor was I a fan of the somewhat sketchy looking people loitering around the outdoor seating and the drug dealers. Stick with the Pizza Rustica on Lincoln Road.

Brooklyn Pizza in Orlando, FL

I was on International Drive and stopped into the Brooklyn Pizza right outside of Magical Midway. Brooklyn Pizza is a local chain with several restaurants around Orlando. I've visited a couple of the other locations a long time ago but they weren't very memorable. Being that this Brooklyn Pizza was in the shadows of go-kart tracks, I didn't exactly have high hopes for the pizza but I was pleasantly surprised.

I ordered one of their combos which included two slices and a drink. The two pepperoni slices were good sized. They were nice and thin with a crispy crust. Each was topped with six pepperoni slices. Overall, the pizza was pretty good for pies that I was expecting to be catered towards tourists rather than repeat customers. I'd return.

Mauro's Pizza in Hollywood, FL

I was recently in South Florida and stopped for food at Mauro's Pizza in Hollywood. Located downtown, Mauro's was a tiny pizza shop with a few tables outside of the restaurant. All of the tables were full when I walked in, which was a good sign that Mauro's had promising food.

Mauro's seemed to be run by very cranky people. The interior of the restaurant was covered in signs of what their rules are. Cash only. No debit or credit cards. No cash refund or exchange after placing order. No Parm cheese. Then there were the other signs. The ones that got meaner. Signs such as: Price subject to change instantly. What part of NO don't you understand. With all the stated rules, I would be very afraid to find out the employee's reactions if I accidentally broke one of the rules. I suppose asking for Parmesan cheese to top the pizza would be considered a horrible crime...

I ordered two cheese slices. For $2.75 each, the prices weren't bad and I can normally finish two slices with no problem. I wish I noticed the size of a slice on the way in though. The slices at Mauro's were humongous. Each slice was served on two full size paper plates, and the pizza took up pretty much all of the plates. They were equivalent in size, if not larger than the huge slices at Orlando's Lazy Moon. Only unlike Lazy Moon, the pizza here at Mauro's was actually very good! The crust was thin and crispy. The cheese was melted properly and was in good proportion to the tasty sauce. By the time I got through the first slice, I knew I'd have trouble finishing the second. After a bit of a battle, I did manage to get both of the slices down and thoroughly enjoyed them.

Mauro's pizza was really good and was a really good value with the size of the slices. If only the people working there took down all of their angry signs and seemed more friendly. I was actually talking to a few people who live nearby about where I ate afterward and they all agreed that they stopped getting pizza from Mauro's because they felt so unwelcome each time they went there. Regardless of good pizza, scaring away customers never is a good business plan...

Umberto's of Long Island in Boca Raton, FL

I had lunch one afternoon at Umberto's of Long Island in Boca Raton. I am assuming that this restaurant is connected with the nearby Umberto's in Deerfield Beach, although I wonder how much connection there is to the actual Umberto's restaurants in Long Island. We had asked our waitress which Umberto's in Long Island the restaurant was connected to and she seemed very confused and didn't know. Uniformed waitress or a restaurant in Florida trying to get New York snowbirds to come to their restaurant because of the name? Not sure, but I would hope they really are connected if they have awards from Long Island Press hanging in their windows.

I had the lunch special of two slices and a drink. To keep it interesting, I had a slice of grandma pizza and a slice of plain cheese. Both were okay, definitely much better than the messy slices from the Deerfield Umberto's. The grandma slice was my favorite of the two. Although the slices were okay, they did have a somewhat burnt taste. I think Umberto's needed to desperately clean their ovens.

Overall, the pizza here wasn't bad. It would have been better without the sooty, dirty oven taste, but otherwise this Umberto's served some pretty decent pizza. Besides, anywhere that serves grandma pizza can't be bad!

 

Anthony's Pizzeria in Orlando, FL

Anthony's Pizzeria is located in Thorton Park, just a block away from Lake Eola. It may or may not be connected to any of the many other Anthony's in Orlando, depending on who you talk to. I've been here several times and I can't remember ever having anything besides pizza.

The pizza at Anthony's can be really inconsistent. Sometimes it is really good, yet other times the pizza is average to bad. I guess it all depends on who is cooking on the particular day and their pizza making skills. On my most recent visit, I stopped in for a slice after walking around Lake Eola and exploring some of the surrounding neighborhoods in Thornton Park. It was a good day at Anthony's. The pizza was nice and thin with a good sauce/cheese ratio. The slice was good sized, and most importantly, it tasted good!

Downtown Pizza/Off the Traxx in Melbourne, FL

Downtown Pizza is a restaurant in the historic section of Downtown Melbourne. This tiny shop doesn't exactly have an inside and pizza is ordered from a window on the street. The weird thing is, nobody knows what I'm talking about if I mention Downtown Pizza. Regardless of the signage outside and having their own storefront, people seem to refer to this place as Off the Traxx, which is the connected bar located next door. Perhaps if I went to Off the Traxx for drinks before pizza I'd be referring to this place this way too, but why do that when I'm coming for some really good pizza by the slice?

The slices from Downtown Pizza are good sized with a really thin, crispy crust. The sauce and cheese always seem to have a good ratio, and are overall cooked to perfection on my visits.

The white pizza is also really good, with no sauce and big pools of ricotta cheese.

This continues my trend of finding exceptional pizza in Melbourne. Still haven't figured out why this area of Florida seems to have a disproportionate amount of good, NY style pizzas as opposed to Orlando where pizza seems to be disappointing more often than not. Old Skool Pizza and now Downtown Pizza. I wonder what good pizza will be discussed on this blog next?

Peace-A-Pizza in Boca Raton, FL

I had lunch at a restaurant called Peace-A-Pizza in Boca Raton. This was a chain that utilized a conveyor belt oven. Normally, conveyor belt pizza ovens equal horrible food, but in this case the pizza here was surprisingly good. Peace-A-Pizza had a huge selection of pizza by the slice, much like what is common up north but almost non-existent in Central Florida. With all the choices, I had finally narrowed it down to two different types of pie...

First up was the Mediterranean Salad Pizza. This slice was very topping heavy with spinach, tomatoes, artichokes, onions, feta cheese, roasted red peppers, and kalamata olives. It was good, but wasn't my favorite of the two slices I tried.

The Pesto, Fresh Mozzarella, Plum Tomatoes and Basil slice was my personal favorite. It had pesto rather than the normal tomato sauce and lots of fresh mozzarella. The crust was thin and crispy, and overall had really good flavors...

I generally don't frequent chain pizza restaurants all that often, but I personally wouldn't mind if a Peace-A-Pizza opened somewhere in the Orlando area. That is, if they could keep their pizza quality up to what was served in their Boca store...

Frank's Ristorante in Pompano Beach, FL

I was in Pompano Beach and wanted to get a quick slice of pizza for lunch. Frank's Ristorante was close to where I parked so I gave them a try. Frank's had several different traditional pies to choose from, but for some strange reason I decided to try a slice of their taco pizza. It wasn't my best pizza decision, with my end conclusion being that American cheese and lettuce definitely don't go on a slice of pizza. I won't be ordering taco pizza again any time soon...

Brooklyn Boys Pizzeria in Boca Raton, FL

I went searching for a late night dinner upon arriving in Boca Raton on a recent evening. My initial idea of getting take-out Turkish food didn't go over well with the picky eater that I was bringing food back for, so Turkish food suddenly turned into pizza. I found myself at a restaurant called Brooklyn Boys Pizzeria and picked up a few slices to bring back. I love how most South Florida pizzerias serve good NY style pizza by the slice. It seems like just about every pizzeria you go into down there always has slices ready to go, and the slices always seem to have a really good turnover too.

Brooklyn Boys served some good pizza. Nice thin crust, good amount of cheese and sauce, and very tasty. The crust could have been a little crispier, but otherwise I have no complaints!

Pizzeria Valdiano in Lakeland, FL

Pizzeria Valdiano is a local chain in Central Florida. I've been to their Winter Park and Baldwin Park stores on several occasions and recently gave their Lakeland store a try.

We started with garlic knots. Definitely not the best. They were those mushy, interconnected rolls that had some garlic salt on top. With garlic in the name, I want some actual garlic!

Pizza came next. Valdiano's has one of the best pizza's in Central Florida in my opinion. Definitely within the top 10. While this particular pie wasn't the all time best I've had from a Pizzeria Valdiano, it was still really tasty and better than most of the other pizzas around...

Lazy Moon Pizza

I've always heard good things about Lazy Moon Pizza in Orlando near UCF, so I went to give them a try. When I first walked in, I was kind of surprized how crowded Lazy Moon was on a weeknight. There wasn't a seat in the place, but I was I luckily already had plans to get my slice to-go. There were some issues with the girl behind the counter not understanding what I meant by ordering a "slice of plain." It seemed common sense to me in a restaurant that almost only serves pizza. Once my order was placed, I took a seat at the counter and watched the pizzas being made while I waited for my food. Lazy Moon was making the biggest pizzas I have ever seen, probably at least a meter in diameter. Lazy Moon was using an interesting cooking technique as well. The dough was tossed and covered with sauce, then put in the oven. After being half baked, the pie was removed and placed on a rack of cheeseless pizzas. From here, pies/slices were taken as needed, covered with cheese and toppings, and put in the oven again. I've never seen pizzas made like this, but soon my slice came out and I focused on my food.

For a judge of the scale of how huge this slice is, that paper plate is the standard 12 inch diameter plate. I've had whole pies smaller than this one slice! Probably due to the way the pizza was cooked, the cheese on my slice didn't seem to be melted enough. You could still see the individual shreds of cheese which kind of gave it a frozen pizza look. After seeing the cheese like this, I wasn't expecting much, but it actually tasted pretty good. The crust was nice and thin, I liked the sauce, and there was definitely the factor of getting plenty of food for your money. My only issue really was with the cheese, and it was a pretty big issue for me. The pizza lost a lot of points in my book for having barely melted cheese, but apparently this is the way Lazy Moon makes their pizza. Judging by the crowds they had, it didn't bother many other people either.

Free Pizza from The Italian Way

I was doing some shopping for a few things at Raider Books in Lake Mary, FL. As I was making my purchase, the cashier told me to help myself to the free pizza and soda that the store was giving out. I'm not one to turn down free food, so I went over and got myself two slices.


The pizza came from a restaurant called The Italian Way located a few storefronts away from the bookstore. Formerly, this location housed two different Italian restaurants called Bernardos and Westshore Pizza. Bernardos was okay, but one visit to Westshore Pizza was enough for me. When The Italian Way opened, I never thought of trying the restaurant after the bad taste that Westshore Pizza left, but this free pizza wasn't half bad. It was a little heavy on the cheese, but not so much that the cheese dropped off of the slice. Otherwise it was a pretty tasty slice of pizza. It definitely wasn't the best I've had, but for free, I'm not going to complain.

I think I'll need to go back and give The Italian Way another try, and actually buy food next time!