Joey's Supreme Pizza in Okeechobee, FL

Okeechobee. Located between Florida's biggest lake and miles of sugar farms to the south and endless cattle farms to the north, it's a pretty isolated town. The drive along 441 through this nothingness is a great ride, but there really isn't too much in terms of food along the way. That is, except for in Okeechobee. The last time I took the scenic route down south, I stopped for dinner in Downtown Okeechobee at a place called Joey's Supreme Pizza.

We started out with garlic knots at Joey's Supreme Pizza. These knots were way bigger than what most Italian restaurants serve when it comes to garlic knots. I unfortunately filled up on these so I didn't have much room left for the pizza! They tasted alright, although I thought they could have used less oil and more garlic.

I find Florida has far too much mediocre pizza, so I honestly wasn't expecting much for pizza in Okeechobee. When the pizza was delivered to the table, I was plesantly surprised. This pizza was a thin crusted NY style pie. It was cooked to perfection and had just the right amount of sauce and cheese. The sauce was a little too thick and pasty in spots for my liking, but otherwise I have no complaints. I love it when I find a totally unexpected good pizzeria!

Cappello's Pizzeria in St. Cloud, FL

While traveling through St. Cloud, I realized it was time to eat. I spotted an Italian restaurant called Cappello's and pulled into the parking lot. As I exited the car, I was greeted with a great pizza odor emitting from the building. At that point, I immediately knew I'd be ordering a pizza for my meal. Before the pizza though, I had a garlic knot appetizer.

The pizza was served pretty soon after the knots. The crust was thicker than what I expect from a NY style pie and didn't have that foldability that most 'real' NY pizzas have. Instead of a super-thin crust, this thicker crust was light and airy and had a great texture. The cheese was nice and salty and released just the right amount of oil when cooked. What really pulled the pizza together was the sauce. It had a wonderful garlic flavor that permeated throughout the whole pie.

Initially, I saw the thicker crust on the pie and assumed that this would be one of those pizzerias that claim to serve NY style pizza, when in reality, their product is nowhere close when it comes to taste or structure. After all, St. Could isn't a town where I would expect to find good pizza. Once I tasted Cappello's pizza though, I realized I was wrong! I would rank this as one of the best pizzas I have had in a while!

Rotelli in Deerfield Beach, FL

Rotelli is a small Italian restaurant chain with locations mostly in South Florida. I've visited a few of their locations in the past, and the food has been hit or miss. I recently ate at their store in Deerfield Beach and it was a good experience!.

The meal started with some Garlic Knots.

Pizza was the main course. As far as chain pizza goes, this spinach pie was pretty good. The crust was nice and crispy. There was plenty of spinach on top of the right amount of cheese. The sauce was too sweet for my liking, but otherwise the pizza was tasty!

Although there are better pies out there in South Florida, Rotelli isn't a bad choice. I'd take a Rotelli pizza over the big three pizza chains anytime...

Luna Pizza in Longwood, FL

Luna Pizza is a small Italian restaurant in the back corner of a shopping center in Longwood. It's actually pretty easy to miss due to it's location, but yet they always seem to have customers.

On one visit, I ordered an eggplant parmesan sub. It was good, although it was very oily. The sandwich was huge and was also a few dollars cheaper than what other nearby Italian restaurants charge for a similar sandwich.

On another visit to Luna Pizza, I took home a Bianca Spinach Pizza. This sauceless pizza was topped with mozzarella, riccota, fresh spinach, and lots of garlic. I was really pleased with the pizza. It had plenty of flavor, even without sauce. In spots, the crust seemed like it could have been cooked a few minutes longer, but other than that, I have no complaints. Good pizza, and adding garlic knots into the pizza box only makes it better!

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...

Vito's Pizza & Pasta in Waterford Lakes

I ate at Vito's Pizza & Pasta in the Waterford Lakes shopping center in Orlando. This restaurant seemed to be a former Papa Joe's, and the food was very similar. The meal was started with an order of garlic knots.

I ordered an eggplant parmesan sub. As far as sandwiches in Italian restaurants go, this one was huge. Normally, I have no problem finishing my food, but here I had to leave almost half of the sandwich. It was really overstuffed with breaded eggplant, tomato sauce, and melted cheese. The bread was nice and crusty, covered with sesame seeds. Vito's left me with no complaints about their food!

Pizza from Papa Joe's (Lake Mary Blvd)

I ate dinner at the Papa Joe's located in the Target/Publix shopping center on Lake Mary Blvd in Lake Mary, FL. Their other Lake Mary location was already discussed here on Watch Me Eat, so I'll be comparing a bit.

My dining experience started with some bad air. One of the employees was sitting right outside the restaurant's entrance puffing away at a cigarette. Every customer entering the the restaurant had to walk through her cloud of smoke.

Once inside, garlic knots and pizza was ordered. I was impressed with the garlic knots. Compared to the garlic bread that I had at the other Papa Joe's, these were delicious. The was plenty of garlic, and the bread was cooked to perfection. No complaints here.

I wasn't very impressed with the pizza. I found the sauce to be really sweet (like at the other Papa Joes), and the pizza seemed very hastily made. Everything was uneven about the pie. Some areas of the pizza had hardly any sauce and too much cheese. Other areas had pools of sauce and no cheese. Even how the pie was sliced was uneven, resulting in some huge slices and some tiny slices. Overall, the pizza was edible, but was a disappointment after the good pizza that I had on my last Papa Joe's dining experience.

I did notice that Papa Joe's has some pizza lunch specials that I think I'll need to return for. They advertised having Grandmas pizza and stuffed pizza, both of which aren't very common in Florida.

On the way out, the same employee was still sitting outside, still smoking her cigarette. I wonder if she was getting paid to give lung cancer to Papa Joe's customers? I made sure to do lots of fake coughing as I walked by...

Caffe' Positano NY Pizza

I ate at the new Caffe' Positano in the Super Target shopping center in Sanford, FL. The restaurant is a few stores down from the Yokohama Japanese Restaurant in the space formerly occupied by Vivona's. Vivona's was a good Italian restaurant for a while, but when they opened this location, the Vivona's started going downhill. It seemed the quality and portions of the food went way down and the price increased. Towards the end, the Vivona's employees acted like the customers were an annoyance, and the service was horrible. The last time I went to this Vivona's location, the whole place smelled like rotting meat, and then a few weeks later, both of the Vivona's were closed. There is still one Vivona's left on Park Ave. in Sanford with different owners.

After Vivona's closed, Caffe' Positano opened in their place a few months later. I ate there a week or two after they originally opened, and the restaurant is pretty much unchanged from when Vivona's was there. Unlike the Caffe' Positano in Apopka, this one seems to be geared more towards take out. I ate in the restaurant anyway, and ordered a pizza and garlic knots.

The garlic knots came out first, and had plenty of garlic on them. They weren't served with a side of tomato sauce like most Italian restaurants give with their knots, but I never use the sauce anyway.

The pizza came out soon enough. We ordered an eighteen inch pizza topped with half meatball. The first thing that I noticed was the the meatballs were cubed instead of sliced. I had the cheese half of the pizza so I won't comment on the taste of the meatballs, but cubed meatballs remind me a bit of how meatballs are served at places like Pizza Hut and Papa Johns. As for the cheese half of the pizza, it was a pretty good pie, with the exception of two complaints. The first being that the crust was a bit too crispy. It moved past the perfect pizza crust consistency and was too near the consistency of a cracker. My second complaint was that it sort of tasted like their oven needed to be cleaned. The pizza had a burnt charcoal-like taste that pizzas sometimes get if they are cooked on an oven that's due for a cleaning. Otherwise, it was a pretty good pizza. I would put this pizza a step above the pizza that Vivona's served while they were in their prime.


The next day I had some of the leftover pizza, and the moisture in the refrigerator softened the crispy crust a bit. It turned the pizza that was too crispy into a pizza with the perfect crust consistency. It's amazing how sometimes pizza improves the next day out of the refrigerator.

Pizza @ Gio's Cafe I

I ate at Gio's Cafe I in Sanford, FL for dinner after someone had read about it in an Orlando Sentinel review. It was a Greek/Italian restaurant which sounded interesting, and it got a positive review.

I was actually expecting more Greek food and less Italian. The Greek food probably took up a quarter of the menu, while Italian took up the remaining three-quarters. Nothing Greek sounded too impressive to me either, and it seemed kind of overpriced. Everyone ended up getting garlic knots and pizza, both of which were recommended in the newspaper. The garlic knots were okay, but they could have definitely used triple the amount of garlic that was given on the rolls.

The pizza was served, and I definitely disagreed with the Orlando Sentinel review. I thought it was a pretty bad pizza. The crust was a little thick for my liking, but that's just based on my personal preference. My real issue was with the cheese. The layer of cheese that was put on top of the pizza was very thick and dense. While the pizza was hot, all of the molten cheese poured off of the crust onto the plate. As it cooled, the cheese's chemical bonds solidified, but they didn't stick to the pizza. As I would take a bite, all of the cheese would pull right off of the slice. It was very chewy, and a lump of this chewy cheese is still stuck in my throat hours later as I am writing this.


Another issue that I had was that the restaurant wouldn't sell me a side salad with the pizza. According to the waiter, side salads were only available if I was eating an entree. Otherwise I would have to buy a much more expensive meal-sized salad. Perhaps I should have ordered an entree though. It seems you can't go wrong with spanakopita, and I'm sure it would have been better than the pizza (that I'm still working on freeing from the back of my throat)...