Algieri's - Belleville, NJ

Algierie's in Belleville. AWESOME! Thin crust. Great taste. Good crispness. Highly recommended. Thanks to mikey lamps for the recommendation!!!!

This trip was with Mike Lamporello, Alan Greulich and Pete Livera back in the summer of 2011.  I remember a nice relaxing dinner, sitting outside.  It's not often you get to sit outside on a nice summer night and get a pizza brought to you!  Looking forward to a trip back there soon!


Here is their Website:
Algieri's Website  

Michael Lamparello Very cool!!!! One of the only places we order from. Glad you enjoyed bro!!!

Patty Donatiello try napoli's in bricktown or antonio's trattoria in wall

John Somers Yea you found the Lampster's Pizza place!!! Now visit Johnny S's on Route 34 in Aberdeen. It's called, "Denino's Pizza!" Originally from Staten Island there's not a day that you won't wait in line at least 30 minutes just to be seated!!! This place rocks and has one of the best pizza's in New Jersey!!! Don't believe me? Try it and you be the judge Oh Great Pizza Whore Summer Tour - 2011. You be da pizza whore!

Brian Kozichek Kinchley's in Mahwah has the ability to derail the tour... make it happen!

Mike Zelizo i cant wait until you are 400 lbs

Joe Verderese Kozie, been there, done that! My gf lives behind kinchleys! Its amazing! U live near there?

Brian Kozichek Yup, 5 minutes away... It's addictive and amazing.

Joe Verderese Johnny S - I will do it! For sure - - - - - not sure when, but before the summer is out I will do it!

Matt Wojchik joe give Brix a try in belleville just opened

Toronto Pizza - August 2015

And here it is - the long awaited official review of the pizza of  the beautiful city of Toronto, by none other than your official Pizza Blogger.
 

We'll start off with "Pizza Pizza"  This was on the main road as we walked from the hotel over to the center of town.  We had seen it earlier and pegged it as a place we needed to try once lunch time hit, so we went for it.

 We came in and checked out the goods. It seemed like a typical "chain" type of place in style, but different than American chains like Domino's, Pizza Hut, Papa John's, you can get slices at the chains in Toronto, so that's kinda cool.   Below you can see some pictures of the restaurant, menu, etc.

And here it is - the actual slice!  We were stuck by the interesting presentation, which turned out to be the standard in Toronto - 1 slice, cut in half and served on a triangular plate. (pictured below)

The pizza itself was nothing real special. It was somewhat bland, a bit oily tasting and nothing real special.  BUT I will say that it was serviceable pizza.  I could live with it if I needed to.  It just was definitely a chain pizza.  I will say that they served it at a good temperature and it was very easy to eat, and I could not complain about the size of the servings.

  

The actual restaurant itself was quite small, only 3-4 stools to sit at if you are lucky, but they did have an outside eating area, and the weather was great.  So I sat outside and enjoyed my slice.

AND DOWN THE ROAD WE WENT . . . . . . . . .. 

Next up, literally 5 minutes later was "Mamma's."

 Now this pizza was exactly the same as Pizza Pizza.  Layout of the restaurant was similar, presentation of the slice was the same, the slice tasted the same and it again, was cut in half.  There was really nothing that set this slice aside from the other place.

 

And then there was the pizza at the Blue Jays Game - no doubt one of the famous Toronto Pizza chains, Pizza Nova - official sponsor of Blue Jays baseball and the Rodgers Centre. A blessing in disguise came my way when they were out of cheese slices at the moment.  I "Settled" for a meat lovers slice - which was actually quite tasty.  The toppings made the slice stand out from the other ones, but other than that, the pizza was really the same. 

Interesting occurrence as they forgot to give me change for my slice - I had a $20 bill and then we got side-tracked and they never gave me the change.  I walked away and came back about 3-4 minutes later and told them what happened.  They trusted me (or remembered it happening) and gave me my change right back.  A+ for being nice.  F- for math.  :-)

And Finally, to round out the Toronto pizza experience, we made one more stop - "Mr. Pizza."  Aptly named after myself, this pizza shop was exactly like all of the other ones :-)

 

 

 Of course, i will always be jealous of anyone who gets to ride a little vehicle like this with the label of "Mr. Pizza" on it.  If anyone is looking for a Christmas gift idea for me . . . . . .

Although very similar, they went with the round plate instead of the pizza slice shaped plate.

So to round it all up, here is my general synopsis of Toronto Pizza.  It was very consistent.  Consistently bland and average.  They generally all taste the same, look the same.  Similar texture, taste, consistency, etc.  The good news is that the pizza is not terrible.  I was not offended by the pizza of Toronto.  To their credit, they do not claim to have the best pizza.  I'm very happy that they offer pizza, at various places.  It's easy to find if you are craving a slice.  

As you all know, my favorite thing about pizza is that you can eat it every day and if you go to different places or get different toppings, it can be a different meal every single time, as no two slices are really the same from place to place.  The consistency of Toronto's pizza is a good thing in some ways, because you do know exactly what you are going to get - and in a place outside of NJ or NY, fear of the unknown is usually quite high when it comes to pizza!  (yes, I am a NY/NJ pizza snob.)  I applaud the efforts of Toronto Pizza shops and appreciate the experience I had.  I will be back - Toronto is a great town.  i will likely only have pizza once or twice next time, but i will have it again.

Toronto - You are A-OK in my book!

Trip to Vermont - Pizza?????

Well, this weekend, Kristyn and I had the pleasure of heading up to Vermont for our friends Blake and Ariana's wedding.  I had decided that I wanted to make sure to get some pizza to report back to you all about while we were away.

So we checked into the hotel and I promptly asked the woman who worked the desk if there was any good pizza in the area.  She proceeded to let me know that there was a Domino's up the road.  I bit my tongue for a moment because my first reaction was to say "I MEAN REAL PIZZA!" but I just responded by asking for a non-chain place.  She did not really have an answer, but I think she mentioned one place, but I could not really understand.  I asked her if it was on the way to our destination and she said, "no, but there is a Pizza Hut in that direction!"  I mentally threw my hands up in the air, said thank you and walked out, with no help.

We passed a brick oven pizza bar but that would have taken way too long as we needed to get to the wedding, so we had to fore-go the pizza for the day.  I was not satisfied though, so on the way home, I was determined.  We finally passed a place called "New York House of Pizza."  On the sign outside, it proclaimed to have the "best' pizza.

 

So we went in.  I asked for a couple of slices and they pointed me towards a heat lamp oven and told me to grab what I wanted and put it into this foam container for myself. 

 I grabbed a soda and paid my bill. He charged me $8.50 for two small, crappy slices of pizza and a bottle of soda.  WOW!

Ok, so let's move on to the pizza itself.  I will open by saying that this was one of the most disappointing pizza experiences I have had in many many years.  The crust made my teeth tired.  The cheese was kind of hard and tasteless and the sauce was kind of like paste.   In addition, it was kind of burnt - but now like a Ralph's of Nutley burnt, more of a stuck in a heat lamp forever burnt.  It had absolutely no qualities of a good slice of pizza.  Kristyn and I ate our slice apiece and left very unsatisfied.  I guess we should have known better, but I feel it is my duty to have a taste everywhere we go.

For the record, I did finish the slice (well, except the last 2 bites of crust, because I really just didn't feel like doing the work anymore - and it was hard.)  On a scale of 1-10 - i'd give it a 2.  If you ever happen to pass by on your way to Killington, VT, resist the temptation and skip it.  You are better off eating some leaves or dirt off the side of the road.

Check out this pizza carrying rat!

Yup, you read it right!  This rat defies all odds and travels down the subway steps with an entire slice of pizza!  I have seen some humans have more trouble walking down steps while eating a slice!

Check out the whole article below!
NYC Rat Carries Full Slice Of Pizza!


Thanks to Matt Brody for the reference on this one.

Official Launch of www.pizzawhoretour.com

Hello everyone!  This day is a long time coming . . . . . many people have asked when I would have a website or blog, etc.  Up until now, I have used Facebook as my official meeting place for pizza lovers and a spot to review new pizza shops in and around the world.  I thought it would be nice for me to take it all into one place for all of my followers :-)

It has been 10 years since the Pizza Whore Tour's first excursion.  You see, it was a beautiful Spring evening at West Chester University.  Kristy Grote - the original "pizza whore" (I'll explain in a minute) and I were visiting WCU and waiting for a concert at Swope Hall.    Since I was only in town for a night, it was important that Grote and I went for our favorite past time - a slice of pizza.  Now let's rewind to how the name came about . . . . .

Grote and I were good friends in college, but not only did we have music in common, we had a bond of both being from New Jersey and developing a love for the great art form that is PIZZA!  Together we frequented all of the local pizza shops - Riggtown, Amore's, Pizza U and whatever other places in the area we could find.  Now we all know that almost all college students love pizza, but most people have their limits.  Not Grote and Joe.  They could eat pizza as every day, and sometimes they did!  The term "pizza whore" came about when Joe realized that no matter what Grote was doing, where she was or what time it happened to be, if he asked her to go get pizza, she would pretty much always say "YES!"

So here we are, 2005, waiting for the Crites concert with 2 hours to kill.  Where should we go?  Do we go to the old standby - Amore's - where you can get 2 slices and a soda for $4 and Throw in a little breadstick with sauce on the side?  What about Riggtown - and their glorious $1 slices - even though they are traditionally much better after 10pm when the line is out the door and you slightly (or VERY) inebriated?  How about Pizza U - i mean for God's sake - they have a large pie for $4.95!   Here's an idea - let's go to them all!  We hopped in the car and went to our first pizzeria.  After a great slice, we got in the car, and on came the theme song for the tour - Kanye West's "Gold Digger."  We made it through about 1/3 of the song before we arrived at our next place - and in we went.  After we made it to a few places, in record time, we realized "why stop now?" and before it was all over, we hit up 7 glorious pizza stops, in under 2 hours, for the most amazing dinner run either of us had ever been on.  We then made our way back to WCU and watched/listened to the concert, in an apparent food coma.

A similar event occurred a few years later, in "the village" in NYC, with 5-6 friends, in which we went to 5 pizzerias in the area for lunch . including Joe's Pizza and Bleeker Street Pizza.  Unfortunately, pictures and recollections of these old events were lost in the great tragedy of 2009 - when my hard drive crashed - quite literally - to the floor at MDK 187 Valley Road, and all my pictures were lost.  I still have the hard drive in hopes that one day it will be cheap to recover all of my old files.

The most well-known leg of the tour came in the summer of 2011 - just at the beginning of my relationship with Kristyn Martin.  During this summer, I went to 50 new pizza places in a matter of 50 days.  Yes, 50 brand new places that I had never been to in my life.  1 each day.  It started off as a plan to go to every pizzeria in Clifton.  After a few days, it turned into a Facebook sensation with people recommending where to go, asking me to go with them, bragging about their favorite places, and constantly asking me for advice or recommendations.  It spiraled into a 50 day love affair with pizza that has gone unrivaled to date.

Through the years, I have continued to review my pizza exploits on Facebook and give you pictures and updates on not only the slice, but the experience.  I also continue to take recommendations and thoughts about places I should try and will make my attempt to get to as many of them as possible. 

The purpose of this website and blog will be to recreate and review all of the old pizza posts I have put up through the years (at least the ones I can find) and to continue to review and post about new places and old favorites.  You can use this as a one-stop shop for thoughts on great and not so great pizza.  What am I doing this?  because I have SOOOOO much extra time on my hands. . . . . yeah right - - - - - I guess it's just a little hobby and something to do late at night while watching Sportscenter for the 3rd time trying to fall asleep.  :-)

I hope you enjoy and I will be updating as often as possible with old and new posts from as far back as I can remember.