Adventure #30 - Big Bite Pizza and Grill

Big Bite Pizza and Grill, probably more well known for its 'Phat' sandwiches (see their menu for the gory details) was our destination this week. It wasn't our in original itinerary, but it happens to have the virtue of being open at 11:30 on a Sunday morning.

There's not much to say here except that we may have, as usual, gotten the wrong pizza. We saddled up with the Big Bite Special, which has bacon, sausage, pepperoni, mushroom, bell pepper, onion, and black olives. The quantity of the ingredients as well as the quality of a few brought down a pizza that otherwise has strong fundamentals.

The crust on this one had good flavor and a nice mix of chewy and crisp on the edges, but the quantity of toppings made the soft middle too flexible and caused significant droop.

The significant droop on the crust caused the majority of toppings to slide right off. The only toppings to say were the pepperoni and a portion of the sausage, because these were the only two toppings that were baked in with the pie.

The rest of the toppings appear to have been thrown in shortly before the pie left the oven, given that the thinly sliced onions were not burned. This exacerbated the sliding topping syndrome.

As for the quality of the toppings? I was pleased with the meat offerings, especially the disc-shaped sausage. The vegetables were hit or miss - I liked the way the onions were thinly sliced, but was not a fan of the mushrooms, which had the tinny taste of can-dom. However, the peppers were done right and the bacon was perfect - small crispy chunks of pork!

As we feel all too often, we might feel differently coming back and getting a different pizza with fewer toppings. The sauce and crust are above-average, but will the toppings hit or miss? Maybe you can find out! (Choose your own adventure pizza?)

- Ian

Adventure #29: Rudino's Pizza and Grinders

Two pieces of business up front before we get to the pizza:

First, I accidentally picked a chain restaurant. I hadn't actually looked at the website ahead of time and, having never seen a Rudino's before (they're a family chain in NC plus licensees in NC and other places), I just went with it. Trying to get their menu online to give you the exact contents of the pizza, I discovered that I had breached the rules with this pick.

Second, I'll admit up front my bias against this place: It's too close to Saccone's for me to ever go here. If I'm in the neighborhood, I know where I'm going. There are a couple of things that they have going for them which are a good selection of beer and friendly staff, both things that Saccone's lacks.

Now on to the pizza:

It was ok. The crust was definitely too underdone/floppy for our tastes. The cheese and other toppings were pretty forgettable and blended into a mass of greasy, meaty, pizza-stuff on top of the crust. We got the Meat Monster specialty, which comes with pepperoni, sausage, ham, and meatballs. We skipped the ham and added black olives.

There's just not too much to say about this. We ate it. We didn't regret eating it, but I probably won't be coming back here for pizza.

-Karin