A few days ago, Punch Pizza was giving away free Mimis – sauceless Neopolitan-style pizzas with basil, cherry tomatoes, and mozzarella. Did I get in on that action? Of course I did.
Looks: The pizza I got could very well have been photographed for the ad – except for the size of the basil leaves and normal variations in the char of the crust, it was exactly as advertised. 4.5 out of 5
Taste: When I first started eating it, I was skeptical – no sauce? What is this, Soviet Russia? Due to the lack of sauce or melted cheese to glue the toppings to the pizza, I resigned myself to eating it like a breadbowl salad – toppings, crust, toppings, crust. However, as I continue to work on it, I started to get the hang of grabbing tomato, mozzarella, and basil in each bite, and the more I ate, the better it tasted – something in the juice of the cherry tomatoes combined with the slightly salty crust to produce a delicious combination that was completely unexpected and completely awesome. (I think I would have appreciated smaller pieces of basil, but that could be because I have trouble cutting leafy food with my incisors – long story.)
While there are only six Punch Pizza locations (and they’re all in central Minnesota), their pizzas are the closest thing to authentic Neopolitan pizza I’ve had in the U.S. Definitely try them out if you have a chance. 4.5 out of 5
P.S. Punch regularly announces deals and promotions via their @PunchPizza Twitter account.
Posted in Basil, Cheese, Fast Food, Hall of Fame (Looks), Hall of Fame (Taste), Pizza, Punch Pizza, Tomato | 4 Comments »
Are you tired of making a pizza but having to throw most of it away since you can only eat one piece at a time? If so, you’ll want to check out Red Baron Pizza by the Slice. It’s like a whole pizza, but not!
It cooks in its own little cardboard and silvery-colored container that you stick in your microwave; this cooking method has the benefit of leaving the cheese in the middle of the slice cold but sill overcooking the bottom of the crust so that’s it’s strangely crispy.
If you buy enough of these that you can learn how to properly get it to heat up in your microwave, you’ll find that it’s a good-enough approximation of a normal Red Baron pizza – if you left it in your fridge overnight and then reheated it in your microwave in a little paper tray.
Looks: 2 out of 5 Taste: 2.5 out of 5
Posted in Cheese, Frozen, Ham, Microwave, Pepperoni, Pizza, Red Baron | 10 Comments »
Looks: The image on the packaging conveniently omits all of the hat-shaped onion end-pieces which seemed to comprise my entire box, but the color and texture are appropriately represented. 4 out of 5
Taste: The onion is sweet, the breading is crunchy, and they taste great dipped in ketchup, catsup, or Generic Tomato-Based Dipping Sauce. To more adequately describe these rings, allow me to draw upon personal experience: in my life, I have encountered three types of onion rings:
- “Onion” rings, which are essentially deep-fried breading with the faintest bit of onion inside – these are what Burger King sells.
- Onion “rings”, which are more onion than anything else, with not enough breading to adequately cover and give structure to the onion. These are found at 2nd-tier concession stands and poorly-run restaurants.
- “Onion rings” – healthy slices of white onion with healthy amounts of breading. Both components have their own flavors, and both textures are detectable in your mouth.
These rings are definitely a variant of #3. They have enough breading to make you feel bad about yourself for eating the entire box, but enough onion to make you feel good about yourself for eating an entire vegetable. 4 out of 5
Posted in Frozen, Oven, TGI Friday's, White Onions | 2 Comments »
Looks: The sauce doesn’t have the texture that’s depicted on the box – it’s closer to Ragu than Prego, if you know what I mean – and the lasagna didn’t quite keep its structure after being cut, even though I let it stand for the recommended 10 minutes after removing it from the oven. 4 out of 5
Taste: This lasagna tasted amazing for being boxed and covered with a thin plastic sheet, and it took literally no culinary ability to prepare, so even my wife could make it! I love my wife. The only change I would make to it would be to remove one of the five cheeses. Four is plenty, and by the end of my seventh piece, I was starting to feel a little logy. 4.5 out of 5
Posted in Cheese, Frozen, Oven, Pasta, Tomato Sauce | 3 Comments »
