Al's Pizza and Subs in Harrisburg, PA

The Facts:

Pizza: Al’s Pizza and Subs

Business Category: Locally-owned (4 locations, all near Harrisburg)

Website: http://www.alspizzaenola.com/

Location: 409 N. Enola Rd. in Enola, PA

Date of Review Visit: July 22, 2013

What I Ordered: Medium (14”) Pork Heaven Pizza

Price: $15.37 (includes tax but not drink)

The Micro:

Crust: Al’s Pizza makes a nice northern style thick crust.  The pizza is perfectly baked, as evidenced by the speckled brown crust.  The taste of the crust is slightly bland, but only slightly.  Overall, I like this crust.  Score: 9/10.

Sauce: The most remarkable thing about this sauce is that I hardly noticed it, and that is not because the pizza is undersauced.  This sauce is not a bold sauce with award winning taste, but it blends with the pizza very well.  Score: 9/10.

Cheese:  The cheese here is exquisite.  The blend is tasty, and it is applied with sufficient quantity to even bake a little on the top of the crust.  Excellent!  Score: 10/10.

Toppings: The toppings are served in good quantity, and most of them are quite tasty.  Most amazing of all, this all-pork pizza does not taste the slightest bit greasy.  Only the bacon causes a deduction: I found it too crispy and salty.  Score: 9/10.

The Macro:

Appearance/Atmosphere/Service: The pizza’s appearance is nearly perfect.  I deducted one point here because the delivery person was rude.  In his defense, the only reason I had the pizza delivered is because it was raining, but I did give him a large tip.  Score: 9/10.

Value: The price is slightly high but not outrageous for a medium all-pork pizza.  The remarkable fact is that Al’s medium pizza is 14”; that’s a large at the national chains.  Score: 8/10.

Taste: With all these toppings, no apparent greasy, and only a slight salty taste, the taste is top-notch except for the bacon.  Score: 18/20.

The Final Judgment:

I am glad the hotel clerk at Days Inn recommended this pizza to me, and I now recommend it to anyone who finds themselves near Harrisburg.  Score: 72/80.

Buzzy's Pizza in Niagara Falls, NY

The Facts:

Pizza: Buzzy’s Pizza

Business Category: Locally-owned

Website: http://www.buzzyspizza.com/

Location: 7617 Niagara Falls Blvd. in Niagara Falls, NY

Date of Review Visit: July 18, 2013

What I Ordered: Large (16”) pizza with sausage and pepperoni

Price: $15.07 (includes tax but not drink)

The Micro:

Crust: My compliments to Buzzy’s on this crust: they gave me a true New York style crust during my visit to New York.  The crust features a nice fresh taste, and the thickness is just right to produce the “foldable” property that characterized New York style pizza.  The folding comes in handy with some of this pizza’s other properties I describe below, but I find no fault in this crust.  Score: 10/10.

Sauce: I had a hard time ranking this sauce because it tends to blend with the grease (see the next item).  I found the sauce slightly overspiced, but only slightly.  Overall, I like this sauce…I think.  Score: 9/10.

Cheese: The cheese is definitely the problem here.  Buzzy’s uses 100% whole milk mozzarella cheese and does so in fairly high quantity.  Within that statement, the whole milk part guarantees a lot of fat/grease, and the mozzarella part guarantees a very little flavor.  The good quantity keeps this score from being extremely low, but I am not a fan of this cheese.  Score: 4/10.

Toppings: The sausage and pepperoni are both quite tasty with just the right amount of spices.  Toppings appear in sufficient quantity, and I like the slightly thicker than normal slices of pepperoni.  The only real problem is that almost all of the sausage is on one half of the pizza.  Score: 9/10.

The Macro:

Appearance/Atmosphere/Service:  Appearance is not the strength of this pizza.  The orange sheen produced by the grease is never a good sight, and the one-sided distribution of sausage hurts even more.  Buzzy’s does have a dine-in area, but I cannot rank it because I chose to carry out.  Score: 5/10.

Value: The price is about average, and the quality is perhaps slightly better than average.  The fact that this is a 16” pizza as opposed to the usual 14” tips the quality/price ratio in the right direction.  Score: 7/10.

Taste: The taste would be quite good were it not for the cheese.  As is, the cheese turns what would be a show-stopper into a slightly better than average tasting pizza.  Score: 15/20.

The Final Judgment:

This pizza fares pretty well against the national chains, but it is well shy of the elite level pizzas thanks to the cheese. I would sanction coming here occasionally, but I would not become a regular.  Score: 59/80