School is out, spring has sprung, and there’s pizza in the air. What a perfect time to continue our citywide pizza tournament…
The Pizza-lympics!
In the previous Pizza-lympics installment, we explained our ground rules for judging: architectural soundness, foldability, greasiness, thinness of crust, and cheese-and-sauce generosity. With these metrics in mind, we’re throwing eight Pittsburgh pizza joints into a Thunderdome of flavor where only one can be the victor.
For round one, we hit the South Side, and for round two, we’ve ventured eastward into the neighborhood of Garfield, to try out a delicious local joint, Spak Brothers Pizza.
(In the interest of full disclosure: I went to grammar school with one of the brothers Spak. I did a painting of him in middle school art class that my parents still have somewhere. This will not affect my scoring, however; I may be a somewhat sentimental fellow, but in the ways of pizza, I am a damn mercenary.)
Spak Bros. is a small place, but nonetheless, with its pinball machines and cooler full of small-batch sodas, it has a nice community “you’re welcome to hang out here” vibe. And what’s more…
Freaking two dollar slices!
We got our standard plain…
Plus a nicely-topped mushroom slice…and set to work.
Damn, was this pizza tasty. It had just the right amount of greasiness to it, and the crust was thin and crisp without sacrificing strength.
And, as you can see, it had perfect foldability.
As for the generosity with ingredients, well, you already saw how the mushroom slice had just the right amount of topping. They threaded the needle once again with the cheese. In fact, there was just enough extra cheese to do one of my favorite meal’s end tricks:
Take my remaining crust and make a little sandwich.
The slices, truth be told, were damn near ideal. The only issue, if I had to find one, was that one slice isn’t quite enough to fill you up. Both Fox and I found ourselves wanting more after we had our slices; you’ll probably want a second to really make a meal of things. Of course, all you need is an extra two dollars, and unless you’re John Cusack’s paperboy, you’ve probably got it.
With fresh flavors and excellent construction, but a minor size issue, we give Spak Brothers pizza a 7.3 on our 8-point Pizza-lympics grading scale.
We’ll soon return for rounds three and four. Stay tuned!