the dominos challenge

Yes yes, by now you've all heard about the "new dominos" turnaround with the real people and the endearing honesty. It's all very exciting. There's the pizza configurator*, the progress bar, and oh yeah, they changed the formula. So is this new coke, nacho cheesier doritos, or a toasted subway sub?

The big question is, should we compare New D to Old D, or new D to Other Pizza? New Dominos v Old Dominos is a pretty easy challenge. It's like shooting pizzas in a barrel. And, not surprisingly, New D wins. Compared to Pizza Hut or mall pizza it does pretty well. But we're still in the range of pizza I'd never eat.

On the other hand, New D v Any Other Pizza You Might Actually Enjoy Eating is not such a cert. In fact, it's an obvious failure. Still crap. I don't even know why I spent so many words on this build up. It's sommat like 6 bucks for a large pizza. How can that every be good?

*Is this just a Lucent term, or do people know this?

xmas pizza

At my house, we're not what most people would call traditionalists. We do have our things that we do though. Like pizza for breakfast on christmas day. It started at my mom's house, back when I was vegetarian. She normally makes ham and crap, but she happened to have some frozen pizza crusts around, so she whipped up some pizza.

The idea stuck.

it's homemade pizza

It's "homemade" in that it is assembled in house, but these days most ingredients come prepared. The sauce is from a can, etc. I'm sure you'll be surprised to hear that I don't make the cheese from scratch either. I know, scandalous right? I do srhed the cheese myself. Also, I cut vegetables. The crust is one of those frozen dough balls. I don't use none of that boboli crap; it makes the baby jesus cry.

belltown pizza

I walk by belltown pizza all the time, but I've never been in? Why is that? Probably because it seems from the outside like a crappy, touristy, sports bary place with no redeeming qualities. But you know that thing they say about book covers, right?

You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

It's dark inside, so I don't have a lot of great pictures. As devoted as I am to you, dear readers, there are some days when I'm incapable of being 'that asshole with the flash photography'.

But enough about that. We're here for pizza. And it's good pizza. The Fire in Belltown is my new favorite pie. Of course, you already know that any place that puts the hot sauce on the pizza for me is going to surge ahead in the rankings. It's almost like cheating.

Hot sauce? I'm home.

It's not just the hot sauce though. The ingredients all seemed to be high quality. The cheese stood out as particularly good, having enough flavor to stand up to the hot sauce and roasted red peppers without being overpowering or vulgar.

good vinaigrette, this

The salad even caught my attention. The vinaigrette was just right; vinegary, but not too vinegary. An impressive feat that continuously eludes me. The croutons were almost too crunchy though. Couldn't get a fork in them.

[where: 2422 1st Ave, Seattle, WA 98121]

road food (oregon coast trip)

My so and I went on a Goonies trip this week. That means driving up and down the Oregon coast, which is fantastic. Since this isn't strictly a Seattle food blog you get to hear about it. The food parts anyway. (If work is really boring today, you can read more about the Goonies parts)

Astoria, OR. Home of tasty mexican

We learned that Astoria sports some incredibly tasty Mexican food at El Ranchero Dos. Of course, it was about 3pm and our first meal of the day. Our judgment may have been... off. I think I would have enjoyed eating a phone book at that point.

Pizza a Feta (Cannon Beach, OR) makes crab pizza

Cannon Beach (home of Haystack Rock, the famous 'Goonies Rock') is an 'upscale resort town', so it's full of over priced surf and turf restaurants. Like Doogers. Which I went to once, and that was enough. Instead Rakka and I wandered around until we found Pizza a Feta. We fell prey to the Coastal Seafood Fever, or CSF, and ordered the crab pizza. Rakka loved it. I thought the crab was good and the pizza was good, but they didn't much meld together. The crust was fantastic.

This is where cheese comes from

Since it was only another 30 miles south (of Cannon Beach) we just had to go to Tillamook, home of Tillamook cheese. They don't have factory tours, they just have a factory with windows. You can walk around the observation deck and watch what goes on. Of course, most of the stuff was closed down for maintenance. They were doing some packing though. I got some video of the magic cheese rotator.



They also have free samples, and a store. At the store you can buy Tillamook cheese at grocery store prices. In other words, no factory special discount.

free samples! the extra sharp cheddar is the best!

Of course, Tillamook also makes ice cream. Since we were on the Goonies tour we got some rocky road.



Oh, and there's a cafe.

the ice cream counter is in the background

I got the grilled cheese. (what else?)

grilled cheese, a pickle and some chips. classic.

Rakka got the 'gobbler', which was a grilled cheese with turkey on. I think she was expecting some fancy stuff like lettuce. It didn't happen. But it was, what, four bucks. Mine was the best grilled cheese I've had in a while. The homestyleness was refreshing after the fancy grilled cheese sammiches that Seattle is famous for.

To sum up, the Oregon coast was not only fun and beautiful, it was tasty too.

zeeks

Bubbly crust. Mmmm.




Half a large caesar salad.
One large is perfect for two people.


A slice missing? Who did that?
I haven't even taken the picture yet!

Seattle's not very good for delivery. There might be a thai place that will maybe deliver, but for the most part it's pizza.

Luckily there's Zeeks, which is local and good. My favorite part is the ordering online. There's nothing like looking over the menu, saying "hmm. I want that." and having it show up at your door half an hour later.

They sometimes call and let you know that they got the order and it'll be about 45 minutes. That's a good sign that it'll be there in a half hour. If they don't call, count on it being more like an hour.

I suppose I should mention the food. It's good pizza. It walks the line between being healthy and being greasy cheese death. This is obviously somewhat under your control, and depends on what you order, but by default there is just enough cheese. I appreciate that very much. It's rare that the two conflicting furies get to be appeased at the same time. Yes, I do possess a 'greasy cheese death fury'. She's hard to control sometimes.

My 'heath fury', I call her Panacaera, is placated also by the big salad that often arrives atop the big cardboard box.

Now, I'm talking about the delivery, so I don't have to mention actual restaurant at all if I don't want. But I do go there sometimes (the Queen Anne/Uptown one). Somewhat like the pizza itself it walks the line between greasy pizza joint and nice restaurant. I don't know if it's just the dark wood outside, or the raised booth platform or what, but there's an odd undertone of formality there. But that could all just be in my head. You go try it and report back.

Oh, just one more thing. Zeeks is not quite as cheap as most of the other places I'll be talking about on here. Salad and pizza, which is a lot of food for two, usually ends up being about $30 before tip. It's worth it though. I'd much rather throw down $30 for one zeeks than do one of these 17 pizzas for a nickel deals that the chains run. bleh.

Stellar Pizza

It's strange, Seattle's Georgetown neighborhood only made it on to my radar a week ago, and now I'm there constantly. Yesterday's visit to Stellar Pizza will only serve to perpetuate this trend. Because that was some damn fine pizza.

We got the Courky's Veggie. Which is all Ricotta cheesy and spinachy. And when they say roasted garlic they mean whole cloves, and a lot of them. Yum.

Sadly the dim lighting made the pictures of the food look pretty awful. Oh well, sounds a good excuse to go try again.

The decor is pretty random. From a collection of giant decorative cutlery to this old whirlpool sign. It feels pretty honest though; not calculated like a tgifridays or something. Hooray.