Thursday, August 27, 2009

How we review each Pizza

Welcome to our blog! Here we will post about our adventures in the land of pizza! Since Elizabeth lives in the land that smells like dirty futons* - Allston/Brighton - there are more pizza places than days in a year (maybe, we haven't actually counted yet). We plan to work our way through ordering from and reviewing each pizza place. Hope you enjoy our findings!

We have decided to take the ludicrously formal approach to rating and reviewing pizza. These categories were hashed out over hours of intense battle between Miro and Elizabeth and are designed to cover all the major categories of pizza quality and value.

... except for the smell category. That one we added because it looks funny when we both stick our heads in a pizza box to smell the pizza. We think this is funny. Frankly, all the reviewees usually smell like pizza.

In all cases we are reviewing a Large Cheese Pizza.

There are some rating categories and some calculated categories. For all the rating categories, ratings are given on a 1-5 scale, with 1 = traumatic childhood memory and 5 = heaven in a box. In each category, both Elizabeth & Miro give separate scores and comments.





























































CategoryDescription
Pizza PlaceThe name of the pizzeria
WebsiteThe website of the pizzeria (if any).
AddressThe street address of the pizzeria.
Date OrderedThe date we ordered the pizza.
Where Consumed Generally whose house did we eat it at. Especially relevant for comparing delivery times. Miro lives in Brookline and Elizabeth lives in Brighton.
Price The price of a large cheese pizza (not including tax). We aren't including delivery fees since most places deliver free with a minimum purchase.
Order Method How we ordered the pizza. E.g. Foodler, by phone, fax(probably not), etc.
Service Method How we got the pizza. In almost all cases this will be delivery, but occasionally we do like to leave the house to pick-up at places that don't deliver or maybe even eat out.
Delivery Time The length of time (in minutes) from order to delivery.
Size (Inches) The diameter of the pizza inches. In the case of oblong or uneven pizzas we are taking an average.
Price Per Sq Inch (also known as "Pizza-Pi-R-Squared")Price divided by the area of the pizza (in square inches).







































Look The attractiveness of the pie on opening the box or delivery to the table.
Smell The appeal of the pizza's smell right after opening the box.
Temp How hot was is when delivered. We're measuring this on an 1-5 arbitrary scale until someone wants to buy us one of those infra-red thermometers.
Cheese The quality, taste and consistency of the cheese including how rich the flavor is, how it balanced with the other components and if it is properly browned and crisped in some areas.
Sauce The quality, taste and mouth feel of the sauce including how fresh it is, how strong it is and is the ratio properly balanced with the cheese and crust.
Crust The quality and taste of the crust including how crispy it is, and how natural and fresh it tastes.
Overall Taste The overall combination of the cheese, sauce and crust experience. And let's not kid ourselves, look and smell matter here too. This is the primary measure of the quality of the pie.
Value ScoreOur favorite measure as lovers of both food and value. This is the overall taste score divided by price per square inch. It's our measure of how good the pizza is for the price we paid.

*As stated in Boston Magazine - August '09