People tend to get religous about pizza.  That's not really me.  I like several different styles of pizza but they have to be delicious even when delivered. While growing up I was subjected to many pizza variants most of which fell into the stereotypical pepperoni, tons of cheese and bland sauce category.  But lately my parents found a good pizza place and now, primarily because they want to keep living, they tend toward vegetable pizzas with more reasonable amounts of cheese and (thankfully) decent sauce.  Of course where I grew up, in Buffalo NY, not alot of places fulfill those requirements although the Pizza Plant certainly does and I highly recommend it if you ever happen to be nearby.  One thing I really like about the Pizza Plant is they not only have pizzas but also what they call pods (like a calzone) and stuffed pizzas combined with several choices for dough including spinach, whole wheat, white, sesame and garlic.  They also have a really great desert called Ice Screamers which are two homemade (or at least they used to be) chocolate chip cookies with vanilla ice cream in the middle and topped with fudge and whipped cream.  The Screamers are even better if they warm-up the cookies.  But be warned you will be full so share with someone!

But I digress I was talking about pizza.  I'm amazed by how few truly great pizza places exist.  It seems each area can only support one really great place. In Houston that place is called Star Pizza.  It has an awesome casual and comfy atmosphere and very good pizza.  Or it did when I last visited several years ago.  I'm assuming they are still around and still excellent.  Also they had yummy appetizers to keep you settled while you await your bounty. But other than Star, Houston doesn't (or didn't) have any other really good pizza just lots of junk pizza (or at least we didn't find it in the 5 years we lived there).  Given that Houston has a very large number of extremely good restaurants I always found this strange but it did explain why Star was always doing a good business.

Even in the San Fransico Bay Area not alot of really great pizza places exist.  For the occasional "I feel like pizza but don't want to go very far to get it nights"  I goto a local place a short drive from my house called Pizz'a Chicaco .  They have a few locations but I've only tried the downtown San Jose location.  Generally they are very good and have some funky pizza names.  I say generally because once we did have a problem but when we called to complain they delivered another and resolved the problem.  I particularly like their "Al Capone" pizza which has fresh spinach, ricotta cheese, onions and pecans. They also have apricots as a topping choice which I enjoy occasionally.  But while they have good pizza they are not my bay area favorite. 

The best I've found in the entire SF Bay Area is Zachary's which has locations in Oakland, Berkely, and now San Ramon.  The pizzas are simply awesome.  They have a good variety of toppings, choice of thin crust or stuffed and excellent flavorful sauce.  The only down side is they are always (and I really mean always) very crowded.  And while the pizzas are outstanding they don't offer alot of temptations to keep you passified while you wait for the pizza too cook other than salad.  While that's understandable given how strong a business they already have one can dream that someday they may have cheese bread or something in addition to salads. 

We recently tried another Bay Area place called Patxi's which has locations in San Francisco and Palo Alto.  From what I understand Patxi's was started by a previous chef at Zachary's.  Once husband and I learned this we had to try it.  Could it be we can get a pizza as good as Zachary's but not have to drive over an hour to get it?  We tried to get something similar to what we like at Zachary's so we ordered a deep dish, spinach, mushroom and onion.  As with Zachary's Patxi's doesn't have a lot of appetizers so we had salads while we anxiouxsly awaited our pie.  It looked good but as soon as the pieces were served we noticed alot of water run-off.  It also tasted good but the sauce was not as good as Zachary's. 

So perhaps a Patxi's can be a close second but we will still need to drive to the east bay to get Zachary's when we want truly great pizza.  Which brings me back to my hypothesis of only one excellent pizza place per region - or it could just be that I'm picky.  Sigh - either way I guess that maybe I am a bit religious about my pizza!

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Bob (Unregistered) 2006-09-21 11:23:32 Hi Pam, I like lots of pizza styles - from thin fold-in-half eat-it-on-the-street NY to big thick crust with a dozen toppings - but I get really excited about only a few versions. One that we used to get delivered (went out of business) was a Pomodoro: sauce, mozzarella, fresh tomato, bacon, and a little garlic. I make it at home now - less convenient but awesome. My number one pizza is just the plain old Margharita. The crust should almost be a cracker; the sauce tasty but not overpowering; fresh cheese and basil and your're done. mmmmm. Bob is the new owner of Royal Gorge ever going to rebuild the Wilderness Lodge?

pam (Publisher) 2006-09-21 23:26:58 A recent issue of Cook's Illustrated (July I believe but could have been June) had a store on making Pizza Margharita. We tried it and it really did have a crust that was almost a cracker. But I must admit I'm more of a big crust lover so while I'm sure the result we arrived at was very good it wasn't as pleasing to us as we had hoped As for Royal Gorge I had hoped they'd be rebuilding it by now but since your asking I'm assume they still haven't started. The only benefit is that last year we went to Yosemite rather than Tahoe for our winter does of snow. We stayed at the Ahwahnee and attended one of their Chef's Holidays series with Jesse Cool - it was tons of fun - but no pizza.

pam (Publisher) 2006-09-26 22:50:30 I just saw the most amazing pizza made from a White Whole Wheat Pizza Dough White Whole Wheat Pizza Dough mmmm.

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