Pat's Pizza (C-)

The Location
Pat's Pizza is a Maine institution.  The original Pat's is located in Orono, just blocks from the UMaine campus.  It has been serving pizza to college students for decades.  Many Mainers will tell you that Pat's is THE pizza to eat and that the Orono restaurant is THE place to go.  Many others (including me) will tell you that it's totally overrated.

The Pizza
The one thing that Pat's does better than any other pizza place is crust.  It's sweet and flaky and fatty...vegans beware, it's made with animal fat.  The sauce and cheese are pretty 'meh' but the crust is excellent.  The pizza I received was a Pat's pizza with chunks of chicken dunked in BBQ sauce.  No more, no less.

The Chicken
There were chicken cubes on my pizza.  Not bad, not good...there wasn't really any flavor at all.

The Sauce and the Taste
What sauce?  The chicken had been dipped in something vaguely barbecue-y but the flavor had all baked off in the oven.  There was no BBQ under the cheese or drizzled on top.  Really, there wasn't any flavor anywhere.  It was blaaaaand.

Overall
Good old Pat's delivered what it always does: over-rated bland crap on top of a flaky, delicious bread.  It gets a C+ for the crust and for the nostalgia value.  I've been eating Pat's pizza since I was a small child, a fact that I cannot overlook.

Paddy's (B)

The Location
Paddy's is a restaurant pub in Portsmouth, NH that my friends introduced me to.  The atmosphere was classy, the food was decent and the beer selection was also decent.  Overall, I would say that the restaurant was classier than its clientele.  Located away from all the tourist areas, Paddy's seemed to be full of townies...or the Portsmouth version of Townie's.  As far as my friends were concerned, it was the best new place to chill after work.  Of course, it helps that Paddy's is just around the corner from the Barnes & Noble where most of my friends are employed.

The Pizza
What I ordered was a buffalo chicken flatbread.  What came out was pretty damn tasty.  It had a mild buffalo sauce as a base, cheese, chicken and ranch dressing drizzled on top.  The flatbread itself was unexciting, but better than other flatbreads I have had.  The cheese was perfectly fine.

The Chicken
I was a little disappointed to find chunks of leftover chicken on the pizza, which were a little chewy.  It wasn't bad, mind you, but wasn't exactly fresh or exciting.

The Sauce and the Taste
I usually get bleu cheese with my buffalo wings.  I may change my tune after this flatbread.  The combination was delicious.  It was a little spicy, a little salty and a little creamy.  The texture was fantastic--spongy and chewy.

Overall
I really enjoyed this flatbread.  I give it a B!  The only penalty it received was for the generic frozen flatbread and the leftover chicken.  Neither of those things was enough to take away from the experience, it was still very satisfying!

Domino's (C+)

The Location
People like to trash on Domino's pizza.  I do, too.  The stuff is vile.  At the same time, it's one of two things that I can get delivered to my door at 10PM.  Also, if you get the right toppings it can be pretty tasty.

The Pizza
I ordered two pizzas, this time, for two reasons.  First, I want to have some alternate pizzas to compare the BBQ chicken to.  Second, they sucker you into it with an online coupon.  It was just cheaper to get two mediums than one large.  Anyway, I ate some of the other pizza (which had pepperoni and sausage) and found it to be pretty nasty.  I do like the seasoned crust that Domino's started using a year or two ago.  However, overall, piss poor showing.  On the other hand, the BBQ chicken pizza (which I ordered with onions) turned out to be fairly tasty.  So I will say that our delivery-inventing friends at Domino's lose points in the overall pizza quality...but that's only one part of the BBQ chicken evaluation process.

The Chicken
It's white meat and recognizable, which is a step above some places.  It's frozen, though, and was obviously sliced in some kind of industrial process.  It's factory chicken.  It wasn't chewy, though, I will give it that.

The Sauce and the Taste
The sauce was used as the base of the pizza, which I will admit that I like.  Unfortunately, it has a chemically sort of taste that gets in your nostrils.  That's not...necessarily a bad thing.  I think a lot of barbecue sauces taste like chemicals.  Hell, they ARE chemicals.  At the same time, Domino's is impressing no one with their sauce.

At the same time, I will say that something about this pizza really worked.  I think it was the combination of the chemically sweet sauce, the naturally sweet onions and the garlic salt on the crust.  For some reason, all those flavors worked really well together.

Overall
I can't tell you that this was a good pizza.  You wouldn't believe me and I wouldn't believe myself.  However, I also can't stand here and tell you I didn't enjoy eating this mass produced monstrosity.  I did enjoy it.  I fucking enjoyed it.  There was something satisfying about my gooey, salty-sweet mess of protein and sugar.  I enjoyed it.  I also enjoyed that it arrived at my door.  I give Domino's a C+.

Red Rock Cafe (B+)

The Location

The Red Rock Cafe in Mansfield, CT is a confused little restaurant.  The name 'red rock' conjures up images of the american southwest, but the restaurant is set up like a beer pub and the menu is all italian food.  I cannot really complain, because the food is halfway decent and the beer selection is pretty good.  I wouldn't say that any of the food there is great, or anything, but it's edible.  I will confess that I don't remember this pizza very well,  on account of the fact that I was exhausted after a long day at work and I had two beers before the pizza even arrived.  I was a little tipsy, tired and hungry when that fucker was slid onto the table.  Hunger, being the best spice, had me swallowing slices whole.

The Pizza

Red Rock makes thick crust pizza.  It's a nice, thick, doughy sort of meal with lots of cheese.  I've heard rumors that their regular cheese pizza isn't particularly good.  I have to say that I really enjoyed the crust.

The Chicken

I don't know exactly what kind of chicken was on this pizza.  I remember being very pleased, though, so I know it wasn't frozen or chewy.  I suspect it may have been shredded.  It was quality, anyway.

The Sauce and the Taste

The sauce tasted like Magic Hat #9 since--and I think most pretentious beer drinkers will agree--the taste of #9 follows you for hours after drinking.  Again, I remember being pleased by this pizza, so the sauce could not have been bad.  It may not have been good, but it definitely wasn't bad.

Overall

All discriminating thought was lost in that moment of hunger and exhaustion and inebriation.  I don't honestly know if the pizza was all that good but it really, really hit the spot.  I walked out of that restaurant feeling completely satisfied.  Let's give it a B+.

California Pizza Kitchen (D-)

The Location
This one was made right in my very own kitchen.  I grew up on Tony's frozen pizzas and I will admit that I still love them.  In the past decade, though, there have been some serious advances in the world of frozen pizza.  Some companies have tried to break the mold by bringing premium pizzas to the freezer section of your local grocery store.  One is called California Pizza Kitchen...which seems to be playing on that leftover ideal that California is (1) the place to go if you want to fulfill fantasies of manifest destiny (2) the center of glamour and excitement and stardom in our country (3) a healthy place to live.

The Pizza
I am going to go ahead and admit something before we get going.  I overcooked this pizza.  I forgot to set the timer, got distracted by a video game and I overcooked the damn thing.  I don't think it did a lot of damage, as it looked very similar going in as it did coming out.  The pizza was sparsely topped, terrifically thin and crunchy as hell.  It was so insubstantial that I kind of felt like I should be eating the cardboard circle underneath.  The crust, admittedly overcooked, splintered into shards in my mouth.  I'm pretty sure my gums were bleeding.

The Chicken
Chicken cubes!

The Sauce and the Taste
The sauce was pretty good, except there was none on the pizza.  I got a little dab of flavor on one of the slices, but it was pretty dry and tasteless overall.  What I will concede is that the onions, even overcooked, turned out to be pretty tasty.  They were thinly sliced crescents of red onion, cooked to sweetness.

Overall
I would save your money and eat cardboard instead...or save some money by picking up a Tony's frozen pizza, instead.  This pizza was saved from an F rating by the onions and the fact that I overcooked the damn thing.  Maybe it would have been decent, if I had followed the instructions.  Maybe, but I suspect not.  D-!