Junior's (B)

I'm up in Vermont visiting friends, this week.  Last night, Aimee brought me to her favorite Burlington-area pizza joint:  Juniors.  The restaurant has two sides, one a standard pizza place and the other a fine Italian restaurant.

The Location
It's a classic Vermont-ish eatery.  You go up to a counter and order your food and then take a number to whichever table you want.  They bring the pizza to you.  The pizzaria side was a straightforward, open area with classic red and white checkerboard tablecloths.  The pizza came out fast, the staff were friendly enough and overall I'd say the place was ok.  Of course, it's kind of a moot point because it's in Vermont.

The Pizza

No I did not eat them both by myself.
I did consider it.

The crust on this pizza is excellent.  Its a medium thickness, with a nice chewy center but a crunchy bottom surface.  So it crunches in your mouth, but without turning into a mass of pizza shards.  It's chewy but chewable.  The cheese was stretchy and enjoyable.  Overall, one of the best basic pizzas ever.  We ordered one buffalo chicken pizza and one barbecue chicken pizza.  After all, if that was my last visit to Junior's, I had to try them both!

The Chicken
Being an Italian restaurant, I was excited for what I suspected might be coming:  flattened breaded chicken.  I was right.  It was like eating a chicken parm on a crust...but with bbq sauce.  Ok, maybe it wasn't like chicken parm at all, but it was delicious!

The Sauce and the Taste
The buffalo sauce and the barbecue sauce were both pretty tasty.  My big issue was that neither pizza included other toppings.  The buffalo chicken really could have used some bleu cheese and the BBQ chicken really could have used some onions.  I feel like these uni-flavor pizzas really kind of dropped the ball.

Overall
A very well constructed pizza.  I think that Junior's is, overall, high quality food.  I just don't think they put in the effort to coming up with a barbecue chicken pizza that is their own.  It really needs to be a special thing, not just another topping.  I give it a B!

Pizza Place (B-)

The Lovely Kiley recently moved to an apartment in Stonington, CT.  For those of you who are far away, Stonington is on the coast, right on the Rhode Island border.  Kiley's apartment is within walking distance of Westerly, Rhode Island.  We walked into Westerly and spent an afternoon in their downtown.  It was quintessential New England at its most...well, just at its most, that's what quintessential means.  It could not have been more New England.

The Location
The restaurant is actually called Pizza Place, which is clever and quaint and classy.  The atmosphere inside was big and open and friendly.  Two large groups, a family and some sort of middle school sports team were eating in the main dining room...and I could totally see why.  Pizza Place has a decent selection of beers and several chicken pizzas.

The Pizza
The crust was reasonably good, the cheese was decent.  Overall the pizza was quality.  I ordered the buffalo chicken pizza, this time, which came with bleu cheese and an assortment of bell peppers.

It does kind of look like someone got murdered,
but I assure you all that blood is delicious.

The Chicken
The pieces of chicken were ok.  They seemed to be cubes cut from leftover chicken breasts, which is not my favorite, but not bad either.  They were leftover, it seems, but not too chewy.

The Sauce and the Taste
Here is where the rubber meets the road, as they say.  The buffalo sauce was excellent and the bleu cheese was really salty and sumptuous and enjoyable.  The weakness of this pizza was the choice to add bell peppers to the toppings.  I don't mind pepper on pizzas but it just didn't fit with the buffalo sauce.  You need something that contrasts with the salty heat.  Onions usually do the trick.

Overall
I liked this pizza, I ate way too much of it.  Nothing about it was amazing, but it worked ok.  I think B- is a fair judgment for a decent pizza with ok meat, good sauce and a weak topping.

Home-made Part Two (C)

Location
My very own kitchen!  Last night I looked in the fridge and saw cheese, chicken, feta and an onion.  There isn't really much else you can do with that, other than buy pizza dough and sauce and whip up a delicious chicken pizza.

The Pizza
I bought premade dough and premade sauce and started in, cooking like a fiend.  The cheese was a chedder and mozzarella mix, which I just don't think comes out as well as pure mozzarella.  The chedder makes it gooey and I really just don't want gooey pizza.  The dough was pretty tasty, but did not cook all the way, in the center.  I rolled it out on the pizza stone and then slid the stone into the oven, cold.  Everyone knows that pizza stones are supposed to be preheated!  I need to remember that when I am cooking with Big Y unrisen dough, I need to use a metal pizza pan, which conducts heat more easily.

The Chicken
I have perfected the chicken technique, if I must say so myself.  I pounded a breast flat, dipped it flour, egg and bread crumbs, then fried it in a skillet.  I sliced it, dunked it in sauce and laid the strips across the top of the pizza.  The only thing that really needs work is my pounding.  I never thought I would say that, but it's true.  Recipes all call for chicken flattened to an even 1/2 inch or thinner.  I can't seem to manage that.  I pound and pound, but it keeps some if its shape.  Oh well, it cooks evenly, which is the most important part.

The Sauce and the Taste
I was out of barbecue sauce, so I decided to use some Frank's Red Hot sauce, instead.  I shook the chicken slices in the sauce to give an even coating, then splashed some across the surface of the pizza.  I also included feta cheese and carmelized red onions.  I have to say that, despite the cheese and the dough being kind of soft and gooey, the taste of this pizza was amazing.  It was a perfect combination of heat, sweet and salty.

Overall
This pizza still has a ways to go.  I have certainly found better pizzas at restaurants...but I think I am catching up.  This pizza was better than the ones I made a few months ago and I think I know how to make it even better.  The chicken and the other toppings are secure in their superiority.  Now what I really need is to find a good recipe for pizza dough and a good cheese blend.

Sgt. Pepperoni (D-)

Location
Sgt.  Pepperoni is located between my office in the Gentry Building and my car in F Lot.  I stopped in after a late night in the office, sometime in January.  I'm going to be honest, the best part of the experience was looking at the hot girl behind the counter.

I spent the rest of the evening, eating the entire medium (quite large) pizza by myself.  I went to sleep early, figuring I was slipping into a food coma...not realizing that I was ill.  I woke up at midnight and spent the rest of the night throwing up periodically.  I swore I would never return to Sgt. Pepperoni and came very close to swearing that I would never eat BBQ chicken pizza again.  It's been a month and a half and I am finally ready to resume my quest for the perfect chicken pizza.  But first I need to purge the awfulness that was Sgt. Pepperoni.  (I should note that it was a stomach bug and not food poisoning, but I'm still pissed that I spent money on this pizza so I'm going to put this note in parentheses rather than giving it the full weight of its own sentence).

The Pizza
Well, not much to say.  There was a cheese pizza with some chicken on top.  It looked like very generic small town pizza.

The Chicken
Chunks.  Flavorless, chewy chunks.

The Sauce and the Taste
Not much sauce, virtually no taste.

Overall
Am I biased by the fact that this pizza was purged from my system in the most unpleasant way possible?  Yes.  I don't give a flying fuck.  This pizza sucked.  I am never going back.