The Willimantic Brewing Company (Pomfret Pulled Pork Pizza) (B+)

I hadn't spoken to my friend Ashley in many months until very recently.  We each developed a secret grudge against the other, angry that the other one had not made contact.  This didn't come out until very recently when we found ourselves taking the same class.  She pulled me aside at the break time and asked me what the hell I thought I was doing, ignoring her for so long.  Comedy ensued.

During the conversation, Ashley reminded me that I had not updated the barbecue chicken pizza blog in months.  She was not the only person to mention that recently, so I decided it was time.  I had several of these pizzas over the summer but hadn't been writing them up!  I didn't know that anyone had noticed.

It has returned.

The Location
I met up with Ashley at the Willimantic Brewing Company, also known as the Willibrew, to catch up over drinks.  We had a great time, chatted about life and graduate school and dating and marriage.  I decided while I was there that I just HAD to get the barbecue pulled pork flatbread pizza.  I did review another Willibrew flatbread last year and, as I remember, it was not all that great.  I decided to give them another chance.

The Pizza
This pizza was built like a lot of other flatbreads.  It had a generic, premade crust, lots of bbq sauce and pork and cheese.  It also had onions and maybe a few other tidbits of flavor tossed on top.  The cheese was salty and tasty, the crust was MUCH better on this pizza than it had been in the past.  I don't know how, but they made the crust feel like it was integrated into the overall pizza, rather than a separate entity with toppings plopped on top.

The Pork
I was really impressed by the pulled pork.  They cooked it just right, put it on there in delicious gobs and smothered it with Willibrews own beer-b-cue sauce.  For future reference, oh culinary fans, that very same pulled pork can be added to the Willibrew's famous nachos.  I highly recommend it.

The Sauce and the Taste
I already sung the praises of the sauce.  It worked.  It was sweet and smoky and salty and worked with the onions and the cheese really well.  All together, I liked the flavor a lot.

Overall
I'm not going to give this pizza an A.  I still can't embrace the premade crusts, even if it is integrated with tasty toppings.  I will go as close as I can, though, with a B+.  This is a solid pizza and makes for a great snack when you are out for a night at the pub.

Husky Pizza (Chicken Bacon Ranch) (C+)

My friend brought me another pizza, along with the barbecue chicken.  I thought it deserved a separate review because this pizza was somewhat better than the first.

The Location
Husky Pizza is named after the UConn mascot:  The Husky.  Or:  The Huskies.  Or:  Huskies.  Who the fuck knows what it actually is.  All I know is that there are damned cartoon snow dogs printed on everything.

The Pizza
No red sauce, all ranch dressing.  Bacon and chicken on top.  Same decent crust, same decent cheese.

The Chicken
Same ok chicken from the BBQ chicken.

The Sauce and the Taste
What made this pizza work was the ranch dressing.  It got a nice, potent salty flavor that I enjoyed.  Now, I would have put broccoli on this bad mother...probably some other kind of seasoning.  There was definitely garlic salt on the crust, which was a welcome addition.

Overall
This pizza worked better than the BBQ chicken, but was still a big disappointment.  It just didn't have any pizzazz, gumption, chutzpah or any other kind of oomph.

Husky Pizza (C-)

This BBQ chicken pizza was brought over by a nice girl who wanted to help a brother out while he was too busy working to cook for himself.  You can't say no to that!

The Location

Husky Pizza is located across the street from the UConn campus.  I had not eaten there, until today, because nobody ever recommended it...or said anything about it at all.  It was just there in the background.  

The Pizza

The crust was ok, the cheese was fine.  Their BBQ chicken came topped with tomatoes and onions in addition to sauce and chicken.

The Chicken

Was chunks...cooked...it tasted fine.

The Sauce and the Taste

There was sauce on this pizza.  I can tell because some areas of the surface were stickier than others.  Really, I can't comment on the taste because this pizza had no taste.  It was blander than bland.  I don't know how you could make or purchase barbecue sauce with such little flavor.  I didn't know such sauce existed.  It was unseasoned, unsalted, uneverythinged.

Overall

There was nothing bad about this pizza.  And by that I mean that there was no single, off-putting element.  However, it was a pointless, flavorless mass.

Tony's Pizza (C-)

Location
I don't really know.  I was on a date and we were tired so we just picked a place and ordered delivery.  It's in willimantic.

The Pizza
Tony's makes deep dish pizza and I have had their basic pepperoni before--which was good.  The cheese is piled deep and the crust is really delicious.  What was curious about this pizza was that the chicken and barbecue sauce were all underneath the cheese.  It was like a giant hot pocket with bbq chicken inside and the top layer was cheese instead of bread.  That's a silly analogy.  It was like an envelope.  No.  That's not right, either.  Fuck it, the meat was all inside.

The Meat
Was chewy chunks of leftover or frozen chicken.  Bleh.

The Sauce and the Taste
Were not good.

Overall
I think that Tony's makes good pizzas in general, but they just completely missed the boat on the BBQ chicken.  We also got a meat lover's pizza which was pretty good--except for the leftoverish quality of some of the meats.  I think that Tony just needs to go talk to Fred of Fred's Brick House Cafe about the importance of fresh toppings.  If you are looking for a thick pepperoni pizza that is delicious, go to Tony's.  If you want anything else...go to Fred's.

Fred's Brick House Cafe (The Big Glen) (A+)

Location
Fred's Brick House Cafe is an odd combination of brick oven pizza, barbecue, sandwiches and live music.  Yeah, you heard that.  Fred's has live, local music almost every single night of the week.  To be honest, I think that is the only think I don't like about the place.  The live music is just too loud to be able to enjoy conversation over beer and pizza.

The Pizza
I ordered the "Big Glen" pizza for obvious reasons.  I mean, I'd have to, right?  This description comes from the online menu:  BIG GLEN - spinach, tomato, onion, gorgonzola, bacon, chicken, creamy garlic.  I read that and thought "yes, if I were a pizza, I would be this one."  The big glen is a white pizza on Fred's great woodfire cooked crust.

The Chicken
Ok, so here's what they do, and this is fucking brilliant.  At Fred's they use shredded chicken, but then the clumps are chopped into smaller pieces.  When I make shredded chicken at home, I just shred the chicken and the meat forms some long strips and I just use that.  Here they make it bite size, which is what everyone should do with pizza toppings.  Who enjoys it when you take a bite of pizza and then half the toppings slide off because you just snagged a big green pepper ring?  The answer is nobody because it's unpleasant and you can actually get burned that way. 

The Sauce and the Taste
This pizza did not have barbecue sauce, but the creamy garlic sauce was tasty and worked very, very well with the gorgonzola and onions and bacon.  This was a very potent and flavorful pizza.  It had all sorts of salty toppings, but I have to say that it didn't end up being too salty for me.  The onions and spinach and broccoli were neutral-to-sweet ingredients that provided good balance.  Also, broccoli has the amazing effect of absorbing flavors.

Overall
One of the best pizzas that I've ever had.  My co-eater, Kiley, ordered a pizza with eggplant that was really fantastic.  I recommend Fred's Brick House Cafe to anyone interested in good pizza.  You can expect more reviews of their other chicken pizzas in the future.

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.

Apollo (B-)

Last night I had the pleasure of dining with my Connecticut foodie partner, Katie.  She's been busy with a full time job and a boyfriend, so it's been a while since we got our Culinary on.  I told her about my blog so she did a little research and found Apollo's Pizza in South Windham. 

The Location
This place is on route 32, between Willimantic and Norwich, tucked away in a quaint little strip.  The decor was greek themed and cute but the place smacked of 'townie bar.'  I like it a lot.  It was quiet on a Monday night.  More importantly, Apollo is a hotbed of chicken pizza activity.  They have no less than FOUR chicken pizzas.  They have the usual barbecue and buffalo but also have a chicken and broccoli pizza.  Not only that, but their namesake pizza, The Apollo, is itself a chicken pizza.  Needless to say, I will be returning to review these other pizzas, soon.

The Pizza
When my pizza arrived at the table, I found it to be very straightforward.  Circular pie, medium thickness crust, bbq sauce as the base, chicken chunks and cheese.  The crust and cheese were neither good, nor bad.

The Chicken

BBQ Chicken and The Texan...brothers in arms.

They used leftover chunks of white meat.  Again, neither good nor bad.  The chicken was probably generic leftovers, but was not chewy and was doused in an appropriate amount of sauce.

The Sauce and the Taste

The barbecue sauce that they used was generic, but very tasty.  If I had to guess, I would say that they used Sweet Baby Ray's (or the industry equivalent).  The taste was really what was lacking, in this pizza.  There was nothing salty to offset the sweetness of the sauce and the blandness of the cheese/crust.  It could have used some bleu cheese or onions or bacon or something to give it a little pizzazz.

Overall

There was nothing wrong with this pizza.  If anything, I would say that it is the quintessential BBQ chicken pizza.  But, really, there was nothing about it that stood out, either.  I give it a B-.

NOTE
We also got a pizza called The Texan, a new one at Apollo.  It had a ranch dressing base, french fries and bacon on top.  It was salty and delicious.  I would give that pizza a B+.  I recommend going and checking out this place.

Angellino's (A+)

This pizza was purchased for me by my friend Rohini.  We used to share an office, but then she moved off to New York City and I don't see her very much anymore.  When she comes back to visit, she buys me food out of guilt...and because I invite her to stay at my place.  I don't know that is usually worth offering food for, but it really is a nice futon.

The Location
Angellino's is an italian restaurant that is right near my apartment.  It's a classy joint for small-town Italian.  They have a few locations, scattered across Connecticut.  Angellino's seems to believe that The Olive Garden is its main competition and sets out to do what Olive Garden does, only better.  I will say that, while this goal doesn't seem particularly ambitious, Angellino's really succeeds.  It's not fine dining, but it beats the pants off of most box restaurants or family restaurants.

The Pizza
Oh boy am I excited to tell you all about this one.  This was a thick crust buffalo chicken pizza.  Buffalo sauce was used as the base and bleu cheese was mixed into the mozzarella.  Speaking of the mozzarella, it was magical.  It was stretchy and stringy and gooey, like you see on tv commercials.  Except, it wasn't a commercial, it was real life.  That never happens in real life but somehow Angellino's made it come true.

The pizza included red onions and chicken that...well...

The Chicken
Here's what really impressed me about this pizza.  They used the chicken parmesan chicken.  It was white meat, pounded flat, breaded and fried.  They took the flattened cutlet, sliced it into chunks--dipped them in buffalo sauce--and then scattered them on the top of the pizza.  As a result, the chicken was flavorful, crunchy and meaty all at the same time.  Hands down, the best chicken.

The Sauce and the Taste
Again, delicious.  The buffalo sauce they used was mild, so it had a hint of heat but a whole boat load of flavor.  The combination of the buffalo, the red onion and the bleu cheese was fantastic.

Overall
I am trying to think of something bad to say about this pizza and I cannot come up with anything.  It was satisfying, tasty and smacked of quality.  I have no idea if it actually was quality.  The chicken parm meat may have come out of a freezer bag.  I don't care.  It FELT like quality and it tasted amazing.  A+.

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+.

Willington Pizza's Regular BBQ Chicken (D-)

The Location
One of the inspirations for this blog was the Barbecue Chicken deep dish at Willington Pizza, near the UConn campus.  I've eaten said pizza on three separate occasions and it was one of the best things I've ever tasted.  Each time I order my food I ask the waitress "Do you have a barbecue chicken pizza?" and they answer "You mean the special we had a couple weeks ago?"  I always reply "Yes, that one...bring me a large."  It's delicious and I hope to review it soon...but it is not what I got.  Last weekend I said "I'd like a small barbecue chicken pizza" and the waitress said "Ok."  What I got was NOT the special.

The Pizza
Willington makes deep dish pizzas with really good crust that reminds me of home-made bread.  The downside is that the cheese is really sub-par.  It has the consistency and taste (I imagine) of Elmer's glue.

The Chicken
Chicken cubes!

The Sauce and the Taste
The chicken cubes had been quickly dunked into barbecue sauce, just enough to be detectable but not enough to actually provide flavor.  This pizza was the most bland thing I've ever tasted.

Overall
The crust saved this pizza from receiving the first F on my blog.

Wooster Street Pizza (B)

The Place
Wooster Street Pizza is a Connecticut based chain of pizza places.  They have some decent food (good wings) and a gigantic pizza that was featured on Man vs. Food a couple years ago.  The Storrs branch of Wooster Street is located across from the UConn campus and is conveniently located between my office and the community pool where I swim laps.  After a particularly intense swim, last week, I stopped by for a small Barbie's-Cue chicken pizza.

The Pizza
I think that, like the Willi-Brew before it, what really held this pizza back was the Wooster Street pizza itself.  They make Connecticut style pizza which is floury, thin and crunchy.  Moreover, the toppings don't go out to the edge of the pizza.  Around the circumference of every slice, there is about a 2" ring of dry, gum-stabbing crust.  Every time I pick up a slice, I have to resist the urge to rake the toppings from the center out to the edge. 

The Chicken
The chicken itself was chunks of white and dark meat.  It seemed fresh.  No problems here.

The Taste
This is what saved the Barbie's-Cue chicken.  Their sauce was sweet and sticky, but not too sweet or too sticky.  They included onions and tomatoes, which gave the pizza a freshness and heartiness.  There was a saltiness to the toppings which counteracted the sweet BBQ sauce.  The part of the pizza with the toppings was delicious and I couldn't stop eating it.  Unfortunately, not enough of it was covered in toppings!  I bought a 12" pie and only got about 10" of real pizza.

Overall
This pizza was delicious, even though it was placed on top of an inferior, crunchy base.  I give this one a B.

Union Street Market (A)

The Place
The Union Street Market is the food court at UConn's student union.  They serve a variety of mediocre foods that are generally hearty, but lacking in pizzazz.  I often end up at the Union for lunch because my building is right near by.  In fact, I can see the food court from my office window.  I went down there, today, thinking about getting fish and vegetables from the home-cooking themed station.  I was pulled away by the allure of a buffalo chicken pizza.

The Pizza
Union pizza is actually pretty good.  It's big, floppy slices of greasy pizza that bring up nostalgic memories of a time before 'flatbreads.'  I've noticed that their cheese and pepperoni pizzas are of lower quality (seemingly made far in advance and with inferior ingredients) than the specialty pizzas.  There's a different specialty pizza available each day and they all seem to be hearty and flavorful and fresh.  The cheese is chewy and stretchy and greasy and delicious.  The crust is a good mix between thin/chewy and fluffy/bready. 

The Chicken
They used shredded chicken on this pizza.  It's not too chewy, so I have to assume it hasn't been microwaved.  There's light meat and dark meat and it's smothered in buffalo sauce.

The Sauce and Taste
The buffalo sauce that they use is spicy, but not super hot.  That gives the whole pizza a rich flavor without being off-putting.  There's also bleu cheese, green onion and other seasonings that round out the flavor. 

Overall
My best chicken pizza experience since starting this blog.  I have half a slice sitting next to me and I am loathe to finish it.  I will miss it when it's gone.