"Two slices is about half a pie:" SLiCE

List of "slice" related puns/cliches:
-Any way you slice it!
-A slice of heaven!
-A slice of life!
-That's the way the cookie slices.
-The slicing on the cake.

I just pulled the last two out of my ass, actually, because all the puns and cliches that include "slice" that I thought of in the shower stayed there, apparently. I was trying to think of what NOT to call this entry... but enough filler.

Last Friday, my girlfriend and I headed south on 8th Street as two hungry people. For those not in the know, there is lots of good stuff to eat in South Philadelphia. Our destination was Cosmi's Meat Market for hoagies but a.) this isn't Sandwich Prospects and b.) if you're given a few minutes and an empty stomach in the Italian Market, lunch will not end at a hoagie. We parked about a half a block away from SLiCE which has been on my "If the opportunity arises, you must try!"-list since before this blog started. In a rare show of good judgment, I wrapped up the second half of my Italian hoagie for a later date and turned my mind toward pizza.

I was really excited for SLiCE and for good reason. The slice I got was great. I'm not the biggest fan of thin crust, "legitimacy" aside. SLiCE has a pie that has a lot more to offer than a variety of crust, you know? Their ingredients deliver. This pizza is RED...

...and the sauce responsible is NICE. Kinda chunky and really garlicky. The garlic was hanging out in my mouth for awhile after which I personally find is a plus; the worse it makes my breath smell, the more I like it. Sad fact of life. This slice is shaped funny because that's how they do things at SLiCE and I like that. I initially wanted two slices, my norm, but the girl at the counter advised against it. "Two slices is about half a pie."

I have a slight problem with the pepperoni. It's the smaller, thicker kind that, again, is more legitimate but it's just not my favorite. No biggie because their menu is HUGE and I need to go back and try all their pies. And, actually, I might sweat thin crust pretty hard, but it really is a cool thing. Anyway, SLiCE has tons going for it but they don't need me to tell them that: tons of variety, killer sauce, lingering flavors, pizza cred.


SLiCE
1180 S. 10th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19147
215-243-0868

1740 Sansom Street
Philadelphia, PA 19103
215-557-9299

Frozen Is The New Fresh

Quite often, probably too often I find myself scavenging through my half empty freezer in search of high calorie midnight snacks. Typically, I have the option of Jose Ole’s chicken Taquitos, Bubba burgers, bagels, or frozen pizzas. The taquitos are old, and only two are left. I can never quite cook my Bubba burger on the stove correctly, and there is never any cream cheese for the bagels. The choice is clear: frozen pizza pies! The thing about frozen pizzas that makes them the supremeist of all midnight snax is the lack of mess. Essentially, the only thing to clean is the pizza cutter, even then you can just lick it off and stick it back in the drawer without your mom ever knowing. Also, generally it only takes 12-18 minutes to cook a frozen pizza, which leaves plenty of time to read a few other Pizza Prospect articles!

The three standard pizza’s you can find in my fridge are the after school classic, Tombstone, The Target branded Archer Farms, and the self-rising Red Baron. All exceptional in their own very different ways.

Tombstone: 400° for 16-18 min. I have a strict pepperoni only policy for this frozen pizza powerhouse. Available at every grocery store ever globally. My favorite part of this pizza is its sauce. The sauce tastes like it could be on a fresh pizza, fairly tangy and plenty of it. The cheese is cheesy. The pepperonis are big and greasy. With its average pre-heating temperature length, and cook time Tombstone is a great snack for after school while doing your math homework. ***Often times Tombstone is buy one get one at Giant, keep your eyes peeled

Red Baron: 400° for 15-20 min. Depending on how soft or crisp you want your rising crust to be the range of cook times varies on probably my favorite frozen pizza. The sauce is plentiful on this pizza, along with a mild garlicky taste to the cheese. This is by far the best rising crust pizza available. Forget Digornos or whatever, Red Baron tastes more like delivery then most other pizzas. This is my favorite pizza to eat with friends, it’s a bit bigger than other frozen pizzas, which means more to go around!

Archer Farms: 375° 8-10 min. This is a great pizza for a quick snack. Archer Farms has a broad range of gourmet frozen pizzas, that taste like gourmet pizzas. Goat Cheese, Spiral Ham, Margarita, Buffalo Mozerella & Roasted Tomato, etc. They range from personal pizzas to a nice large 12-14” pies. Plus I love any excuse to venture into my local Target.

I know fresh pizza is always the way to go, but when you're strapped on cash $4 can get you a lot of frozen pizza.

Keep on eatin' that 'za, y'all!

Holy Sh*t: Cici's Pizza Buffet

Alright, so how many times have you been watching who-knows-what on TV, and during the commercials, you see an ad for Cici's Pizza Buffet? Suddenly you're thinking "Cici's Pizza Buffet? What the hell? How come I've never seen one of those? Better yet, how come I haven't even heard of that?"

Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking. One day about three weeks ago we were all watching something on TV, and one of their ads popped up during what we were watching. Shortly after the ad we all vowed to ourselves that we would get to a Cici's Pizza Buffet in the very-near-future, and we finally made our dreams a reality this past Tuesday night (May 12th).

A dream is almost too perfect of a description for this place too. Endless pizza of all varieties, endless desserts, endless pasta, endless bread sticks/ pepperoni-bread, endless salads, and bottomless beverages. That's right: beverages. Seriously, this place has everything, and the best part is you can take as much as you want, whenever you want. For just a small price of $5 (and an added fee if you want a drink), you can participate in the endless-pizza madness for as long as your stomach can handle. Unfortunately for me, I lost my receipt that I meant to keep for price information for this blog post, but the full price for the meal and the drink was no more than $9. With that being said, this is definitely the place to go to if you're looking for quantity or quality.

As expected, the slices of pizza were all fairly tiny, but you can't expect much else from a buffet. The pizzas were at most 14 inches in diameter, so you can imagine the size of the slice. Just look at the pic. 
You'll have to fill your plate at least 2 times before you're satisfied, and you may even have to wait until they put out more pizza. They try and combat this small problem by giving you endless dessert, bread sticks, pasta and salads - this way you can forget about pizza for a second while you fill your plate with other kinds of food.

All in all, I think it's a safe bet to say that I can see myself making another trip to the one-of-a-kind Cici's Pizza. If you're really, really hungry and you're strapped for cash, then Cici's Pizza is the place for you. Although it may not be the best pizza you have ever had, it's bound to put a smile on your face, and chances are you're going to want to go back. They even had an arcade in the back of the restaurant, and we certainly didn't let that go to waste.

When you're hungry, this place is heavenly. As described by Cici's Pizza goer DJ Sophic, "It's a great place to go if you're high and broke."

Cici's Pizza Buffet
818 Haddonfield Rd
Cherry Hill, NJ 08002
856-910-2424

Nick Bradley: "Of Pizza and Desperation"

11:27 PM, Sunday, May 2nd.

I’m reading Pizza Prospects, while Mike (my roommate) watches Adult Swim. He asks what I am reading; I explain. We exchange knowing looks, and our stomachs rumble almost simultaneously.

Two minutes later, my bike is humming down South College Avenue, banking to the left onto East Delaware. My destination is Little Caesars; my goal is the Hot – N – Ready.

In the same way there are sub-prime loans, there are sub-prime pizzas. You may think you are getting what you want, but ultimately you are left dissatisfied and without cash in your wallet. The Hot – N – Ready is no exception. For $5.00, Little Caesar’s advertises a fourteen inch pie with your choice of plain or pepperoni toppings. No claims are made about the quality of the sauce or dough, and for good reason. The HNR, as it will be known from now on, is devoid of anything that makes it unique. It’s not that it is inedible, as both my roommate and I had eaten the entire thing in under 5 minutes. The HNR is simply the most bland pizza I have ever encountered*. The crust is neither thin nor thick, nor soft or hard. If anything, the dough comes off as a little gummy. The sauce isn’t much better either. It isn’t as much sauce as it is a thin layer of cheese matrix with embedded tomato product. Truly, the sauce is just a veneer that can be peeled away to reveal plain, slightly greasy bread.

In all fairness, my circle of friends has consumed an untold number of these mass-produced, sub-prime pizzas. But we also consume untold volumes of mass-produced, sub-prime beers, wines, and liquors. College makes a person frugal, and the appeal of a $5.00 pie usually overcomes any concerns about quality. If the HNR does one thing right, however, it lies in the satiating effect on the stomachs of hungry students across the UD campus.

Little Caesar's
240 East Delaware Avenue
Newark, DE 19711
302-224-3880‎

*As a point of fact, Mike thinks the HNR is an awesome pizza. This review has resulted in a small but heated discourse.

Nick Bradley's GI tract might be in distress, but his wallet isn't.

Give Pizza Chance!!

Sup! Anyone go to this?

At Rocket Cat Cafe (renamed Pizza Cat Cafe, 1 night only!) in Fishtown on Friday there was a pizza themed art show/pizza party. Sounds cool right! I heard about it a couple hours before and biked over there with my bff. While we were waiting for the free pizza to come we looked around and drank some free gross wine. The art was pretty neat, there was a giant velcro pizza, free little pizza drawings, pizza clocks, and I don't remember anymore but just other pizza things, use your imagination. Rocket Cat Cafe is real cute inside and they even have some vegan treats. I'm pretty sure they have pizza bagels, mostly just coffee stuff though.
So after a while, like 15 minutes, everyone started getting restless and mumbling pizza insults. THEN the music came on and everyone came outside to see about 8 guys skateboarding up with pizza boxes in hand. The first guy fell on his ass right outside the place and everyone cheered, it was so COOL. I saw this lady ride up with about 10 boxes strapped to her bike, awesome.
Now for the actual pizza.. okay I didn't actually have any cause it was all just cheese and I don't mess with that stuff anymore BUT the free pizza was from Rustica in Northern Liberties and I heard good things. I wasn't at the event the whole time because I was getting other free food from galleries but apparently the Fishtown Pizza Truck stopped by as well. (Isn't Philadelphia the best)
All in all, preeeeetty cool-nice friendly people, pizza love in the air, beautiful Friday night, and I got what I'm pretty sure was a free shirt with a pizza on it. I kinda feel like a jerk for writing about this when I didn't even eat the pizza but whatever. Heres a link for a movie about pizza to make up for it. http://www.thepizzaguymovie.com

"pizza is the best" -Matthew McGarvey.
Indeed Matthew

Pies of Prescott, Part One (inc. a brief diatribe on pizza problems of the American West)

For the majority of my life, I've resided on the East Coast. Like many contributors here at Pizza Prospects, I lived in suburban Chester County, Penna. (while spending as much time in Philadelphia as possible.) Having grown somewhat restless in my lifestyle there, I seized the opportunity to attend a college really far away. Currently, I'm having a wonderful time living here in Prescott, Arizona. Sometimes, though, I can't help but feel that there's a big round hole between my stomach and my heart...

(Bill's Pizza, Stock photos used without permission in the context of a favorable review.)

I Think I Daiya'ed and Went to Vegan Pizza Heaven

My friend Justin pored his complicated soul into a series of poems this semester and was going to read them in the Women's Studies lounge. I was running late, thinking about not going, when he texted, "You have to come to the reading... the pizza they got. You just have to try it. It's... different." On my walk there I passed our friend Beth who had just left the reading. "The pizza was different! It was good though!" I was freaking intrigued.

Expanding the Brand

Since I guess it's required of everyone on the internet, we've expanded our "BRAND" to include a Facebook page and a Twitter feed. Please like us and follow us... with those numbers, we have some pretty low self-esteem.

Pizza Prospects on Facebook and Twitter.