Introducing a new pizza blog from SE Community member JEL, Pizzeria Ozio. Launched right before the New Year, the new pizza blog's focus, in the words of the mission statement, will be: "highlighting truly noteworthy pizzerias along the along the Gulf Coast from the Florida panhandle to New Orleans. The style of pie will typically be a New York slice, although other major regional styles and some flavorful family recipes may be considered."

It's really great to see regional coverage for areas outside of the Pizza Belt, and all the more so from a fellow Slice'r! Having spent a fair amount of time along the Panhandle, I'm very much looking forward to pizzeria enlightenment from the area. Bookmark this site for your pizza forays into the south lands!

About the author: Meredith Smith is the Slice editor. You can follow her on Twitter: @mertsmith.

[Photograph: Eater NY]

Catching up on some pizza news post-holidays, I came across some photos that Eater posted of the forthcoming Williamsburg Motorino location receiving an oven-sized special delivery. There are more photos over on Eater. As one commenter on Eater post pointed out, the rounded dome of this crane swinging oven suggests there might be a Stefano Ferrara all wrapped up in that plastic rather than another Acunto. I have some questions in regarding the specifics of the new oven and location. Look back to this post for an update.

About the author: Meredith Smith is the Slice editor. You can follow her on Twitter: @mertsmith.

VIEW SLIDESHOW: Top This: Bánh Mì (à la Mohawk Bend)

[Photographs: Kelly Bone]

When chef Mike Garber* took charge of the kitchen at Mohawk Bend he originally resisted the urge to bring one of his favorite flavor combinations—the herbs and heat of a bánh mì—to the pizza menu (although he is notalone in this craving). Hostess turned kitchen assistant, Miel, pushed the idea and flushed out the recipe; Chef Garber insists she's the brains behind this pie. Topped with cubes of ginger, peanut butter,soy sauce marinated tofu, ribbons of pickled carrots and daikon, slivers of jalapenos, and fresh herbs over a sriracha aioli base, it's quickly become one of their more popular signature pizzas.

*Chef Garber parted ways with Mohawk Bend mid-December 2012. But don't worry, the Bánh Mì pizza is still on the menu!

What You'll Need

• 1 Portion of dough
• Marinated tofu
• Pickled carrots and daikon
• Sliced jalapenos
• Sriacha aioli* with scallons
• Daikon sprouts
• Cilantro
• Mint

*At Mohawk Bend they make their Sriacha aioli with Vegenaise

Mohawk Bend

2141 W Sunset Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90026 (map)
213-483-2337; mohawk.la

About the author: After nearly a decade in Brooklyn, Kelly Bone landed back in Los Angeles where she writes The Vegetarian Foodie. She spends the rest of her time designing office cubicles... you might be sitting in one right now! Follow her on Twitter at @TheVegFoodie

[Photographs: Meredith Smith]

My view of the pizza landscape in Knoxville is dated. Growing up, it was the closest big city to home and I made plenty of trips there, but that was before the new standards set forth by the mid 2000s pizza renaissance. It remained, in my mind, a swath of the country populated by pizza buffets and the big chains. So it was with genuine surprise (and a touch of skepticism) that when passing through this holiday season, I saw all sorts of new-era pizza joints popping up on the restaurant maps. And one of the strongest contenders looked to be Hard Knox Pizzeria (recommend in the comments of this post by
Orangeboy).

Located in a more upscale shopping plaza off the main drag of Kingston Pike, Hard Knox is just a postage stamp of a pizzeria. A wall of double split oak flanks the entrance, with the Earthstone Oven centrally situated just behind the counter. A row of low laying four tops line run down the oven facing wall, affording diners a good view of the pizza acrobatics.

A fuzzy attempt to capture the action

The menu here is largely pizza-focused, extending into calzones, salads, a few apps, and lunchtime flatbread sandwiches. Specialty pies are divided pretty evenly between red and white pies—where the white are not sauceless, but topped with a white sauce of whole milk mozzarella and cream or a pesto cream sauce. Topping combinations range from the classics to some more contemporary combinations of the pulled pork barbecue or pistachio and onion variety. On the night I visited the specialty pie was about as wacky as they get with a siracha base and strawberry slices (there were other components but I was so fixated on that combo that the rest was lost on me.)

Traveling through town with my very classically minded pizza-eating parents, we took on a pair of Rockys—the Marciano ($7.95) and the Rocky Balboa ($12.50)—from the boxer-themed specialty pies. True to a pizza named for the Italian Stallion, the Rocky Balboa was old school Italian-American to the core with provolone, sweet Italian sausage, red onions, and diced green and red bell peppers. The sausage was a total knockout, packed with fennel and plenty of seasoning. Torn in irregular hunks and just fatty enough, it definitely dominated the pie, which in a way was this pies blessing and curse. As good as the sausage was it highlighted the over all problem of balance all out of whack. The tomato sauce was applied too sparingly to stand up to the toppings. The abundance and under-doneness of the peppers and onions made them seem like a total after-thought. A lighter hand, and more melded flavors from a longer cook on the vegetables could have made this pie more of the champ it was meant to be.

And the Marciano, by contrast, evidenced just how much stronger the Balboa could be. In Hard Knox's version of a Margherita, the individual components were really able to shine and come into better harmony with one another. The crust was sturdy and crisp with a well-developed flavor from the two day rise, and a touch of sweetness from what I assume to be a little sugar in the dough. The pan pies here also keep the crust elevated on these cool little plastic nubbins and prevent any sogging out:

Based on the cans lined up behind the register, Valoroso pear style tomatoes are the variety that go into the bright sauce. The fresh mozzarella is incredibly milky and creates a great molten puddle across the entire face of the pie. The sprig of basil that topped the pie felt a little clumsy and necessitated a DIY dispersal of the herb that might have been better suited to an individual pie rather than a communal one. Despite that nitpicky caveat, the Marciano was the main event.

Upskirt shots from the two different pies.

Advertised around the restaurant were franchise opportunities with the pizzeria. Currently the Kingston Pike location is the only one of its kind, but if Hard Knox represents the direction of chain pizza to come, that's some chain pizza I could get behind. There remain a few kinks to iron out, but it's definitely got more than a fighting chance to rise to the top and it served to put my good-pizza-in-Knoxville skepticism to rest.

About the author: Meredith Smith is the Slice editor. You can follow her on Twitter: @mertsmith.

[Photograph: via dlisted.com]

Guy Fieri's new S'mores Indoors Pizza is receiving some severe customer backlash. Turns out this graham cracker, chocolate, and marshmallow pizza is HORRIBLE. Eight out of eight Sam's Clubs members agree that this new product is abysmal. The main complaint is the presence of throat scorching pepper—an ingredient that is entirely absent from the ingredient list. It's easy to make a whipping boy of Guy Fieri, but no need to beat that horse. I am not sad to say that we won't be testing this product, as these reviews do a pretty convincing job of delivering this freezer pizza its death kiss.

clubbmemeber59 writes:

This is the worst thing I have ever bought. There was something very hot in it that burned our tongue and throat. We had to throw it away and I don't know what to do with the other one as they come 2 in a pack. Would never buy this again and would never recommend it to anyone!

NoellesMommy adds:

I bought two packs (4 pizzas) for a church dinner. First of all, according to the package, you are supposed to place them directly on the rack in the oven to bake. Marshmellow melted and fell down into the bottom of both ovens and smoked the entire kitchen/dining room area up (not to mention made a HUGE mess in the oven). Then I tried to slice them with a pizza cutter and most of the topping came off while slicing. Finally, the taste was HORRIBLE! I would have never expected it to be spicy. These pizza's were a total disappointment!

and included this photo:

Jadebox wishes no stars was a rating option in her comment:

You remember those ads in the back of comic books for pepper-flavored gum you could give out as a practical joke? I think this is "Guy Fieri"'s version of that. This stuff is really, really, really, wish I could rate it less than one star, bad.

And SueZQ is just really disappointed in Fieri's lack of product integrity (um...):

We purchased this product because it looked delicious on the box and had Guy Fieri's name on it. I can't believe he would put his name on this awful stuff! The actual product had barely any marshmallows. The marshmallows that were near the edges slid off and burned on the bottom of the oven. The taste was strange, and burned our throats (all 4 family members!). I don't recommend it at all!

About the author: Meredith Smith is the Slice editor. You can follow her on Twitter: @mertsmith.

Making Roman-style pizza at Farinella. via Eater]

• Bruno DiFabio to attempt fastest pizza record [NYP]
• Need suggestions on NY– and Neapolitan-style pizzerias for NYC trip [Pizzamaking]
• Joe's Pizza opening second location in NYC [Daily Meal]
• Born-on dates for pizza slices? [NY Pizza Project]
• More Detroit-style experimentation [Norma]
• A look back at pizza in NYC in 2012and outside of NYC [IDoP]
• "How I'm making dough these days" [Mueller Pizza Lab]
• Where have we been? [Passion-4-Pizza]
• 2012 pizza-consumption data [Scott's Pizza Journal]
• Making a pie with 2-week-old dough [Pizza Goon]
• 12 breakout pies of 2012 [Pizza Quixote]
• "Canadian" pizza from Suvarnabhumi Airport, Bangkok [Pizza Boxes]
• A new type of slice appears in NYC [VV]
• ICYMI: This old thread on Shuboyje's oven is worth looking at [Pizzamaking]
• Pizzetteria Brunetti gearing up for West Village location [GSNY]

About the author: Adam Kuban is the founder of Slice, where he has been blogging about pizza for more than eight years. You should follow him on Twitter: @akuban.

[Photograph: Robyn Lee]

Great Lake in Chicago, undeniably one of the country's destination pizzerias (we've said as much in these posts), will be closing up shop at the end of January. Owners of the Andersonville restaurant, Nick Lessins and Lydia Esparza, have opted not to renew their lease according to Crain's Chicago Business. But before you unleash a string of self directed reprimands of "oh-my-god-why-haven't-I-been-there-yet," or "why-did-I-let-the-lines-keep-me-from-trying-to eat-there-more-often," let's get those heart palpitations in check.

By all initial accounts, it sounds like while operations will cease at the current location, operations will not cease overall. The reason given for the move is that the landlord had not made "necessary repairs and updates to the building." But according to the Chicago Business article, Lessins told the landlord that his plan is to move the restaurant. Phew!

While no further information surrounding the move is known at the moment, we will be looking into the details. I, for one, am staying 100% positive and foresee a better (maybe even slightly bigger) Great Lake in our future. Of course there is a part of me that doesn't think it's crazy to get one meal in at the founding location and buy that ticket to Chicago today. If you are of the same mind, remember that Great Lake is open Wednesdays through Saturdays. I have a feeling Great Lake is about to have some serious lines.

Great Lake

1477 W. Balmoral Avenue, Chicago IL 60640 (map)
773-334-9270

[Via Crain's Chicago Business]

About the author: Meredith Smith is the Slice editor. You can follow her on Twitter: @mertsmith.

Some pizzas that haunt Adam's dreams. [Photograph: Adam Kuban]

It's National Pizza Week, Slice'rs! Yeah, I know it's a made up week. And isn't every week pizza week? It is around here. In the spirit of fantasy celebration weeks, I thought this week's poll could be your fantasy way to celebrate National Pizza Week.

About the author: Meredith Smith is the Slice editor. You can follow her on Twitter: @mertsmith.What's your dream way to celebrate National Pizza Week?

VIEW SLIDESHOW: My Pie Monday: Pizze Polacco, Country Ham, Rosas and More!

Happy first My Pie Monday of 2013! And it looks like we're off to a great start with lots of fresh new pizza makers in the mix, including derricktung (who promises this will be the first of many—we hope so), lux_lisbon, Brian Erst, MightyPizzaOven and jimmyg's bro Schroeder93! From the looks of it, pizza-making runs in the "g" family. Welcome aboard to the new contributors. In this edition, we also have Amusebouche1's electricity-less solution to making pies post Sandy, and kenposurf tackles veggie toppings with a little pre-bake saute. Jimmyg stands tall with his brother and shows off an asparagus topped pie, a topping that is echoed and applauded by mattivore on his Gioia-inspired asparagus and ricotta pie. Country ham and soy marinated shiitakes make crayfish2's pie sing and get his vote for "favorite topping ever!" Going outside the box as well, Imwalkin gives the Polish Pizza from L'asso a shot, but finds it a little out there. Another restaurant pie that continues to inspire is Bianco's Rosa, which gets double exposure by both JEL and newcomer lux_lisbon. SHole finishes off the last pizza of 2012 right with Aleppo, SDS, meatballs, pepperoni, and banana peppers and ACBova proves to be breaking in a new mobile WFO nicely with a homemade sausage pie.

If you're making pizza this week, send us a shot for next week's My Pie Monday!

Just take one snapshot of your homemade pizza, describe your cooking method (briefly!), and follow these instructions to get it to Slice HQ by 8pm EST on Thursday night. Be sure to let us know your Slice/Serious Eats screen name!

About the author: Meredith Smith is the Slice editor. You can follow her on Twitter: @mertsmith.

[Photographs: Casey Barber]

Though it doesn't have a signature regional style like Chicago or New York, the Pittsburgh area has its fair share of slice joints and Italian-American pizza places. Most are as good as what you'll find in any American city, but a few miles east of the 'Burgh, there's something truly special. Jioio's (pronounced Joey-O's), in my hometown of Greensburg, is the most unusual pizza I've ever encountered.

Essentially, the pizza dough is pie dough, a sweet crust stretched thin and pan-baked so it's crazy crisp. The larger pies are baked in sheet pans and cut square, like grandma or Sicilian slices, while the small personal pizza is the usual round. The dough, however, is the same sugar-tinged recipe no matter what size you go for. (Hint: smaller pies offer more outer crust, and for those of you who save the ends of your apple pies for last, that's a good thing.)

I know, you're already making a slightly squicked-out face at the thought of a sweet pie crust. You then might not want to know that on the original, traditional pizza ($9.75 for an 8-cut pie), the tomato sauce is most certainly on the sweet end of the spectrum as well. I can't lie: it's a little off-putting at first taste. One look at the pizza would never clue a casual eater into the strange, yet oddly appealing combination of sweet crust, tomatoes, and cheese. I can't even say it's an acquired taste, because it never appealed to me throughout my entire high school career... and now I'm suddenly in love with it.

Actually, it's on the other two styles of pizza that the restaurant offers, the white and the pirogue pies, where the crust put Jioio's back on my official list of Pennsylvania food stops for every return visit home. Taking the tomato sauce out of the equation lets the salty cheese and sweet crust conduct some sort of pizza alchemy—a slice of "fresh" (read: likely from Sysco, since it's the dead of winter) tomato on the white pizza ($10.25 for an 8-cut pie) doesn't read as strongly as the concentrated flavor of the sauce, and lets the natural play of dough and dairy come through. Eaten cold for breakfast the next morning, it's even better.

And while I'll admit that the pierogie pizza ($10.75 for an 8-cut pie), covered in mashed potatoes and crunchy slices of white onion in an homage to another of western PA's most famous food icons, sounds something like a Guy Fieri fever dream, it's the most successful of all the Jioio's pies, in my estimation. Creamy potatoes, sweet crust, the sharp tang of roasted onion—was this style of pizza not around in high school? How have I been missing out on this all these years?

Only the cooks know the dough recipe—"They make it at night, when the restaurant's closed"—is all I can get out of our otherwise talkative server, decked out in a Steelers t-shirt because that's how you do on Sundays in western PA, even if the temperature is merely reaching into the teens and it's two days before Christmas.

I'd never eaten a Jioio's pie anywhere but my own kitchen, never venturing further into the restaurant than the take-out window off the vestibule (which, let me tell you, does a brisk business of its own), so it was a refreshing change of pace to sample the pizzas in the humble dining room, decorated with framed photos and memorabilia from the family's grocery purveyor roots. I'm always a cheerleader for the food and culture of Pittsburgh, but something about being home for the holidays after a long stretch away made me more appreciative of what I grew up with, no matter how quirky it might be. (For the record, my favorite Primanti's sandwich is kolbassi.)

Whether my rekindled love for Jioio's pizza is merely a rush of the familiar or a true changing of my taste preferences is unclear; honestly, it's likely a mixture of nostalgia and carbs. But after years of viewing this strange, sweet pie as a mere sideline of my western PA upbringing, I'm ready to embrace it as the unique pizza property it is, and recommend it without reservation. You might not like it, but you must try it.

About the author:Casey Barber is the editor of Good. Food. Stories. and author of the forthcoming cookbook Classic Snacks Made from Scratch: 70 Homemade Versions of Your Favorite Brand-Name Treats. Find her on Twitter: @GoodFoodStories

Daily Slice gives a quick snapshot each weekday of a different slice or pie that the folks at the Serious Eats empire have enjoyed lately.

[Photographs: Kelly Bone]

When I come across Angelinos who yearn for authentic* Italian pizza, they often name Cafe Angelino as their favorite. Authentic, in this case, does not denote doughy, wood-fired Neapolitan pies. Cafe Angelino serves a thin crisp-crusted pizza reminiscent of any corner cafe from any region of Italy.

The small dining room, just off high-end Robertson Blvd (catty-corner from Pizzeria Il Finco), offers a straightforward red sauce Italian menu. The Margherita ($10.75) seems the right place to start. The thin crust bubbles and chars during its trip into the Bakers Pride deck oven. A mild base for the pulpy raw tomato sauce, strewn with small seeds and wayward herbs. Sliced into large quarters, the center quickly sogs-up under the globs of aged mozzarella. This is a knife and fork affair. The salt from the cheese is overwhelming; I almost gave up after the first pie.

Mentally setting aside the salt assault, I ventured into the cheeseless section of the pizza menu. The sauce—so bright and summer sweet—deserves to be the forward flavor of the pie. The Puttanesca ($10.75) with tomato sauce, olives, capers and oregano strikes an ideal balance of sweet and salty brine. Without the cheese, the pizza remains light from crust to tip and showcases the simplicity of this everyman meal.

*This is my least favorite descriptive term. Ever.

Cafe Angelino

About the author: After nearly a decade in Brooklyn, Kelly Bone landed back in Los Angeles where she writes The Vegetarian Foodie. She spends the rest of her time designing office cubicles... you might be sitting in one right now! Follow her on Twitter at @TheVegFoodie

On my last pizza dispatch from Chicago, I took you inside John's Pizzeria, a decidedly old-school joint that serves extra-thin pizza in a room that looks suspiciously like an aging 1970's suburban living room (remember the buxom young brunettes?). So for this review I wanted to go as far in the other direction as I could, and locate the most lavish place imaginable to satisfy a pizza craving. I knew exactly where to go.

Welcome to the Waldorf Astoria, which stands 60-stories tall over the Gold Coast. (Up until a few months ago the hotel was called the Elysian.) Instead of a door on Rush St., the entrance is hidden somewhat in an elaborate courtyard, apparently to keep the riffraff from the Viagra Triangle (a very real place) from wandering around.

Of course, I'm not exactly the target demographic either, and while I never felt unwelcome, I was watched with an eagle eye. See what I mean? Still, the sparkling white and serene lobby comes as quite a shock, and you may wonder if there is even a restaurant around. But make your way to the elevator and hit number three, and you'll be dropped off at Balsan, one of the best, and most approachable, hotel restaurants in Chicago.

Balsan is mostly known for its excellent seafood, including some impeccably fresh oysters (which were criminally left off this list). Even though the menu is short, pizza doesn't appear to be high on its list of priorities. In fact, "pizza" is never even mentioned.

But look no further than the Wood Oven Fired Tarte Flambée ($15), Balsan's one and only choice. Sure, it's technically not a pizza (according to Wikipedia, it's an Alsatian dish), but it's certainly close enough for me. Considering it's been on the menu since Balsan opened, obviously other people agree.

Instead of playing it safe with some Neapolitan-esque creation, Balsan picked out four full-flavored toppings and tried to find some way to make them all get along. The result is a pizza that is at once unhinged, but never overbearing. Topped with bacon, red onion, crème fraîche, and Uplands Cheese (not to mention a sprinkling of chives), it should add up to an indulgent mess. Thankfully, each is applied so sparingly that none stands out too much.

Sure, the richness of the bacon is amplified by a drizzle of crème fraîche, but both are cut by the sharp red onions and the funky, salty cheese. I wouldn't call it light, but I still managed to devour five slices without too much effort.

It helps that the crust is thin, thin, thin—almost to the point where dips into the dreaded floppy category.

But it holds on, probably thanks to a healthy char from the wood-fired oven and a dusting of cornmeal on the bottom. (I should note that I remember the crust being crisper in the past.) Sure, I wish the ends were higher and interior showed more development, but like every other component, it's meant to barely be there.

Balsan is obviously not a pizza destination—no restaurant with only one option can really be. But for a place that does so many other things well, this pizza manages to impress. Plus, it's also the cheapest main course on the menu, which means you can waste whatever savings you have left on as many oysters as you'd can eat afford.

About the author:Nick Kindelsperger is the editor of Serious Eats: Chicago. He loves tacos and spicy food. You can follow him as @nickdk on Twitter.

[Photograph: Domino's via rocketnews24.com]

If an international pizza chain is going to do something extravagant and over-the-top it's going to be Domino's Japan. (Remember their Moon Branch Project?) Their newest stunt is a Kobe Beef Steak topped pizza. RocketNews24 took the bait and ordered up one a 5800 yen (approximately $66) large pie.

Potato, onion, and deluxe steak sauce top this pizza, along with the high-end marbled meat. While dubious about the meshing of such a luxury meat and chain pizza, the tasting crew rained hyperbole-filled praise on this pie:

"...the pure tastiness of the ingredients sets off a chain reaction inside the cerebral cavity."

and

"The pizza was filled to the brim with flavor, so much so that it was almost too much for me to handle! It took me back for a while, and I was admittedly a little lost for words; such culinary expertise in a pizza has got to be a first!"

and

"Before you know it, you find yourself entering into a state of pizza ecstasy."

Despite all the high praise, some tasters felt like this was all about the beef... Well, yeah. But if you're the type of person that wants to experience "taste bud titillation" then they highly recommend laying down the yen. You can check out the full review here.

About the author: Meredith Smith is the Slice editor. You can follow her on Twitter: @mertsmith.

This appeared on PIzza Brain's tumblr—an excellent place to visit for some pizza novelty. Who can tell me where this photo was taken?

[Via: foxxegin.tumblr.com]

About the author: Meredith Smith is the Slice editor. You can follow her on Twitter: @mertsmith.

Top, montanara; bottom left, Roman al metro; bottom right, pizza bianca

As evidenced by Slice's ever growing Regional Pizza Style Guide, cataloging pizza styles is an interest around here. The lines aren't always clear from style to style, but it's fascinating to see all the twists and turns pizza takes in its constant evolution. Lines are more often blurred in U.S. regional styles (take for example the Philadelphia Tomato Pie vs Italian Bakery Pizza debate), but regardless of whether pizza's genealogy is more of a tree or a grapevine, it can all be traced back to one boot-shaped country...sort of.

A good succinct read on regional Italian varieties, in which even the validity of Italy's claim to pizza is touched upon, comes from the popular travel guide Lonely Planet. Scott Wiener's Twitter feed led me to the read, which introduced a style or two new to me (guess I need to bone up on my Sardinian pizzas). From ancient Roman flatbreads, to pre-Columbian Ligurian pizzas, the article offers a nice overview of the chronology of pizza in Italy. You can check out the post here.

About the author: Meredith Smith is the Slice editor. You can follow her on Twitter: @mertsmith.

While we think mom-and-pop shops make the best pizza in the nation, we'd be remiss if we didn't keep abreast of what the chains are up to. Suit up, it's time for another Chain Reaction, folks.

WARNING: THOSE WITH GLUTEN INTOLERANCE MAY EXPERIENCE ABDOMINAL DISCOMFORT BY READING THIS POST.

You have been warned.

[Photographs: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt]

Look at that. I mean, just look at that picture above. Awe-inspiring? Perhaps. A little frightening? Certainly. Gluten-free and Atkin's friendly? Not on your life.

What you are staring at there is the Italian sausage variation of Domino's Bread Bowl Pasta. Introduced back in 2009 with the tagline "pasta so good you'll devour the bowl," it comes in four flavors—Chicken Alfredo, Italian Sausage Marinara, Chicken Carbonara, Pasta Primavera—with the option to build your own by adding ingredients from their pizza toppings lineup.

The pasta is available on its own baked in a foil tray ($5.99), or for an extra buck, you can have it baked directly into a thick disk of pizza dough ($6.99).

For the purpose of this taste test, your intrepid writer decided to order both versions.

The non-bread bowl version comes in a foil tray with a completely non-sensical pun on the lid.

Somebody on Domino's marketing team just learned what a homophone is.

"A penne saved is a penne earned?" Seriously, Domino's?

Pulling back the lid on the Pasta Primavera version revealed a reasonably sized portion of penne pasta (the only shape available), topped with a smattering of vegetables. I'm not sure what spinach, diced tomatoes, sliced onions, and sliced mushrooms have to do with primavera, but that's what we got here.

The pasta was impressively al dente, still retaining a decent bite. A good step up from the steam-table pasta at neighborhood pizza joints. Similarly, the alfredo sauce was about as good as one could reasonably expect chain pizza-delivered alfredo sauce to be. That is, very edible, slightly goopy, with a flavor that tasted predominantly of garlic powder and green-can cheese.

The only real complaint here was with the mushrooms, which despite being advertised as fresh, looked as if they had been slept on by an obese man with restless leg syndrome and tasted like slightly used kitchen sponges. Thankfully, there were only four slices of mushroom in the whole dish.

The breadbowl version was, unsurprisingly, far less successful. Conceptually, the dish is a mess—the product, no doubt, of a boardroom meeting which consisted of asking "how can we make a new product using only ingredients that are already in the store and that require no new equipment, nor special training?"

"I know, let's just half-stretch a ball of pizza dough, press a hole in the center, throw in some pasta, bake it, and call it a day!"

"That's genius, Wilson."

And it shows. The dough—that spongy, bland, overly sweet dough—is clearly the weakest link in the quality of Domino's pizza. I don't like it when it's stretched thin for a pizza, why the heck would I like it when it's left thick and gummy?

Conceptually, the idea of sticking already-cooked-and-sauced pasta in a raw disk of dough and baking the whole thing together is a bad one. While you do end up with a few nice pieces of crunchy, browned pasta around the edges and top of the bowl, the pasta under the surface suffers a far worse fate.

In the time it takes the bread bowl to cook, the pasta ends up absorbing way too much sauce. The result is pasta that's simultaneously mushy and dry, like baked ziti that has been sitting out a day too long. Their marinara sauce doesn't improve matters, with its crazy sweet flavor and aroma of dried herbs and garlic powder.

The real kicker is that though the dish costs only a buck more than the regular baked pasta, the amount of pasta you receive is far less. I weighed the pasta from the bread bowl against the pasta from the foil tray and found that you get less than 2/3rds the amount of pasta and sauce if you order the bread bowl version.

But is having too little of a bad thing really bad news after all?

About the author: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt is the Chief Creative Officer of Serious Eats where he likes to explore the science of home cooking in his weekly column The Food Lab. You can follow him at @thefoodlab on Twitter, or at The Food Lab on Facebook.

From Serious Eats

It's time for another round of The Food Lab. Got a suggestion for an upcoming topic? Email Kenji here, and he'll do his best to answer your queries in a future post. Become a fan of The Food Lab on Facebook or follow it on Twitter for play-by-plays on future kitchen tests and recipe experiments.

"How do I keep my pizza from sticking?"

I've read about people freezing their homemade dough. Is there a proper way to do this? If you were doing a cold ferment, at what stage would you freeze it? What's the best way to thaw the dough? I'd sure love to be able to cook a decent pizza on a whim.

—Sent by Chris McIntyre

Great question, and the answer is pretty simple. You can freeze a homemade dough at essentially any point in the process and it'll work just fine. In terms of the gluten structure and the interaction of flour and water, freezing has no ill-effects. Unlike, say, freezing a steak or vegetables, in which water trapped inside individual cells can crystallize, causing those cells to rupture and spill liquid upon defrosting, pizza dough has no cells in this sense, thus ice crystal formation is not a big deal.

As far as yeast is concerned, they're perfectly happy to take a nap in the freezer for a little while. As with most tiny organisms, their activity is largely dependent on the temperature of their environment. At higher temperatures (say, in a proofing oven), yeast becomes wildly active, reproducing like mad, and consuming sugars like it's their last meal on earth (it is). Chill them, and their activity will get slower and slower until, when you finally freeze the dough, they utterly stop, becoming inert until you defrost them again.

It's not just a question of slowing their metabolism. Freezing dough also performs another essential function: it prevents yeast from reaching its food source. In a ball of dough with liquid water, yeast can't exactly travel freely, but the dough is still liquid-y enough to constantly expose hungry yeast to new food sources, allowing the dough to continuously ferment and evolve. Freezing will completely halt this process.

So what's the best way to freeze dough? Well, seeing as freezing is something you do for the sake of convenience, it makes sense to freeze dough as far along the process as possible, so that when you are ready to bake, the work required after pulling it from the freezer is minimized.

When I make extra dough to freeze, I'll let it perform its initial fermentation (including a cold ferment if that's in the recipe), divide it into individual balls as if I were going to allow them to go through their final proof. But rather than proof them, I'll stick them on a plate or a rimmed baking sheet lined with parchment paper and toss them in the freezer. Once completely frozen, the balls can be thrown into a zipper-lock freezer bag.

To use them, I pull out as many as I need and allow them to proof as normal (either in an oiled bowl covered with plastic wrap, or on a floured wooden board, covered with a floured towel or plastic wrap), tacking on an extra couple hours to allow them to defrost before they really start to rise. Is it INSTANT PIZZA? No, it ain't, but if you're the kind of person who prefers to work in large batches, it's a great way to save yourself from having to lug out the mixer every time you want a pie.

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About the author: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt is the Chief Creative Officer of Serious Eats where he likes to explore the science of home cooking in his weekly column The Food Lab. You can follow him at @thefoodlab on Twitter, or at The Food Lab on Facebook.

[Photographs: Todd Brock]

Where I live on metro Atlanta's northwest side, life seems to revolve—as it does in so many charming little burghs—around the city square. The Marietta Square has been the emotional heart of this town since the land was made a city park in the late 1840s. Now it's home to a weekly farmers' market, arts and crafts fairs, an annual 4th of July blowout, horse-drawn carriage rides, ghost tours, historic buildings, and is one of the most photographed spots in the area.

The Square features an eclectic mix of restaurants, shops, and businesses within walking distance, and I've always thought that the tenants of these primo patches of real estate must need to make an absolute killing to afford the rent. If my recent visit to the Square's resident pizza joint is any indication, I'd say the landlord has nothing to worry about. And the pies happen to be pretty darn good, too.

That's Marietta Pizza Company in the background of that photo, the black storefront at the far end of the sidewalk, on the southwest corner of the Marietta Square. And there are plenty of times when this is about as close as you can get without risking life and limb. MPC is bonkers on weekends, when it becomes the place in town for families with kids. Scoring a streetside table and dining al fresco during any non-winter month requires serious planning and forethought. And if you want to grab a slice here while watching the Independence Day fireworks, you'd better sign up now.

Even on a nondescript Monday, seating is at a premium. At 11:40, I had my choice of tables. By 12 noon, it was standing room only. (MPC has even taken over the space on the other side of its kitchen as an overflow dining room, which was also maxed out on this lunch hour.)

Marietta Pizza Co is, at its heart, just a basic pizza parlor. There is no singular standout pie that brings them in in droves. Sure, there's a handful of specialty creations to choose from, but mainly, it's a matter of picking your toppings from a list of 19 usual suspects, and enjoying the friendly vibe, bright paint scheme, and local artists' works for sale on the walls while you wait.

That's the Sausage-Mushroom-Pepperoni that my kids requested on a large 16-inch crust. The dough is made fresh in-house, as is the red sauce, which has a noticeably tangy kick to it. Very basic 'roni and 'shrooms, but our server pointed out that the sausage is on the spicy side. He was right. It's not so hot that my kids were turned off, but the large shavings brought a welcome punch.

The crust was unspectacular, nonoffensive. The underside had no real char to speak of after its ride in the commercial gas ovens, and a less-than-impressive bubble structure. I found the pie to be on the greasy side—a complaint I've heard before about MPC—but ultimately, I really enjoyed it despite these flaws. It's solid, unpretentious, neighborhood pizza... and if it didn't require circling the block looking for a parking spot, I'd be fine with it being my go-to Friday-night pie.

The real surprise came when I went Sicilian. It's a pizza variety that seems to be fading in popularity, and that's a shame. It's a nice change of pace, especially when you find a topping combo that really works on the thicker crust. The Hawaiian did that for me. I'm not sure how the ham, pineapple, and gobs of "xtra" cheese would hold up on MPC's standard dough, but the dense, chewy slab that's the base of this 16-inch square is the perfect foil to the Hawaiian's salty/gooey sweetness. This is a hearty pizza, to be sure; just two triangular slices effectively killed my dinner plans for six hours later. So I love that MPC also sells by the slice, even Sicilian-style. (But there's nothing wrong with beaucoup leftovers. Just sayin'.)

Marietta Pizza Company isn't reinventing the wheel here. But they don't have to. They're the only pizza place on the famed and historic Marietta Square, and that alone keeps them rolling in business. The fact that they also happen to dish out a good pie is a lovely bonus. And the fact that their square Sicilian is just noteworthy enough to warrant a special trip to the Square means I'll be back for sure.

About the Author: Todd Brock lives the glamorous life of a stay-at-home freelance writer in the suburbs of Atlanta. Besides being paid to eat cheeseburgers for AHT and pizzas for Slice, he's written and produced over 1,000 hours of television and penned Building Chicken Coops for Dummies. When he grows up, he wants to be either the starting quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys or the drummer for Hootie & the Blowfish. Or both.

• Nebraska man crashes car into pizzeria, still orders pizza [KLKN-TV]
• 36 Hours in Naples [NYT]
• What Matters More? Ingredients or Technique? [PQuix]
• My Definition of Perfect Pizza [Mueller Pizza Lab]
• Jules Thin Crust Pizza to open in Berkeley, California [Berkeleyside]
• More on Grimaldi's opening in El Segundo, California [Daily Breeze]
• Frank Pepe's to open in West Hartford, Connecticut [Courant]
• Lots more intel on Paulie Gee's Hampden [Pizzamaking]
• Repetition Leads to Magic for Pizza Chef [SFGate]
• Wisconsin Sees Surge in Local Gourmet Frozen Pizza Makers and Its Cheesemakers Doing Their Part for Local Pizza Industry [Wisconsin State Journal]
• "No one in our group seemed to feel that Verde's pizza itself was particularly memorable..." [Baltimore Pizza Club]
• Visiting a pizza-coneria in Brooklyn [TYTOPaSI]
• Spinach Schiacciata with Crust of Jeruselem Artichoke, Bacon, Cilantro, and Ancho Chile [Pizza Goon]
• Round Table Pizza Box [PoPB]

About the author: Adam Kuban is the founder of Slice, where he has been blogging about pizza for more than eight years. You should follow him on Twitter: @akuban.

Despite every cafeteria pizza I ever ate being served with a mound of golden corn kernels, I never felt tempted to cross over into corn topped pizza territory. I think I read a statistic* that 9 out of 10 pizzas sold in Japan come with corn on top. And despite a whole country embracing the topping, and I am sure they are not alone, I can't seem to make the great leap into kernel topped pies. What say you Slice'rs, am I alone in this, way or no way?

*That's a bold faced lie, but seems like a passable number.

About the author: Meredith Smith is the Slice editor. You can follow her on Twitter: @mertsmith.