There we sat, with our eyes wide open and drool dripping from our mouths, preparing our selves for the cheesy triangular delicacy coming toward us: Pizza.
Pizza originated from Naples, Italy, although the exact time it originated is unclear.
This Italian meal is offered almost everywhere in America, but there are two pizzerias that are among Houston’s best-known: Pink’s Pizza and Star Pizza.
Pink’s Pizza, located on 5225 Bellaire Boulevard, had a modern hipster New York vibe. The service was moderate and it wasn’t really a formal restaurant setting. You order, wait, sit down and they bring the pizza to you. There are several sizes you can choose from: 16”, 12”, or create your own slice. We decided to take the third option. It was $3.50 for the slice itself, but $0.50 for each topping added. If you’re too lazy to create your own, they already have a list of uniquely named combinations to choose from. Some examples are Bada Bing, Big Boss, the Big Sleep, Luigi, and plenty of others. We chose the Classic and This Guy.
Their kitchen is open, so you can observe how the chef makes your meal. The chef had some pre-made dough on which placed all the needed ingredients and toppings. To guarantee us that the pizza they serve is indeed fresh, he placed it in oven and took it right to us after it was done cooking. In comparison to other places that just leave their pizza out and reheat it when someone orders them, this was truly impressive to us. Pink’s doesn’t have any pizza that’s completely pre-made; they literally bake it on the spot.
The pizza arrived in these cute little slice boxes with a bite-shaped hole on the side, teasing our noses as the waiter set them down in front of us. As soon as we opened the boxes, we saw the most attractive pizza we’ve ever seen. And it tasted even better than it looked. This Guy consisted of mushrooms, tomatoes, Italian sausage, Proscuitto (a type of ham), and spinach. This wasn’t just some ordinary sausage pizza; it was a sausage pizza topped by the perfect amount of ingredients that helped complete the taste.
The Classic consisted of Roma tomatoes, basil, mozzarella, and roasted garlic. This Margherita pizza wasn’t ruined by too much tomatoes, and like This Guy, the way the chef made our pizza let ingredients complement each other perfectly. The best part about their pizza was there was no grease left at all on the boxes. The prices for both the slices were $11.50, not including tax. We give Pink’s a 10/10 on their pizza.
Star Pizza, located at 2111 Norfolk, was pretty artsy and had a college student vibe to it. Although we have never heard of Pink’s Pizza, we saw that Star was more notable in social media, so we came into the restaurant with an already set opinion. The restaurant was set up like the usual, where they seat you and you wait for your server to place your order. They offered to-go service, so we decided to go with that. Their menu had a variety of Italian options from pasta, lasagna, sandwiches–right down to the breadsticks. Like Pink’s Pizza, they offer many choices for pizza sizes such as 10″, 12″, 14” and 16″.
We decided to go with a slice of two different pizzas that had 3 toppings called the Marilyn’s and Margarita. Each slice was $4.25. The Marilyn’s included Canadian bacon, pepperoni, onions and a lot of cheese. The minute we bit into it we could tell the comparison in flavor to Pink’s. The cheese smothered by the onions made it hard to taste anything else on the pizza. All we could taste was onions, onions, and cheese. Where was the bacon and pepperoni? It was a good pizza, but it didn’t wow our mouths or our eyes.
The Margarita was a typical Margherita pizza, with Roma tomatoes, garlic, and basil. It wasn’t anything new: plain basil and the regular garlic flavored tomatoes. Of course the flavors meshed well, as usual, but we were expecting more. Our disappointment grew when we found the box covered in grease. The total in all was $8.50, not including tax. We’d give Star Pizza a 7/10.
Star Pizza didn’t have the “Star” quality that we were looking for. Compared to Star, Pink’s had more flavors, felt fresh, and left us wanting more. Pink’s Pizza definitely took this round.
