Any Opinions on the New Quick Bake Pizza Chains?

My main argument is that pizza, on the whole, is so terrible in inland suburban Northern California...

We end in full agreement--including the Starbucks bleh. In actuality, my last run through Northern Oregon and Northern California found me dreaming for a real cup of espresso. In Oregon, they think espresso is the name of a falvored drink. I twice had to tell a server what espresso is and once made up my own price for one, as the kiosk did not have a price for a cup of coffee without intervention.

The coffee scene is actually improving. Sacramento has some oustanding roasters, and one of them now sells their beans to a very good and earnest new coffee bar (Journey Coffee). The third wave has arrived! Just this year!

Of course, in the larger cities and wealthier suburbs, there is some excellent pizza, too. Even my place of employment has a good very New Yawk style pizza place which we sometimes hit up. I don't really like their tomato sauce, though.

Much commercial tomato sauce is too salty/sugary--corn syrupy?

[Robin Garr]

The coffee scene is actually improving. Sacramento has some oustanding roasters, and one of them now sells their beans to a very good and earnest new coffee bar (Journey Coffee). The third wave has arrived! Just this year!

It's fascinating to see the coffee culture's spread around the US from its epicenter in Seattle over the past 25 years or so. (We were in Seattle in 1989, and were blown away by the local coffee scene. Our friends chose movie houses not on the basis of the film but according to where the best coffee was to be had. And Starbucks was a local firm then.

Anyway, at the risk of bring Thomas yapping and snarling out from under the porch, , NYC may be famous for a sort-of Italian pizza, albeit altered from the original Italian version by generations of immigrant experience. But NYC doesn't have much to say to anyone about coffee. With its reverence for nasty mass-market deli coffee served in those little blue Greek-look paper cups, Noo Yawkers weren't having any of that yuppie stuff, not until Starbucks had become a mega-corporation and every podunk village had its own baristas.

The coffee scene is actually improving. Sacramento has some oustanding roasters, and one of them now sells their beans to a very good and earnest new coffee bar (Journey Coffee). The third wave has arrived! Just this year!

It's fascinating to see the coffee culture's spread around the US from its epicenter in Seattle over the past 25 years or so. (We were in Seattle in 1989, and were blown away by the local coffee scene. Our friends chose movie houses not on the basis of the film but according to where the best coffee was to be had. And Starbucks was a local firm then.

Anyway, at the risk of bring Thomas yapping and snarling out from under the porch, , NYC may be famous for a sort-of Italian pizza, albeit altered from the original Italian version by generations of immigrant experience. But NYC doesn't have much to say to anyone about coffee. With its reverence for nasty mass-market deli coffee served in those little blue Greek-look paper cups, Noo Yawkers weren't having any of that yuppie stuff, not until Starbucks had become a mega-corporation and every podunk village had its own baristas.

You get no argument from me on the NY coffee scene. I approach coffee as an Italian-American, not as a NooYawkah.

Those deli cups are iconic; they even commanded notice in the Times Magazine.

I remember when Starbucks was planning to open stores in Italy. The Illy fellow was asked how he felt about it. His reply: "In Italy, we drink coffee. I don't worry about Starbucks." If youa sk me, and I am sure you want to ask me, I find Starbucks coffee vastly overrated, and I hate anything in my coffee except some milk foam, but not always.

I'm a New Yorker. Starbucks is among the last resorts for coffee.

I have to confess that my coffee habit is combined with my terrible sweet tooth. I like the various milky concoctions. But I also like straight shot espressos, as well. Don;t care for traditional "black coffee" all that much.

My only reason for visiting Starbucks is they have clean restrooms and, for cycling purposes, their green coffee bean "refresher" concoctions are relatively low in sugar and calories and far tastier than Gatorade. The coffee tastes burnt to me, and their frou frou drinks are terrible, imho. .

Man, I am a total pizza slut compared to you guys. I like nearly any style - New York, Chicago, Neapolitan, American, you name it. Some are certainly better than others but almost any pizza is better than no pizza at all. I've only very rarely had pizza that I really thought was bad, and that's nearly always been due to soggy crust (which is an unforgivable sin). I've had a few frozen ones that were bad and I did actually quit eating anything from Domino's back in the late '80's when their pizza suddenly went from :"just fine" to "just awful". The stuff at Chuck E. Cheese back when my daughter was little was pretty awful. But heck, I don't mind Round Table if it's done right.

[Robin Garr]

Man, I am a total pizza slut compared to you guys. I like nearly any style - New York, Chicago, Neapolitan, American, you name it. Some are certainly better than others but almost any pizza is better than no pizza at all.

I'm basically with you, Mike. Maybe a little more snobby ... living in the home turf of Papa John's and also home town of Yum, Pizza Hut's current corporate step-parent, I'll draw the line at those mass-market options ... unless I'm desperate. I've eaten pizza in Italy and had the great good fortune to hang out with a pizzaiolo or two; and I've lived in NYC in youth and again at great age. I think I know pizza. Basically, it's one of nature's most perfect foods - and it ain't rocket science.

To be sure, pizza ain't rocket science, but you have to use a good sauce, get the toppings fresh and not overcooked, get the crust right (and maybe even the water), and get the heat right; then, it's heaven on earth.

Mike, I consider Chicago deep dish less pizza and more tomato cake with a lot of things in it.

[Robin Garr]

\I consider Chicago deep dish less pizza and more tomato cake with a lot of things in it.

Casserole.

Mike, I consider Chicago deep dish less pizza and more tomato cake with a lot of things in it.

It's crust, sauce, cheese, and a few other things so to me, it qualifies. Plus, I love it. (More pizza sluttiness on my part.)

If I were to develop pizza scruples, they would probably center around putting pineapple on the pie. That is an affront to all that is good and right in the world.

My main argument is that pizza, on the whole, is so terrible in inland suburban Northern California...

We end in full agreement--including the Starbucks bleh. In actuality, my last run through Northern Oregon and Northern California found me dreaming for a real cup of espresso. In Oregon, they think espresso is the name of a falvored drink. I twice had to tell a server what espresso is and once made up my own price for one, as the kiosk did not have a price for a cup of coffee without intervention.

The coffee scene in Oregon has improved greatly. Maybe your visit was the stimulus!

Seriously, Portland has become coffee central. The most famous so far is Stumptown (which is exported to New York). Some of the coffee shops are quite the thing--like Barista, where they most definitely know how to make a cappucino and feature two single-origin coffee beans each day for your choice. I'll take you there when you come back out again.

Pieology: We like to take the grandchildren there when they visit. They always have fun, get exactly what the want that day on their pizza, and, honestly, the pizza is not bad. IThere's a Chipotle next door.)

Oh, and unlike Brian, I can report that the Mexican scene here is pretty damned good. We're talking lamb shanks and mole', not just beans and rice Mexican places. Lots of Jaliscan and Oaxacan folks around here.

Mike:

Pineapple on pizza is an affront as well as an alliterational abomination.

Hoke:

To be fair, I didn't make it into Portland on that trip, just drove from the airport and then along the coast, and it was 2011--oh, so long ago.

Portland is a lovely little island all to itself. Heck, you even get to the outer 'burbs here and it's the vast, bleak wasteland of American culture again.

I know you don't think there's any good Italian food west of the Alleghenies, Thomas---or being charitable, maybe the Mississippi---but there's some here that even you wouldn't sniff at.

And I'm sure your elitist and demanding self would appreciate the coffee. Seattle may have created the trend (well, let's nod at Peet's first), but Portland has done better at perfecting it.

I used to work with a team of computer guys who like jalapeno-pineapple pizza... sweet and hot.

Not for me.

I used to work with a team of computer guys who like jalapeno-pineapple pizza... sweet and hot.

Not for me.

Ewww.

Portland is a lovely little island all to itself. Heck, you even get to the outer 'burbs here and it's the vast, bleak wasteland of American culture again.

I know you don't think there's any good Italian food west of the Alleghenies, Thomas---or being charitable, maybe the Mississippi---but there's some here that even you wouldn't sniff at.

And I'm sure your elitist and demanding self would appreciate the coffee. Seattle may have created the trend (well, let's nod at Peet's first), but Portland has done better at perfecting it.

I prefer to think of myself not as an elitist, but correct in my thinking

I used to work with a team of computer guys who like jalapeno-pineapple pizza... sweet and hot.

Not for me.

Ewww.

Double-ewww.

Expanding upon my thread, I hit up the OTHER insta-bake pizza joint within a reasonable drive-BLAZE PIZZA opened recently in Davis (near my favorite wine bar!).

Very efficient system, seems much more heavily staffed and much more of an assembly line feel...but given it is in Davis, they have to be efficient to meet the sometimes amazing student demand!

Have to say, the ingrediants at BLAZE are a step above Pieology. Quite delicious, actually. Not for pizza purists, of course, but pretty darn tasty after an extremely windy, long bicycle ride (we are ten degrees below normal for this time of year! And the wind....the wind is amazing. I was riding on the Penninsula near SFO and felt like i was going to be blown over!)