Our night began with a challenge. A good friend Bobby U. asked me to try some places in Kenmore to see if we could find a place that was worth a damn! He informed me that he and his fiancé would go to Pizza Hut because that was the most consistent offering in all of the 1.4 sq mi of the Village of Kenmore. Seriously, this won’t do! We weren’t sure where to begin, a short trip up Delaware Ave. revealed pizzeria after pizzeria but nothing seemed to quite say “eat me.”
I remembered a recommendation from a girl we met at Mohawk the week prior when we were at the Chylde show. She emailed us a few recommendations and one of them was Mustachio’s. There are two Mustachio’s in the Buffalo area, one on Parkside in the city and the one we ended up at on Elmwood in Kenmore. We walked in and took a minute to order; Shrew needed to use the lavatory and was informed that there was none for customer use. This kind of baffled him because we thought that if you served food to customers that you had to have a bathroom for their use on site. Oh well, if you have to go that bad you could always just wiz on the side of the building. We ordered a small cheese half pepperoni pizza and two sides of bleu cheese. We opted for half cheese tonight because our friend, nicknamed Gus, who was joining us is a vegetarian.
Guy Drozd: A respectable man about town.
The pizza came out and if it tasted anything like it looked, man this was gonna suck!
We allowed for some gel time but really we should have just thrown it out. For sake of you, the people, we drudged through.
Each of us ate our respective slices without saying a word. We didn’t have to talk as the looks on our faces were enough. We finished our pizza (sort of) and cleaned our mess. The pizza might as well have looked like garbage in a box.
As we left Mustachio’s a collective diatribe was unleashed. What could we say about this pizza? Well we came to an early conclusion that we couldn’t say it was good. It was as far from good as good could get. The pizza must have been given a bath in grease before they decided to serve it to us in its cardboard box. This was evident as Shrew picked a pepperoni off the pizza and promptly took a shot of grease out of it. He stated,
“You watched me do a shot of grease out of the pepperoni. There was literally enough to pour a definite amount of grease into my mouth. Considering the fact that the grease is more viscous than water and that there was a flow into my mouth is just a testament to the volume of grease on that pizza.”
The dough was thin and soggy which was baffling considering you would get that if you baked a salad on a pizza but this was just cheese and pepperoni. The sauce sucked; we had no idea what the fuck it was but it wasn’t good. There was barely any and it was watery like Ragu. There wasn’t enough cheese on there to cover the pizza. It was just enough to make it seem like there was sufficient amount once it melted. This reminded us of the old west where you would have a nice façade on the front of a building but once you went in or looked behind it you saw it for the shit it truly was. The pepperoni was good but nothing special and surely did nothing to hide the fact that the slice was garbage. I don’t need to say much about this pizza because it was plain and simple bad. One phrase could be used to describe it and that would be “Dumpster Pizza.” Shrew once ate a large slice of pizza out of a garbage can at the corner of Delaware and Chippewa. He said that tasted better than this. So if anyone knows what dumpster pizza tastes like, it’s Shrew. This place got a unanimous OMG DO NOT WANT!!!
After leaving there we were really hoping for some good pizza at La Hacienda on Pine Ave in Niagara Falls. This place has been highly recommended from a reliable source. We were excited especially after this prior nonsense. We made it there 45 minutes before they were closing. The waitress made this explicitly clear when we walked through the door. Basically, order, eat and get out. Yes Ma’am. La Hacienda is an interesting place as it’s an Italian restaurant with a Mexican atmosphere. How the hell does that work? They have been around since 1947 so if anywhere was going to have a feel on how to make a good pizza we figured this place would. We were definitely hoping that it would live up to the “holy grail” status it had been proclaimed to be. We ordered another small cheese half pepperoni pizza and two sides of bleu cheese. Pizza was out in 10 minutes which was amazing. We looked at it and then looked at each other. It looked very similar to the pizza we just had at Mustachio’s. Could this be the same quality? Let’s hope not. After giving it a slight gel time we divided and conquered. It wasn’t horrible but sadly our hopes were deflated. Due to the time constraints I didn’t get a chance to snap any photos. However we really didn’t need to. In my mind the dough was the only saving grace of this pizza. They used corn meal on the bottom of the pizza which gave it a crunchy bite and interesting flavor and the crust was flaky and almost burned like you would expect from the type of dough normally used in NYC style pizzas. However this was far from a good example of NYC pizza. This was the same species of pizza as Mustachio’s, just a little higher on the evolutionary scale. The cheese was again greasy; the pepperoni was interesting but reminded me more of ham or prosciutto. The sauce combined with the cheese and toppings reminded us of a Tony’s Frozen Pizza. With all the hype that this place received we were really disappointed. The bleu cheese as alright but had a really tangy taste to it. Both of us agree that we would not go back or recommend it.
At this point the night has been a colossal failure. We realize that with the amount of pizzas we have to try that we are going to find that most places will fall into a bell curve-like area of mediocrity with some residing on the awful end of the curve and some on the excellent end of the curve. Defeated, we headed back to the city of Buffalo. At this point we weren’t going to let the night go to total waste. The executive decision was made to pick up Mrs. Shrew and head over to Mister Pizza for a night redeeming slice. For this portion I’m not going to rate them because we got slices that had been under a heat lamp for at least an hour or so and some bleu cheese. We headed back to the Shrew’s casa to chow down. For being slices that had sat for a little bit, they were glorious! This blew away what we had tonight and we look forward to reviewing them in the future with a fresh pie. Thank God for good pizza!
8 comments:
Is the foul mouth necessary to be a food critic? It should be cleaned up before anything goes into it. How can you even tell if the food is good or bad?
It's necessary because we tell it like it is and I'm recanting the events of the night. I could leave out some profanity but then a lot of emotion is left out as well. We aren't food critics for anyone or for hire. That isn't the purpose of this. I am not a formally educated writer and I don't care to be. It is what it is.
Make use of the X at the top right of your screen.
I would also like to point out if someone says to your face that something is "fucking gross".....Do you really need any more descriptors?
Some people like pizza with a side of bleu cheese, some like it with a side of crass.
Although neither may be my choice, I also choose not to be offended by freedom of speech. I mean freedom of pizza.
It's strange that there's 2 La Hacienda's in this area. The more famous being Bob and John's (which I actually think blows). I live right near the Kenmore border and the best pizza is Franco's. It is thicker, but the crust is light and airy. Their pizza also has the perfect amount of toppings.
Darrel,
There are actually 3 La Haciendas, Bob and Johns, one on Brighton in the town of Tonawanda. They are related to each other. The one in Niagara Falls is not affiliated in any way. I liked Bob and Johns the last time I had it but it's been a while. We will be heading there in the near future so time will tell. :)
Long live the pizza wars! Sorry to hear about your bad La Hacienda experience. I live in Kenmore and feel its worth the drive. I go for thin/crispy slices and have never thought of their pizza as greasy. The place itself is strange - cavernous and loud
See, you should have gone to Michael's right next door to the Hacienda instead. I am telling you, it's good stuff! (Well, admittedly there have a couple times it was so-so, but when they get it right they REALLY get it right!)
I would also like to challenge you to eat the WORST pizza ever known to man (and I love pizza so much that I never thought I would turn my nose up at it in any form): George's on Hyde Park Blvd. in the Falls. I have no idea what is up with them, but holy crap! Worst pizza ever. Like Chef Boyardee bad, seriously. I guess there is the chance that they have improved since I tried them three years ago, but... I really, really doubt it.
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