The Great Oklahoma City Pizza Hunt - Continued

The Summer Winds Down

Although it has been a couple of weeks since I have updated you on the summer's OKC pizza search, worry not. The search has been ongoing indeed. And the even better news is that it is beginning to wind down. Preliminary top tens are developing in my head, and I have only a couple of places left on my list to try.

An experience I felt a need to comment on was the "take and bake" revolution (if you can call it that) in the pizza world. These are popping up in several places, and many readers recommended one such establishment to me, GRANDPA LABANI'S PIZZA in Midwest City.

Well, here's my rant. I absolutely hate the idea. But more than anything, I guess I just don't understand it. For me, the point is to have someone make the pizza for me, either to be served in the restaurant or to bring home and eat. If I'm cooking it, what is the big difference between that and throwing the toppings I like on a Boboli crust and baking or even just making a frozen pizza? Quality, you say? Nope, not if ask me. There's simply not a big enough difference in quality, and making it myself just defeats the entire purpose.

Grandpa Labani's was my first experience with it. I purchased a large, stuffed pizza and a calzone and took them home to bake based on the prescriped instructions. With my house hot from the oven running, I pulled out the pizzas to finally eat over an hour after I bought them (counting driving time and baking time). I vowed to give the pizza a fair shake and not let my negative opinion of the concept cloud my judgment of the taste. Well, Grandpa Labani's intriguing stuffed pizza ended up being fairly ordinary and just struggles to overcome far too much bread and a sauce with a bit of a store-bought taste.

Pros:

• Flavorful toppings stuffed inside
• Easy to follow instructions and method for self-baking

Cons:

• Take home concept itself
• Fairly bland and overabundant bread, even for stuffed pizza
• Sauce tastes remarkably similar to jarred, store-bought sauce

Verdict: Grandpa Labani's is not bad by any means. It's just ordinary. The 2 inches of extra bread (without any cheese or toppings) gets wasted as it's somewhat bland, and the taste just isn't good enough to warrant all the extra effort required for taking-and-baking.

PIZZAIOLA in Edmond originally started as a "take and bake" pizza restaurant, but they quickly decided to cook the pizzas for you as well if you'd prefer. Good idea, if for no other reason than to open up your market possibilities.

And Pizzaiola is quite good. It doesn't necessarily fit into one of the "regional" categories in the sense that it's not trying to replicate New York or Chicago style. Instead, the restaurant offers a bunch of interesting specialty pizzas with everything from a Mexican pie with refried beans and black olives to a Gyro pizza with tzatziki sauce and red onions. But Pizzaiola can also do the basic pizza pie, and they do it well. They have a slightly chewy crust and great sauce coverage. You won't find much to pick on here.

Pros:

• Intriguing new tastes you won't find at many other places
• Flavorful and plentiful sauce
• Chewy crust with a good taste

Cons:

• Not much to hold on to with end crust - have some napkins on hand.

Verdict: Pizzaiola definitely makes my list for top 10 consideration. I'm intrigued by some of the specialty pizzas and fully intend to make my way through them. Of course, some of them are a bit crazy for a man with simple pizza tastes like myself. But Pizzaiola has a great homemade taste for even their basic pies.

Stay tuned as I wrap up my OKC pizza search with the few remaining highlights...