La Cucina

11440 W Huguenot Rd 
Midlothian, VA 23113

SCORE CARD

Sauce: 6

Comments: The sauce was an average sauce, a little on the thin side, but nothing special. I wanted so bad for it to be the best thing to hit my lips and make me scream for joy but it didn't. I was, however, impressed by how fresh it was and how well it covered the entire pizza. Overall it wasn't too bad and the effort was there.

Cheese: 6.5

Comments: It was very fresh like the sauce and at first look it seemed like it would be exactly what I am looking for in the perfect pizza. Unfortunately the cheese was a little clumpy when you tried to shew it, and wasn't as stringy as i would have hoped. The cheese pulled a Houdini, in the fact that it looked the part but didn't quiet meet my standards of the cheese heaven experience I'm seeking.

Dough: 8

Comments:  Oh the dough.  I was impressed that the dough. It had such great texture and quite frankly, I would have eaten the dough by itself. It was a New York style pizza and the dough lived up to the name; at least on the dough end. It was thick enough to hold the cheese and sauce without flopping around like a sloppy dog tongue.  

Service: 5.5

Comments: The service was mediocre. It was a little strange, to be honest. The waitress would come to the table, ask one question, come back, ask on question, and so on and so forth. We had to order everything separate....drinks....appetizer.....bread....dinner.  I wan't them to ask me questions but she didn't really seem that she was too into getting the job done. Aside from that she was pleasant and everything came out in a timely manner.

Decor: 8

Comments: It was a breath of fresh air.  The walls were a nice burgundy and the tables matched and had nice cast iron backed chairs with cute patterns on the seat, with solid black stand-alone tables. There wasn't much seating but that made it nice to feel more homey; there weren't a lot of people in there but because it was so quaint, we didn't feel out of place. There was a small bar at the front of the restaurant that overlooked the place with nice accent lighting.

Overall: 6.8

Comments:  Other than the magical pizza cheese and the odd waitress, I enjoyed the food, decor and general atmosphere. I kind of wish I was a wine enthusiast so I could have indulged in what looked to be a very popular thing at this place.

Palermo

15717 City View Drive

Midlothian, Virginia

SCORE CARD

Sauce: 7

Comments: It was thick and creamy, but not in a canned way, in an "I just made this" kind of way. This wasn't something you could pour out of a can. It was seasoned well and had a nice hint of basil.

Cheese: 6

Comments: It was good, but it wasn't something to write home about. It had a nice texture and stretched from the pizza to my plate, which you know I like. It was easy to chew, and didn't clump like some others. I feel like it was mixed, though. Depending on the bite, the cheese went from delicious to mediocre, almost like they had high end cheese and store bought cheese, mixed them in a bowl and then sprinkled it on to my pizza. 

Dough 6.5

Comments: The crust had a great taste but didn't put up much muscle with the sauce and cheese. You had to put some effort into keeping the pizza level, but the taste made up for that. It's almost like they made the dough out of the same ingredients they made their pre-dinner bread with. This actually gave something to the overall taste of the pizza, which is not usual. Kudos.

Service: 8

Comments: We had the world's best waiter. He was polite, on point, knew what he was talking about, had people skills, and didn't make anything awkward. Everything came out in a timely manner, and even special requests were met quickly. The hostess was a little off, but I honestly think she just has poor people skills. It's not that she had a bad attitude or didn't want to be there, I just genuinely think she has sub-par people skills when it comes to conversation and direction. On a higher note, the actual full blown little Italian lady, otherwise known as the owner, came to our table to check on us and our food. That was actually kind of adorable. 

Decor: 7

Comments: The waiting area is strange. It's completely shut off from the rest of the restaurant and you almost feel like you're being forgotten, but you never are. The decor out there is all over the place and confusing but it's also like 10x6 so it's not much of the place. The rest of the restaurant is great. No wood paneling, nice accent walls, Italian family photos all around the place. All of the tables and chairs matched, cast iron lighting, and expensive winery furniture made for a really classy feel. The banquet room had some curtain and window decor issues, but not enough to really count off for anything. 

Overall: 6.9

Comments: It was a great experience and we'd recommend it to anyone whether it's for a date or for a family night out. It was a very welcome and inviting atmosphere. The food was great, the staff was wonderful. The restaurant is smack dab in the middle of other entertainment centers. We've been before & we'll be going back again. 

A Taste of Italy

13547 Westford Place

Midlothian, Virginia

SCORE CARD

Sauce: 2

Comments: Giving this sauce a 2 is the most generous thing I have ever done and I'm a pretty generous guy. It was very obviously canned, and I'm pretty sure it was tomato PASTE, not sauce. You can tell they tried adding salt to it to make it their own, but didn't put in the effort to stir it, so I kept getting mouthfuls of salt when I did get any sauce. I think they could have made a more effective sauce by throwing tomatoes at the wall and serving the aftermath.

Cheese: 2

Comments: This was not cheese, it was an entity. This was not pizza. It was triangular cut cheese. When you take a single bite of this pizza, the entire cheese blanket comes with it. The spatula wasn't even able to cut through the cheese. I should not have to work this hard to eat.

Dough: 2

Comments: I fought between giving this a 1 or a 2, but because I'm such a nice guy, I went with two. The dough was mush. You could hold the pizza by the crust, but the rest would dangle straight down. My hands were legitimately wet from having toughed the bottom of my slice of pizza and I'm not asking why. It tasted like cardboard and felt like a wet noodle.

Service: 2

Comments: We had to seat ourselves. We stood around waiting for someone to seat us, until a bar tender told us to seat ourselves. Okay, so we took a booth. We ordered our drinks and they came pretty quickly. Then we ordered an appetizer, which came out fast, as well. That's when it ended. It took us ONE HOUR to get a pizza. I could have gone home, made a pizza, an brought it back to our booth, before they served us our food. There was ONE waitress. UNO. UN. ONE. Not two, one. During dinner. When I looked around to see what was taking so long, I noticed the cook playing on his phone. I hope he won angry birds, because he was about to reach the boss level with angry customers. We waited about 20 minutes to get our check, and as soon as the credit card hit the bill, she was right there to offer quick service. Awesome, do that with pizza in your hand next time.

Decor: 5

Comments: It was tastefully done for the most part. They had a nice mix of orange and yellow walls to accent one another, arched walk ways, nice paintings, and cast iron accents on the wall. All of the chairs, tables, and booths matched, but you share the back of your booth with the person in the booth behind you, so when someone is drunk and can't hold themselves up, you get pushed forward into your table. They also have random toddler sized Greek statues.....I'm pretty sure one of them winked at me. 

Overall: 3

Comments: This blew.

Note: This was a pizza shame.

Extreme Pizza

11653 West Broad Street

Richmond, Virginia

Wingin' It

SCORE CARD

Sauce: 8

Comments: I had two different sauces on two different pizzas. being at EXTREME pizza, I felt the need to order something extreme, so that I did. We got two different pizzas, the Wingin' It and the Baja 1000. The Wingin' It had buffalo sauce as the pizza sauce, and the Baja 1000 had a black bean sauce. It was a risk and the executed it perfectly. The buffalo sauce had balls. It was not a wimpy wing sauce, it was a kick you so hard your mom feels it, sauce. The bean sauce on the Baja 1000 was nice and mild and seemed to give it a more "natural" flavoring to it and brought all of the toppings together.

Cheese: 7.5

Comments: It was so stretchy that at one point I had to let my girlfriend know she had a cheese beard going on. It stretched for days from the pizza to your mouth. It wasn't hard to chew at all, and went down smooth. The Wingin' It had traditional mozarella on it but the Baja 1000 had cheddar on it, which I was weary about at first, but it was a perfect fit for the pizza.

Dough: 7.5

Comments: It was thin and strong. Sometimes you get thin crust pizza and it couldn't hold up a paper clip. This was strong thin crust that held up our mountains of toppings on each EXTREME pizza. It was the same thickness from end to end, and the crust was thin and crunchy without being a threat to the roof of your mouth.

Service: 8.5

Comments: There wasn't a welcome party waiting for us when we went in, but they were incredibly polite once we got up to order. They made conversation, asked us where we heard about them, were quick about getting our pizza made, and seemed to know a lot of the people who came in after us. While being a creeper, I noticed that they actually cut up a little kid's pizza who sat at a table beside us. The parent's didn't even have to ask, they went ahead and did it with a pizza cutter before they brought the order out. 

Decor: 7

Comments: It wasn't bad but it wasn't great. Let me explain. They had the SAME EXACT wood paneling and mustard yellow paint as EVERY SINGLE pizza place I have reviewed thus far. But after that, it was pictures of extreme sports and dangling skate boards on the ceiling and a mural of a BMX biker on the wall. I say, let the Italian thing go. This pizza isn't Italian. This pizza is American perfection. Let the Italian decor go and just roll with the extreme theme. Liked the high top and low top tables, all matching, and lack of carpet. Carpeting in restaurants is just weird. 

Overall: 7.7

Comments: I plan on going back to this place at least once a month, if not more. I will, and mark my word, I will try every pizza they have on the menu. The pizza is so good it'll make your tongue slap your brains out,  and I never thought I'd say that about a franchise pizza business. 

Note: Look back for a new review of a new restaurant on Monday.

Follow me on Twitter for live updates on my taste bud adventures, and to send me restaurant suggestions! @ThePizzaPioneer

Dolce Vita

2401 Colony Crossing Place

Midlothian, Virginia

SCORE CARD

Sauce: 7

Comments: It was pretty good as far as freshness goes, but I had a few issues with it. I'm a smooth sauce kind of guy, and this was a fresh cut chunky sauce. This is not to take away from the overall sauce score because that's personal preference. It had great, rich tomato flavor but could have used a little more seasoning. On that note, the sauce was spotty and didn't cover the pizza equally. It was either sauce soup or sauce MIA.

Cheese: 6.5
Comments: It was stringy to a point, but not as stringy as I wanted it to be. Instead of going down the back of the throat once it was in your mouth, it turned into a mutant cheese ball that my teeth had to attack before it could go down. That being said, it had great flavor and didn't taste like anything I could buy out of a bag.

Dough: 5

Comments: It had a good crunch but was a little too thin in the middle and too thick towards the crust. The further I got into the pizza, the less pizza I got. Which would probably explain my sauce perplextions. 

Service: 2
Comments: Dude was weird. Dude was very weird. I'll leave it at that. He was only there to take orders and give the check, not to enhance your experience. It took longer to get our drinks than it did to get the pizza. And in the mean time, the cooks in the exposed kitchen were staring at everyone.... awkward.

Decor: 7
Comments: The building was a lot nicer than we're used to with pizza places, which was refreshing. There was STILL wood paneling and that mustard yellow paint on the walls, but the pictures were all the same size, the booths were more modern, and the tables and chairs fit the overall theme. There weren't any tacky decorations hanging from the crown molding, or stacks of "antique" canned or bottled vegetables sitting around. I do have to question the wine themes wall paper border along the ceiling and the fan with the leaf blades, but otherwise, it will tastefully done. 

I should mention that the kitchen is completely exposed. You can see all of the cooks and what they're doing, which is great for integrity, but awkward when they're not doing anything and you catch them looking your way while chatting their their buddies. They also had heat lamps on the "bar" in front of the kitchen. I assume it's because they do take-out and want to keep the food warm until the guest picks it up, but still, red heat lamps? 

Overall: 5.5
Comments: The food was good and the pizza was enjoyable, but the service was less than average. Not to mention we must have gone at half past weirdo, because everyone eating there at the time was some kind of off. I think with a different hostess, waiter, and if the cook staff was busier, that the score would be considerably higher. I would have no problem going back for more. 

Check back tomorrow for another review!

Frank's Restaurante Italiano Pizzeria

3054 Stony Point Shopping Center

Richmond, Va

SCORE CARD

Sauce: 8

Comments: Oh, the sauce. No one used a can opener with this sauce, and if they did I want to know where they got it, and where I can get one. It was mystical, something only written about in Greek Mythology. It was nice and smooth and evenly spread throughout the entire pizza, and not just sauce soup in the middle. it also wasn't chunky. No one likes surprise chunks. Surprise chunks ruin days.

Cheese: 8

Comments: When I pulled the first slice away from the pizza, I was at war with the cheese tentacles stretching from the pizza pan, to my plate, and I gladly lost. It's the kind of warm gooey cheese that you have to consciously chew to make sure there isn't some left in your mouth when you try to swallow it. Some may not like that, but I like a challenge. It was no cheese found in the Kroger dairy isle next to the baby yogurt.

Dough: 8

Comments: It was the perfect transportation for the cheese and sauce to my mouth. It was firm enough to hold my pizza, but not hard to chew. It was a nice accent to the pizza and didn't take away from the room in my stomach set aside for pizza insides. 

Service: 4

Comments: I'm bummed about this because the first time I went I got the Frank's male cheerleader who seemed like we would like nothing better than to sleep on the stoop and take the morning shift, lunch shift, and dinner shift, without taking any breaks. This time I was greeted by some lady that didn't talk, she just grunted and we assumed that meant "follow me". She set the menu's on the table and left. After about 10 minutes we got a new waitress to take our drink order. She came back a few times before taking our dinner order. We ordered an appetizer of fried calamari, but it came with like 7 pieces of calamari. It was delicious by all definitions of the word, and the "special" dipping sauce blew my mind, but it was nothing you should expect to fill up on. The salad was only a few pieces of lettuce on a plate, as well. 

When dinner came out, everything we ordered came out at different times, and the other orders were extremely small portions. I'm talking 5 pieces of ravioli on a plate, small. That being said, it was the best tasting ravioli I have ever had, or had dreams about. So I can only complain but so much.

It was a bit overpriced for the portion sizes, but if you're paying for flavor, you're getting a steal. 

Decor: 5

Comments: It had those mustard yellow walls that I see in almost every Italian restaurant,t hat I don't understand. The random pictures in random sizes, Greek God wall mounts, non matching decorative plates, and Christmas lights have got to go. BUT the tables were adorable and well finished wood with no cheesy tablecloth and they had some pretty awesome cast iron decor. They had a cast iron "gate" that separated the entry and the dining area, and cast iron lighting that was really welcoming and modern. 

I'm a little confused about why they needed 4 fans in a 20x40 dining area, but I'm not asking questions. They weren't turned on, and were more clean than any fan I've ever had.

Overall: 6.6

Comments: I feel bad about this overall number because it's only lower due to decor and service. I didn't go to feel cozy and get a massage, I went to feel the heaven on my tongue, which I did. So as far as taste goes, I will go back there every night for the rest of my life, if allowed. But as far as service and decor, it has a lot more potential than it's living up to.

Note: 2nd pizza in 2 days and my girlfriend is yapping that I'm going to get fat. So I'll succumb to her moaning for a couple days. But expect a new pizza place to be rated by the end of the week. "The man" can't hold this down.

This Pizza in all of it's Glory

Vinny's Italian Grill & Pizzeria

6737 Lake Harbour Drive

Winterpock Shopping Corner

Midlothian, VA 23112

SCORE CARD

Sauce: 6.5

Comments: The sauce isn't bad when you can find it. Unfortunately I left my sauce locator goggles at home, so I only got a couple of bites. 

Cheese: 4

Comments: They ripped me of my gooey cheese experience that I look forward to every time I order a pizza. Instead of stretching, it either ripped off or stayed on the pizza....which is not where I wanted it to go.

Dough: 3 a strong 3

Comments: Dough should be a transportation device for the cheese and sauce, to my mouth...not 3/4ths of my meal. It almost seemed like it had been frozen at one point in time.

Service: 5

Comments: Meh. Everyone was nice, but it wasn't anything to call your mom about. And don't order anything extra. They forgot my girlfriend's EXTRA onions, which I'm more than ecstatic about, but now I have to hear about it for the rest of the night.

Decor: 3

Comments: Mustard yellow walls, matched with random photography across the walls, fruit stained glass chandeliers with bits of glass missing, picnic themes table cloths, and Walmart Honda tint peeling off of the windows.

Overall: 4.3

Comments: Obviously these people like their job and opened their business for the right reasons. Staff was friendly, but un-involved. The pizza broke my pizza heart, and my girlfriend and I agree that we won't be going back.

Note - I'm going back to the place that made me want to start writing about pizza, tomorrow. Look forward to a more positive write-up tomorrow.