Uncle Chubby’s Pizza, Syracuse (North)

Uncle Chubby’s, 615 Wolf St. in Syracuse, is all about the takeout and delivery.  They don’t pretend to be a place to eat in. As you can see in the picture, the front windows (and inside) are full of boxes, stacked high. When you walk inside, it has what I refer to as a “pizza factory” atmosphere, with more boxes and insulated delivery bags stacked up.  I guess you could say it is built for speed, not comfort.  Another location is up north, in Central Square; I haven’t visited there, so I don’t know how it looks. Hours of operation stretch pretty late into the night – midnight on sunday, 1am Monday through Thursday, and 3am Friday and Saturday, probably partly because the Wolf St. location is close to numerous Syracuse area hotels. The Central Square location closes much earlier (10pm Sun-Thu, 11pm Fri-Sat).

I visisted in the early afternoon for a sample, and picked up a cheese slice (1/8th of a 16″ pie, $1.62 incl. tax). This would be considered a thin crust, baked on a screen. My best guess on why screens are used is that they are more convenient; not everyone has good skills with a peel. Also, when you’re in pizza “assembly line” mode, it makes it easier to handle the pizza. Whatever the reason, in this case it produced a lightly browned crust that was mostly soft with a little crispiness at the edge.

Sauce was mildly spiced, generally bland, and did not carry any significant fresh tomato taste. Cheese was congealed, and somewhat oily. If you’re sensing some deja vu, like I’ve said this before, you’re correct. This is average pizza, and it’s hard to come up with anything creative and new to say about it. The Pizza Geek rates it squarely in the average range, at 3 out of 5 slices.

Summary – Pros: open late, inexpensive. Cons: thoroughly average.

What do YOU think? Do you like Uncle Chubby’s pizza? Click the comment link below and let us know.

Crust: ***
Sauce: ***
Cheese: ***
Toppings: ***
Value: *****
Overall:

Uncle Chubby’s, 615 Wolf St., Syracuse – 472-2522

Dully’s Express Market, Syracuse (North)

Some reviews are planned, some just “happen” when I spot a place and pull over to check it out. This review, at Dully’s Express Market (also known as “Le Pizzeria Pizza and Wings”), just “happened.” This location on Wolf St. is just a couple of blocks south of Alliance Bank Stadium. If I recall correctly, this used to be Wilson Farms, and before that, Andy’s Big M. Inside, it’s a very large, clean and spacious convenience store, with several tables, and varioius hot & cold food available in the “restaurant” area.

This was a first, though. I pulled up to the building, looked at the front window, and next to a beer sign was another sign that said, “Human hair, buy one get one half price.” A halloween thing maybe? I walked in, looked to my right, and the entire wall that faces the parking lot was covered with…human hair. Hundreds of packages of human hair. I don’t know much about these things, but I guess they are for weaves. Maybe there are even some complete wigs there. Like I said, it was a first. Another first: A YouTube commercial for this location.

I decided to pass on the hair, and moved along to the pizza counter. “Giant slices” the sign promised. Indeed, they were 18″ pies cut in sixths, a bit larger than the average slice. A cheese slice was $2.25 plus tax. I did a double take when I looked in the case holding the slices – they all looked rather…yellow. Could it be something with the lighting? Judge for yourself in the picture, it is an accurate representation of the color of the slice. I know, I took a couple of bites before the picture…sorry about that.

In a word, this pizza was awful. The relatively thin crust was on the low end of average – browned well, slightly crispy, with no particularly glaring flaws – but at the same time bland and unexciting. Sauce was difficult to find, and what I did find had very slight flavor. Cheese was very brown, which means it was baked too long. When you do that to cheese, it morphs from soft, yummy mozzarella into dried out, congealed “stuff” that can be peeled back like a blanket. Also, the sauce boils up through the cheese and turns it orange, or yellow in this case.

I realize this slice was not particularly fresh, but it seemed obvious to me that it didn’t have much going for it in the first place. I did not eat any more than the two bites you see in the picture, and that was two bites too many. The Pizza Geek fed the rest to a garbage can, and rates it 1.5 out of 5 slices.

Summary – Pros: nothing. Cons: everything.

UPDATE (2/9/2011): I recently visited Dully’s again, to see if anything was different.  Fortunately, things improved a little.  The crust was still rather yellow, making me wonder if cornmeal was used in the crust.  There was a little sweetness in the crust also.

The sauce was mildly spiced, some spice flakes were visible, and it had a very acidic taste.  Cheese was applied pretty heavily, and it was covered in a lot of yellow oil that separated during baking.

Surprisingly, this slice worked much better than the one described above.  In spite of the oil, I thought it was edible in an average sort of way, and the Pizza Geek rating improves to 3 out of 5 slices.

What do YOU think? Have you tried pizza from Dully’s? How about human hair? Click the comment link below and let us know.

Crust: ***
Sauce: ***
Cheese: ***
Toppings: NA
Value: ****
Overall:

Dully’s Express Market, 700 Wolf St., Syracuse – 214-4666

DiLauro’s Bakery and Pizza, Syracuse (North)

DiLauro’s Bakery’s roots can be traced back to 1908, when John DiLauro started Venezia Bakery at 502 E. Division St. – the same location where the store stands today on Syracuse’s north side. I doubt that pizza was part of the offerings in the store’s early years, but I don’t really know. However, bread, rolls, and pizza shells of various types and sizes are still the staples of the operation. You can read more about their history and products here.

Several years ago I volunteered for numerous “Pizza Days” at my children’s school, making and baking about 60 half-sheet pizzas every Wednesday.  We used pizza shells from DiLauro’s, and the results were reasonably decent.

By the way, thanks to blog reader “Tom” for suggesting DiLauro’s.  I thought I had tried every pizza shop in the northeastern quadrant of Syracuse, but had missed this one because I generally thought of it as a bread bakery.

For the review, I chose a cheese slice (1/8th of a 16″ pizza), $1.70 including tax. It was served from a warming case, so the moisture evaporating from the pizza gave the crust a very soft texture. It saves time to serve from a warming case, but it never equals the results you get from a proper rewarming. The crust’s taste does show the pedigree of an experienced bread bakery, with well-developed bready taste, and interior structure. But, I wasn’t quite as happy with the slightly oily, fried dough texture on the bottom. The crust was thin right up to the edge, with not much rim or “handle” to speak of.

 The sauce had some amount of cooked flavor, rather than the fresh tomato taste that I look for. A moderate amount of spice flakes was visible, but the overall spice taste was very mild. Cheese was a bit salty and a little chewy, but not oily.

Overall, this pizza was generally average, with a tolerable, unremarkable flavor. Perhaps I’m developing a bias against pan-baked pizza, but that’s because pan baking usually doesn’t evenly brown the crust, and often leaves it somewhat oily and chewy. If that’s what you like in a pizza, you’ll probably like DiLauro’s more than I did. The Pizza Geek rates it 3 out of 5 slices.

Summary – Pros: nothing stands out. Cons: nothing stands out.

What do you think? Do you like DiLauro’s Pizza? Click the comment link below and let us know.

Crust: ***
Sauce: ***
Cheese: ***
Toppings: NA
Value: ****
Overall:

Di Lauro’s Bakery and Pizza - 502 E Division St., Syracuse – 471-0519

The Italian Chef, Syracuse (North)

The Italian Chef  has three central New York locations, in Syracuse, Utica and New Hartford. This visit took place in Syracuse, on the near North side at 400 Butternut St.

It is time to reveal that yes, this is where I had the poorly baked pizza mentioned in the “Pizza Fail!” article a few days ago. This return visit went a little better. I have a theory about what happened. This is pan-baked pizza; when the dough is placed into the pan, it is common for some amount of air to get trapped between the dough and the pan.

Poorly baked crust from the first visit.

That’s why on the bottom of pan-baked pizza you often see a mottled browning pattern. In an extreme case a large air bubble trapped under the crust will expand when heated, lift the crust off the hot pan, and prevent it from baking properly in a large area.

This is why some pizza shops (CiCi’s, Papa John’s are two I know of) run a dough perforator (a “spikey” roller) over the dough to create “vents” that help prevent the dough blisters. I guess that means your sauce can’t be very watery, or else it would go down through the holes. I understand that this is the risk of baking in a pan, and some unevenness is to be expected, but you just can’t be serving people pizza with crust that is wet and gooey.

On the return visit, still some very lightly baked areas.

The piece I had on my return visist appeared to be a 1/6th piece cut from a 14″ pie. A cheese slice is $2.00 plus tax. The friendly woman behind the counter said this pizza had just come out, so it didn’t need to be warmed. As you can see in the picture, this piece was baked much better than the first, but it still had a very moist and spongey consistency, with no sign of crispiness on the bottom. There was a little bit of oiliness from the pan. It had virtually no rim on the crust, because the sauce and cheese extended nearly all the way to the edge. What rim there was had some crispiness.

I’ve recently had some food from Italian Chef’s catering services, including chicken parm, meatballs in sauce, etc. The sauce on this pizza actually somewhat resembled the red sauce I had with the chicken and meatballs, but I couldn’t say for sure if it is exactly the same sauce.

Sign fail.

It does appear to be cooked more than the average pizza sauce, with a somewhat chunky, somewhat orangey, moderately tomatoey, slightly acidic taste that carried a moderate spice load. The cheese had some oil separation, and turned a bit orangey. It also had considerably more browning than what you see on most pizzas.

Overall, the taste of this pizza was acceptable. Pan pizza lovers will probably be a lot more enthusiastic about it than I am, but the extremely soft, moist and in some cases gooey crust decreased my enthusiasm. When I could find a bite with browned crust, sauce and cheese together, it was a generally pleasing mix of flavors. I’ll give it a Pizza Geek rating of 3 out of 5 slices.

Summary – Pros: sauce has a good amount of personality. Cons: uneven crust bake, soft spongey texture, orangey oily cheese.

What do you think? Have you been to Italian Chef, in Syracuse, Utica or New Hartford? Click the comment link below and tell us about it.

Crust: ***
Sauce: ****
Cheese: ***
Toppings: NA
Value: ****
Overall:

The Italian Chef – 400 Butternut St., Syracuse – 470-1111

Peppino’s Pizzeria, Syracuse (North)

On Syracuse’s north side, Peppino’s Pizzeria has been dishing up pizza for about 40 years, just down the street from legendary butcher shop Liehs and Steigerwald.  I had mixed feelings when I came here for an official review, due to mixed past experience and uneven reviews online.  But, everyone deserves a fresh chance.

Many pizza restaurants open just before lunch, or in some cases just before dinner hours.  Peppino’s is one of the few that opens for breakfast, at 7:00am weekdays.  There are several tables inside, and a few outside.  There is no table service – this is the common pay at the counter, paper plates and plastic forks operation.  Delivery is available, as well as catering services.

A sign on the sidewalk advertises “two slices and soda $3.99.”  That works for me.  I picked a cheese slice, and one deluxe, from approximately eight 16″ pizzas on display.  The regular pizza baking ovens are not easily visible from the front – a small warming oven just behind the counter is used to reheat slices.

This pizza is baked in a lightly oiled pan, and has the familiar fried dough characteristics, such as leaving your fingers oily.  The size of the bubbles in the crust is slightly larger than average, probably because the dough is allowed to rise on the pan.  I’d call this a medium thickness crust.  It has a rather soft texture, causing it to droop a lot when picked up.  A fork is definitely required to get started on a slice with any amount of toppings.  The crust is well browned, but is not crispy – more of a soft breadlike texture with well balanced taste.

The sauce had a lot of personality – a slightly sweet taste, with a moderately strong, complex spice load.  A good amount of spice flakes were visible under the cheese.  Tomato taste was evident, but not particularly strong.  Salt level was just right.  Toppings on the deluxe slice were somewhat sparse.  I know some people prefer this because it keeps the weight and messiness under control.  Personally, I prefer a little more topping.  You’ll have to take a close look at the picture and judge for yourself.   

The cheese was about average compared to what I’ve seen lately, without too much oil or orange-i-ness.  Overall, this was pretty good medium crust, pan baked pizza.  The Pizza Geek gives it 4.0 slices.

What do you think?  How does Peppino’s pizza compare to thin crust pizza?  Which do you prefer?  Click the comment link below.

Summary – Pros: good pan crust taste, good sauce, not too salty.  Cons: average cheese, sparse toppings.

Crust: *****
Sauce: ****
Cheese: ***
Toppings: ****
Value: ****
Overall:

Peppino’s Pizzeria (menu) – 1849 Grant Boulevard, Syracuse – 422-2395