After Bards quizzo last night, me and my man DJ headed over to a prime pizza late night spot in CC West, Tower Pizza. Tower is famous for one reason: it is open until 4 am. I don’t know of any other pizza places that can make that claim (What time does Lorenzo’s close? 3 or 4?) Anyways, here was DJs take:
One of the most predominant items visible on Tower Style Pizza’s hanging menu is a cornucopia – and fittingly so. The pizza shop, located on 20th street between Walnut and Sansom, is packed to the gills with a variety of pizza flavors, mixed decor, and a drink selection that rivals that of your local food mart. To top it off they keep their doors open until just about sunrise, allowing the masses to reap the benefits of greasy pizza goodness until 4am.

Tower’s setup is a little bit all over the place. Greek posters, nostalgic World Trade Center photos, and two rabbit-ear laden televisions are crammed into a smallish 20 foot wide sit-down joint pumping middle-eastern music. I’m still a little bit intrigued by their illuminated advertisement for a cheese and pineapple platter, but I’ll dare to sample that when Johnny goes on a city-wide dairy and fruit review.

Despite a menu boasting a dozen or more pizzas, late night selection was slim between sausage, pepperoni, and buffalo chicken. I grabbed a slice of pepperoni (@ ~$2.35) and wasn’t blown away. The thin crust was solid, but the general flavor wasn’t overwhelmingly notable. Service was quick, polite, and friendly, but hardly made up for a relatively mediocre slice. Table napkins were sparse despite the slight greasiness, but garlic and parmesan were plentiful throughout. The latter I encourage to help get through the pizza.

Far more impressive than the pizza was the supplementing beverage collection. Seldom do you find two cases filled with regular and diet sodas, root and birch beers, flavored teas, and energy waters in such a small shop. With the overstock of drink racks stacked literally to the ceiling, locals should keep Tower Style Pizza in their sights should the need arise for a downtown nuclear fallout shelter

Tower Style Pizza’s most defining attribute is not their pizza, decor, or their barricade of beverages, but their accessibility. Average pizza can taste like a 4-roni award winner when you’re stumbling home loaded from the bar at two in the morning. The fact that Tower gives you two more hours to wander around downtown before they close up shop is pure gold. Just remember you’ll need to be mildly drunk to shell out almost 3 bucks for a slice. 2.5 roni’s for dinner, 4 roni’s if you’re destroyed at 3am.

Yeah, my thoughts were similar. The place is kind of weird. Definitely set up for a late night crowd. The pizza was decent. I had a pepperoni slice and a buffalo chicken slice ($3). They were not at all greasy,and neither were they too dry, which was good. Neither blew me away, but they would have been perfect had I been plastered. If you desperately need a slice at 3 am, this place is more than suitable, but I wouldn’t get a dinner slice here. And if you need 325 bottles of Pennsylvania Dutch Birch Beer in a jiffy, this is definitely your spot.

I’m throwing an extra $20 in the pot to anyone who can beat the Jams at the Rendezvous tonight. Kickoff is at 6:15 p.m.

Wanted you guys to meet Joe, a local guy who is in the Big Brothers Program. I sent him a few questions about his experience and he answered them in a couple of paragraphs that I think you guys should read.
I joined the program 18 years ago as a little. My big brother (Chas) and I were matched when I was ten or eleven and have remained very close ever since. We still get together two or three times a month and have a great time. I lost my father when I was four to a car crash and my mother thought a male role model was important, and it was. Chas has been a father, brother, mentor, best friend and more. Which brings me to why I joined. I have had a great life so far and having Chas has had a great impact on me. So, now it’s time that I give back and help someone as much as I have been helped. I love kids and the BBBS program, so it was only natural I join and help out as much as I can. I was ready for the challenge last year, when I joined as a big. There are good days with my little and there are bad days with my little (Dante). The challenge is there and now I know what Chas was talking about when he said its not always easy. But we have fun and do things we both like doing. I show him things he might not get to see on his own and we share alot of laughs, good times and quality learning time. It’s not just him learning from me. It’s me learning just as much because he is so unique. I think that is what makes the program so great. Being a little brother was great, but the other side of the coin is even better. Watching Dante do something for the first time or hearing him tell a story or just having some good laughs is the most rewarding thing to me. Watching him smile and grow is the core of why I think people join. Knowing that you had a little to do with that process is one of the greatest feelings ever!

I have been blessed with experience at BBBS. I can tell you how rewarding it is only because I been apart of it. It does take hard work and dedication, but it is all worth it.

Quit making excuses and make a difference!

Hey, I was having a few tech difficulties earlier today that made the site screwy. My system crashed when I tried to do a post on Paris Hilton. Go figure. Anyways, the battle station is back and fully operationional.

A’ight, I’m gonna post pics of last weeks winners, with a question about Spider-Man under each one. One guess per person. No cheating.

Jake’s Pizza is bold, if nothing else. They named their website bestpizzainphilly.com. So Chill Rob A and I decided to head to 201 North Broad Street and give it a shot. The place itself is pretty damn impressive. An incredible mural of Philadelphia is on the wall. Next to that is a really strange painting of a Mummer on fire. They have outdoor seating, a big plus. The staff is friendly and attentive. In fact, the only thing not perfect about the place is the pizza. It’s not that it’s bad. It’s quite serviceable. But it’s not perfect. Here was Rob’s take:
To be honest, you have to wonder about a place I have worked about four blocks from for 2 years, and yet have never been. First, the good stuff: I liked the overall lived-in quality of the place. It seems like the kind of place firefighters, hospital orderlies and nurses from Hahnemann, located just down the street, would frequent. If the people that keep you alive for a living like a place, it must be a-ok, right? Uh…

The murals are fantastic: Boathouse Row, check; Fairmount Water Works, check; Museum of Art, check; City Hall, check; Mummer on Fire, check and double check. In fact, I would suggest going here just to check out the mural arts program inside. Not to mention the not to be missed Russian child paper plate collection, tacked to the walls with thoughtless abandon. Perhaps to ward off the dreaded Mummer on Fire who storms the place every New Year’s? Dunno.

The staff was nice and there seemed to be a nice strange mix of regulars milling around during the just-post lunch rush. People watching with pizza a plus–this place is good for it.

So far, so good….then I ate the pizza.

Continue reading “Jake’s Pizza” →

Rough week for Goodtimes, who performed like Britney Spears this week. A scoring snafu at the Bards, a speaking snafu at the Black Sheep, and getting busted with that transvestite hooker and nitrous oxide tank led to a tough week for Philly’s premiere quizmaestro.

We start at O’Neals, where the Young, the Old, and the Restless have proven themselves to be the Robert Horry of quizzo, coming up clutch in the final round every week. Another nail biter at O’Neals, and another YOR win. They held off the Palestra Junkies and Cindy’s First Moustache, 93-89-89. I Got Nothing also finished within one question fo an with an 88.

Only two members of the Sofa Kingdom showed up at a packed Bards on Tuesday, and the result was a good old fashioned ass whooping administered by their arch rivals, the Narkotyzing Dysfunktion. The Funk came away with a 101-100 win over Polar Bears Do Not Have Money, while the Kingdom finished 5th with a 77. Tuesday also marked the return of quizzo legends The Goats, who finished 4th. But the real story was JGT missing a point that the Polar Bears should have gotten in Round Three. But it was partially the Polar Bears fault as well, as JGT would have given them the point had they requested it at any point before the match ended. Once scores have been announced, the match is over, no questions asked.

Nobody claimed the bounty at the Vous on Wednesday, as the Jams held off the Avalon Avengers, 101-93. It was their 6th straight win, and JGT is thinking of offering a bounty again this week. Quite frankly, this juggernaut needs to be stopped.

After months of frustration, the guys of Duane’s World seem to have found their groove, winning for the second week in a row, and edging the Satan’s Minions, 107-105. Lord Beer Me Strength finished 3rd with a 103. JGT fumbled through the instructions for the speed round so badly that finally someone yelled, “Are you high?” (The answer is no. Lately, I’ve had a hard time finding really good…uh, nevermind.)

No MAGMA at the Dawg on Thursday meant an easy win for a team that seems to be primed to take over MAGMA’s spot as the team to beat, 2 1/2 Armenians. The Armenians blew past Happy Birthday Gabs, 110-92, and with 3 wins in 4 weeks I think it’s fair to say that they, not MAGMA, are now the class of the Good Dog.

Sofa Kingdom, desperate to avenge their devastating loss at the Bards earlier in the week, teamed up with some ringers from the Hurtin Bombs to cruise to an easy win at a somewhat quiet Bards on Thursday. Your Mom’s Got Carrot Top in a Leglock finished 2nd.

Went with Mike of the Satan’s Minions to Top Tomato (1107 Walnut) recently to try out their pizza, and found it to be a lot better than it was the last time I tried it, which was years ago. I got the marinara with mozzarella and a buffalo chicken slice. Both were very good, the marinara being a little bit better. The red sauce is excellent. And the prices are incredibly cheap. Here was Mike’s take:
On walking in to Top Tomato, two things struck me as a bit confusing. One: where am I? The décor, while very nice and certainly way above what one expects in a pizza parlor, has the look and feel of a coffee shop in Santa Fe. Two: where’s the waiter? The various booths and tables (of which there are plenty) had numbers in little stands on each. After a minute or two with no waiter apparent, as we walked up to the counter, I was still wondering about the numbers. Perhaps they only had table service when they were busy?

Anyway, once at the counter, things took a decided turn for the better. There were at least 15 to 20 different types of slices from which to choose. And, a pleasant surprise to boot. When you go to a place with nice décor and wait service, you kind of expect the prices to be a bit on the high side. Not so here. Not only were they very reasonable ($1.75 for a plain slice), but each pie was clearly labeled with the type and price. I consider the acid test of a pizza joint to be the plain cheese slice, so I got one of those and a white slice with spinach as well.

When we paid, the wait service confusion was cleared up and we got another nice surprise. First, they gave us a number to put on our table so the counterman could bring us our hot slices when they came out of the oven. Second, they only have one size of fountain drink: all you can drink. They give you a cup and let you refill it as much as you want for a very good price. Plus, the fountain had a button for plain seltzer, which I like.

The slices were brought to our table shortly, right out of the oven. I had to do a little hunting about the restaurant for some pepper, garlic, and oregano, but other than that, it was a pretty nice lunch. The plain slice was hot, thin, and very crispy. Nothing special, but more than OK. The white slice was well above average. It had lots of spinach and big globs of ricotta all over. The ricotta was very fresh.

Overall, Top Tomato has good pizza at good prices, lots of variety, a endless soda fountain, and plenty of place to sit, all set in a nice (if somewhat un-Philadelphia like) décor. But remember, don’t wait to be seated, you’ll waste time standing that you could be eating. Overall, I give it 3.5 pepperonis.

Man, I hate giving out another 3.5, but all 3 places so far are very extremely good w/o being excellent, but I do heartily suggest all of them if you’re hungry. And Top Tomato is a borderline 4.

Trivia Art and I headed into South Philly last week to check out La Rosa Pizza (Broad and Snyder). The inside reminded a bit of Lorenzo’s on South. No tables or chairs, just booths to lean on. A painting of the Italian countryside on the wall and a ton of pizza boxes resting on counters directly behind the trays of Sicilian style pizza. You place your order, the lady takes your slice off the tray and pops it in the oven, and then you lean on a counter and eat it. No frills, but damn good pizza. Here was Art’s take.
LaRosa Pizza at Broad and Snyder may not be much to look at but that doesn’t mean they don’t make a mean pizza. Baked in rectangular trays, LaRosa’s pizza initially looks like it might be Sicillian but it isn’t. Instead the crust is a airy bread with crispy bottom, a delightful combination of fluffy and crunchy. The sauce had a hint of sweetness but not like the saccharin taste that you might find at a place like Lorenzo’s on South. The pepperoni was well cooked and crisp, although a little greasy, it was nothing a quick dab of a napkin couldn’t fix. My second piece of pizza was a white pizza. cheeses melted well into the crust and there was ample oregano and olive oil over top. I was certainly impressed with the pizza at LaRosa’s and will be back, might even get it delivered if they venture up into the G-Ho. 3 1/2 Pepperonis.

Yeah, I can go with 3 1/2, no problem. This is a perfect lunch pizza spot if you’re in South Philly and you’re in a hurry.

That’s right people. I am sitting in a Panera Bread Company in exciting Salisbury! Yes, in Maryland! When I was a kid, we always begged our parents to take us to the Salisbury Mall, 90 miles north of home and the closest real shopping center. As you can see, the mall is still doing great.

Well, my Metro deadline is in 2 minutes, and I still haven’t decided what I’m going to write about, so I’ll post some pizza reviews after I get done with that. Then continue driving north. In the meantime, here’s an article about why miserable rich people need to move their sorry asses out of Rittenhouse and out to the Mainline.