Margherita, o Margherita

I learn that native Italians love their pizza simple yet fresh and satisfying. So do I. In my opinion, loaded pizzas are only for the Americans, mainly because many Americans love to eat by quantity. That explains why Chinese food enterpreneurs across the US have religiously embraced the concept of "Chinese Buffet" as a way to get the most money out of this phenomenon: fullfiling Americans' insantiable appetite to eat in large quantities at the cheapest price possible. My best friend, a half Italian, pointed out the other day, if you want to find oversize Americans engaging in endless eating orgies, restaurants offering lunch or dinner buffet are your best bet.

Anyway, going back to simple Italian pizza. One time, I was watching the Food Network channel showing, if I remember it correctly, Tyler's Ultimate hosted by my favorite chef Tyler Florence. I think it was something about processing olives into olive oil. It then showed an Italian family having a dinner of simple mixed greens, a margherita pizza, a piece of bread, a bottle of olive oil, and some wine.

In case you are not familiar with margherita pizza, it is a very simple, sun-kissed ripen tomato sauce based pie, sparingly dotted with a few islands of melted mozzarella slices (not shredded, mind you) and sprigs of fresh basil. Some recipes also call for crushed garlic. Nevertheless, it's a very simple yet tasty and beautiful-looking pizza. What I find interesting is that each family member took turns to pour a drop of freshly pressed olive oil onto his or her slice of pie. Everyone looked fit and seemed to enjoy every bite of the pie. Sounds pretty sensual I must say.

Now, beam up the American version of pizza dinner in a typical American home: at least one gargantuan-size pizza, made of pounds of bleached flour dough, topped with pile high processed meats, lifeless veggies, and tons of shredded cheese (some even have cheddar... yukk!). Fat fingers found their way off a stack of spill-over-the-knees body fat, impatiently tear out ('rape' could be a better word instead) the slice, stretch out the stringy oily mozzarella, and push the pie down their tubes, er, throats. Ouch!

That makes me long for a margherita pizza. Too bad, pizza chains do not offer such a thing; to them it is equivalent to a cheese pizza. Indy pizza parlors know this stuff's exotic quality, and charge accordingly. Since I can't make my own pie, I wish my best friend, who works for a pizza chain, is here; every pizza he prepares, thick or thin crust, tastes heavenly. I hope one day he can make a margherita for me.

On Godfather's Pizza: Original Classic Combo Pie

Ratings (five stars = best or highest)
Pie crust: **** (pretty good)
Toppings: **1/2 (so-so)
Pizza sauce: * (bad)
Overall: **1/2 (chewable as long as there's plenty of soda to wash down the bits)

I sampled Godfather's Pizza last night. I was pretty hungry, but I didn't just devoured the pie because I wanted to make sure that the sample was evaluated objectively.

To begin with, I picked up their medium-size, original classic combo pie ($13 + tax) with ham, sausage, beef, mushroom, black olive, mozzarella. But, I don't eat pork so I asked for more beef and mushrooms instead. The bottom crust was alright, while the top crust was crispier than I thought it would be, even after it was reheated in the conventional oven. It looks and tastes sort of like Pizza Hut's original crust, but then again I think all unflavored pizza crust would most likely taste pretty much alike (guess that's why Hungry Howie's flavored crust idea is a refreshing take on the centuries old recipe). And because it's a pie, it's kinda deep dish style, although may not be as deep as a Chicago-style pizza, which, I recall, is loaded to the trim with gooey, oozing cheese and pile high toppings (this reminds me of the spinach deep-dish I had from Giordano's in downtown Chicago in 2003. Boy, it was quite good). Anyway, pie or crust wise, I give Godfather's Classic 4 stars out of 5.

Now, what's interesting is the toppings. They stayed put! The mozza cheese wasn't gooey or stringy, and wasn't excessively spread all over the pizza. On a closer look, the cheese wasn't oily, which I think made the pizza looked a tad dry; nevertheless, it managed to keep things together with hardly having anything falling off the slice (I had to pick some beef morsels for Cutey because there's no stray ones). So, with cheese being less oily and the toppings were prepared pretty dry, even with having fresh mushrooms and all, eating the pie wasn't a messy experience. But, I was very disappointed with the beef. Godfather's doesn't use ground beef! Those were processed meat just like those that came in my cannelloni from Vitale's Italian Restaurant. Very disappointing. I can't even imagine how their ham and sausage would taste or look like. So, toppings are so-so leaning towards downward thumbing (2 1/2 stars out of 5).

Moreover, I noticed that there's very little sauce. That could be another reason why the pie wasn't messy. Where did the sauce go? Nevertheless, I think the sauce isn't that good anyway, bland and boring as there's not even a hint of acidity or sweetness of tomatoes. Instead, my tounge registered a slight bittery taste. I don't know if they heated the sauce a bit too long so it's burned to the bottom of the pan and affect the whole batch. Anyway, sauce wise, I would give it a thumb down (1 star out of 5), a total disappointment because I believe pizza sauce is the lifeblood of a pizza pie.

I'm reluctant to give 3 stars out of 5 overall until I sample a slice of their cheese pizza with a side of pizza sauce. That way we'll find out if what I just wrote above is objective enough. I admit because I was hungry, I thought at first it's a pretty good pizza with crispy crust and less messiness. But after the 1st slice, my rating started to go downwards fast. By the time I finished with the 3rd slice, I became really aware of the taste of the sauce, and it wasn't nice.

So there, Godfather's Pizza, it's not over yet. I'll be back very soon!