Donatos (Canal Winchester-Columbus, OH)

Although this blog is about pizzas sampled from the M-town area, I could not help but to post an entry on my culinary adventure with pizza in C-city.

My best friend, Jack, treated me to sample pizza at Donatos in Canal Winchester, a suburb south of Columbus. He ordered a thin crust topped with sliced mushrooms. The photos shows that as if we had 2 different pizzas; in fact, we had half each, with his portion on the top half, and mine on the bottom half, covered in red pepper flakes and grated parmesan.

The pizza was really good: the crust was light and at the right crispiness, the tomato base was flavorful, and the mushrooms were tasty in the absence of spices. The best part of it is that the pizza was a lot less greasy, and the pie looks quite tempting. Well, it might have something to do with the topping being non-meaty. But, I also think the quality of cheese Donatos uses could be key to its pizzas being less oily. Donatos' website says the company uses 'natural, aged provolone cheese', which, Donatos claims, has better flavor than mozza. Still though, I wished Donatos would stand ahead its competitors by introducing more greens to its topping line-ups of green peppers, green olives, jalapenos, and hot peppers. Say, spinach (may be not until E. coli scare is over) or basil. Seriously, I think it will be really awesome if they can put sprigs of fresh basil, or at least in the form of pesto, on a pie like ours. Anyhow, it took literally minutes for us to finish the delectable pie. Hey, we could not resist the aroma and taste of each slice after it was dipped in the pizza's tomato sauce provided at Jack's request.

And, my rating (five stars=best or highest) for Donatos mushroom cheese pizza iiisssssssss....
Pie crust: **** (awesome!)
Toppings (incl. cheese): **** (very good, very tasty, very non-greasy!)
Pizza sauce: ***** (heavenly tangy and fresh tomato taste!)
Overall: *****, definitely in par with Sbarro's. And what I like the best about Donatos pizza is that I did not have problems digesting the crust and cheese like I would normally have with the others.

With that I end this entry by adding this: as soon as I said my verdict, Jack's face beamed with pride. Well, he knows my taste palette is hard to please, and since he's joining the company whose pizza we just sampled, he is relieved, for my liking of the pizza shows my full support for his decision. Congrats to both Jack and Donatos!