If it's good enough for Jack Abramoff...

Think you're too good to work at a pizzeria for US$10/hour?  Spend a few years in a federal prison for tax evasion, conspiracy to bribe public officials and various types of fraud and you may think again.

According to Yahoo News, our friend Casino Jack is working at Tov Pizza in Baltimore.  I wonder if they're going to re-write their menu as follows:

Tribal Bribe Pizza (shaped like a craps table) - US$85 million
Island Influence Pizza (featuring the traditional cuisine of Guam) - 36 payments of US$9,000 each
Senator's Favorite Pizza (comes with free golfing trip to Scotland) - US$0
Representative's Favorite Pizza (comes with free use of box at all Washington Sports Venues) - US$0

Mamma Mia Pizzeria

It's been a long time since I've had the pleasure of writing a review of some decent pizza; I'm just disappointed to say that this restaurant is located in Oxford, England approximately 6,000 miles away from the Kong.

Here are the things that made this pizza way better than Hong Kong pizza:

1. It was delicious.

Margherita di Bufala Pizza

San Fernando Pizza (Spinach, red onions, cherry tomatoes and goat cheese)

You thought that was it didn't you?  Ok here are the other reasons:

2.  The sauce was really really good. It was bright and zingy and it made the pizza taste like an explosion of tomatotastic flavor.  It is notable that I put this before number 3 because usually the first thing I consider is the crust.    

3.  The crust was also good, although it suffered from center sogginess disease (a blight caused by winter mold that ravaged the pizza crops of Italy during 1845-1852, causing the country's population to drop by 20-25% due to mass starvation and emigration).  

4.  CHEESE, glorious CHEESE! We're anxious to try it.  Three pizzas a day!  Our favorite diet!  Side note (or maybe re-writing the lyrics of food, glorious food from Oliver with cheese-related references was the side note and what is coming is the main note): the margherita pizza was notable in that the mozzarella was uncooked.  I'm not sure if this is traditional in Italy (don't think so?) but I prefer it cooked.  

5. I love goat cheese.

Below: gratuitous dining companion elbow shot

Crust: 9
Sauce: 10
Toppings: 9
VFM: 6 (Is anything in England a good value for money?)
Ambiance: 7
Total: 9

Mamma Mia Pizzeria

102 Walton Street, Jericho

Oxford

01865 311211

Peak Bar

Ever been wandering around Soho with a group of friends and no one will make a decision so you just end up going to an obvious place that's easy to find that's not that awesome but yet not that terrible?  If you were looking for drinks you probably ended up at Staunton's. If you were hungry you probably ended up at Peak Bar.

Why is it called Peak Bar even though it's not on the Peak?  Unclear.

Peak Bar actually has a pretty legit-looking pizza oven, which results in a tasty crust, especially compared to most other pizza joints in the area.  And just because I saw a cockroach crawling down the wall there once doesn't mean that there are lots of cockroaches.  Remember, if you see one cockroach there are actually zero other cockroaches where that one came from.  

The sauce is pretty good and I like their use of extremely melty cheese.  Therefore, if you are in the mood for eating a decent pizza while watching people stand on an escalator Peak Bar could be a good fit for you.  Don't worry about the cockroach thing...it's Hong Kong and you've probably already eaten many cockroaches since you got here.

Crust: 7

Sauce: 6

Toppings: 6

Ambiance: 7

VFM: 6

Overall: 6

Peak Bar

9-13 Shelley Street

Central
2140 6877

Barolo

As I walked into Barolo I saw no one.  This is usually not a good sign, however as it is my duty to faithfully search out and report on the good, the bad and the ugly of HK pizza, I tried it anyway.

Unfortunately, I'd definitely have to put this in either the godawful category or the godawful category.  That's a combination of bad and ugly I think.

Crust: 3

Sauce: 2

Toppings: 2

Ambiance: 5 - Good people watching on Hollywood Road

VFM: 4 

Overall:  3

Barolo
30 Hollywood Road

2810 1600

JoJo's Kebab Pizza Curry

You may have seen JoJo's Kebab Pizza Curry on Hollywood Road.  Or, you may have blinked, and missed it.  By my count, it was open for less than three months.  How a restaurant that sells pizza by the slice and kebabs can fail in a neighborhood where 85% of the foot traffic at any given time is wasted is a mystery of the ages...but then again this is Hong Kong and it is located in a vortex of WTF far outside the boundaries of the universe of common sense.

Since I had this picture already uploaded I wanted to at least say something about our good friend JoJo's pizza. However, since it's in poor form to say mean things about dead pizza restaurants (lest the ghost of pizza past haunt you in your sleep), I won't really review it. I was going to give it points for originality, though. I can truly say there is no other pizza in HK that tastes/d like this one.

May JoJo's Kebab Pizza Curry rest in peace.