Comments on Re: Monopolies Are Bad for Consumers: The Pizza Evidence

i've eaten there about 5 times. the pizza is just OK, not great, not terrible. it was good enough to go back to but not where i want to go when i want a great pizza. the worst part about the place is the behavior of the owner/wife crazy fuck combo + the pandering to children.

Best pizza, maybe.

But, All-Purpose is the worst name for a pizza joint that I've ever heard. All-Purpose Epoxy or All-Purpose Cleanser make sense to me, but All-Purpose Pizza? Unless it can also be used as a spare tire or a frisbee, then I would say pizza only has one purpose.

I moved into the neighborhood last fall and had some pies from AP delivered - excited to try it since I'd heard rave reviews.
It was the most tasteless, boring, no-thang pizza I've had in this city.
I feel like I need to give it another shot, but haven't worked up the courage yet.
Just sayin...

paul constant is a big nerd and therefore likes all pizza no matter how bad it is. this is a documentable fact in nerd culture.

"I’ve never had All-Purpose Pizza delivered to me"

"I do usually stick to the veggie toppings"

Ut oh, Paul out-enviroed ECB!

I can mix pizza dough, let it rise while I chop ingredients, and bake it, all in 30 minutes or less.

With only the most minimal shopping effort, you can get ingredients with more variety, that are fresher, more natural and healthy, and of course far cheaper, than any pizza delivery joint can ever in a million years hope to match. Pizza is one of the easiest meals you can cook at home. It's so easy that pizza was the first thing they taught us to cook in my 7th grade Home Ec class. Spend $20 on a pizza stone and cover it with corn meal and it will at a minimum always taste as good as theirs. Have a tiny amount of cooking skill and yours will taste a thousand times better.

You must be helpless if you have to have pizza delivered to your door. Utterly helpless.

Or just tired.

You can't get your oven up to 800 degrees at home, not that most pizza places do either. I can, in my Big Green Egg.

Too many unruly kids at AP Pizza. They have a little play mini-kitchen set up in the middle of the seating area. It actually encourages kids to stray from their parents and engage in boisterous play. It wouldn't be bad if it were back in an out-of-the way corner, but instead it feels like you're dining in a kindergarten playtime.

800° ???

#9, pizza is ideally cooked at the hottest temperature possible.

Yeah, w7ngman, I googled it.

This is pointless. I know I could bake a pizza at home and in a blind taste test, 10 out of 10 food snobs could never tell the difference with their supposedly "proper" 800 degree pizza. But I doubt even that would settle the question in anybody's mind. They would make up a reason why it has to be a commercial oven or nothing. I think some people just have a powerful need to believe that everything in life has to be difficult and expensive, and that there will always bee a reason to complain.

So it goes.

#7, woah, that looks rad.

Did you see that Good Eats where he made a homemade barbecue out of terracotta pots and a hotplate?

Pizza is designed to be a cheap food that is supposed to be healthy. Corporate food chains have ruined the idea with the over use of cheeze (sic) and sugar in their sauce. Gets ya hooked when drunk doesnt it??
You should be able to make pizza healthy for you, and in less time at home. Any body who supposedly needs to charge $35!!!?? for a pizza (in any kinda oven) is just lookin for a sucker who's drunk and high.

Well, the purpose of the BGE is primarily slow cooking at 200 degrees, but it's nice to know I can blaze away if I want to.

Elenchos, you disregard the use of fancy grilling equipment as a pleasure in its own right.

No, it actually does sound fun to me. I like to grill a little myself. But I get discouraged when it sounds as if people won't let go of their notions long enough to see that they don't have to be stuck between either paying a lot of money or making a big production out of something. Some good things are cheap, and so easy anybody could do it.

Most of the reviews on All-Purpose's food entry are astroturfed -- that is, it's APP staff posting bogus reviews.

7 people gave 5 star ratings in 2 days (8/10-8/11/07), all using painfully obvious, glowing sentences ("Greatest combination of tasty toppings on a sour dough crust I have found in the area." "Top it off with cold beer, good wine, and a small play area that actually keeps the kids entertained and I'm hooked."). Nary a fault among them.

I hope their pizza is better than their astroturfing.