The Pizza Trifecta

Every now and then, Susan and I just can't settle on a single pizza place for dinner. To resolve that decision-making dilemma, we developed the Pizza Trifecta. It's a simple process: we pick three different pizza restaurants and pick up a slice from each We then bring them all home, divvy up the slices, enjoy a pizza variety, and then decide which losing restaurant gets eliminated from the trifecta the next time around (because we have about eight choices, there are plenty of restaurants that can rotate into the empty position the next time around).

Last time we tried it, the restaurants in the Pizza Trifecta were LaBella's, Johnny's, and Capozzi's (we would have included Rosa's, but we just had pizza from Rosa's the week prior). LaBella's was superb--flavorful crust with a crisp exterior and a moderately airy interior, great assortment of ingredients that included a flavorful sliced Italian sausage, rich sauce with a heavy infusion of garlic. Johnny's was excellent with crisp, well-toasted cheese, flavorful crust with ingredients spread to within 1/2" of the edge including a spicy crumbled sausage, and a robust sauce. Alas, Capozzi's didn't stand up well to the competition: the pizza was dry, the crust was much more bready than the other two, the sauce and cheese were minimal, and the ingredients were skimpy. So Capozzi's lost in Trifecta Round One.

This week, unable to make the decision once again, we brought back LaBella's and Johnny's and introduced G'Angelo's into the mix. G'Angelo's is a locally owned pizza restaurant on Canton Road in Marietta, only about a quarter mile from Dr. No's. G'Angelo's also offers an all-day $3.99 "Big Slice and Drink" combo, which is what we tried. Their Big Slice, as it turns out, is actually a quarter of a medium pizza; it's so large that they cut the Big Slice into Two Respectably Large Slices.

When I got home with the slices, we tried LaBella's first, and it was just as good as it was the previous time. Then we decided to sample the G'Angelo's, and we were amazed by the quality. Copious amounts of ingredients; a thick, toasty-brown layer of mozzarella cheese, flavorful crust with just the right density and flavor. We've had a whole pizza from G'Angelo's many times and have always enjoyed it, but the slices were superlative. By the time we finished, we weren't able to eat more than a small bite from the Johnny's slice that remained. It was just as good as always, but it was overshadowed by the intensely rich flavor of the G'Angelo's pizza.

So who was the loser this time? No one, as it turns out; since we couldn't finish the slice from Johnny's, we didn't think it was fair to bounce them out of the competition. So the next time we're indecisive, the Trifecta will once again pit LaBella's, Johnny's, and G'Angelo's against one another... and I suspect that once again, Susan and I will be the real winners...