Ever notice a shady little restaurant and wonder how in the hell it stays in business? I took one such establishment, namely King Pizza and gave it a whirl. Let’s just say that King’s had better be laundering money better than it makes pizza – as we’re talking pathetic, exceptionally-bad service atop a piss-poor product. Only my unwavering goal of bringing the Lantern’s readership the truth regarding their local eateries saw me through this absolute morass of mediocrity.
Somewhere within the confused, twisted minds of the King Pizza employees, jalapeño poppers become mozzarella sticks and cole slaw vanishes into the ether. One needn’t spend much pensive thought uncovering possible causes. To my knowledge, the only occupational “drug test” these people must pass consists of successfully operating the front door, followed by looking awake for the majority of one’s appearance.
The poor driver did what he could to preserve King’s good standing. In lieu of actually delivering our complete order, he offered us a spare 2-liter of Coke gratis. If your Superbowl party was ruined thanks to our beverage interdiction, please accept my humble apology. This Coke was got while the getting was good and thirst and morality are seldom found hand in hand.
The mozzarella stick that I eventually sampled was horrid. In all my years of masticating, I’ve never run across a more debased cheese product. Cold, limp, and bland – this sad specimen was the Bob Dole of American cheese sticks. A great flaccid travesty of Mozzarellic proportions.
The wings were a moist mess. Co-Masticator Nishanta writes, “They were soggy, but tasty. They were a bit small though meaty for their size.” The honey barbecue sauce wasn’t necessarily bad, it just looked like it was applied with a fire hose – squarely placing any notions regarding wing-crunchiness into the realm of fantasyland.
But what about the pizza? The pepperoni wasn’t awful; I enjoyed the thin, foldable crust. I decided the main course was passable until I stumbled across the sausage. It tasted, in the words of Co-Masticator Quinn, like “the meatballs from Spaghetti-Os. Or toe jam. Or both.” If you demand nothing more than Chef Boyardee and foot sweat from your collegiate pizza experience, then by all means pick up that phone and dial 298-9000. For a better slice of pizza, read on.
In my four years at OSU, I’ve slowly gotten a handle on our local pizza scene. If you’re feeding the 5,000, or at least five or six – you can’t go wrong with the Buckeye Pizza at Adriatico’s. It is thick, chewy, spicy, and fantastic – but bring your appetite. Two years ago, my roommate Jarrod and I “acquired” an extra one from a hall council activity and it easily filled the small refrigerator that came with our digs. We fed off that embezzlement for an entire week – though you’d be surprised how little the area womenfolk took to the smell of old, rotting pizza. Seven days and a little mold later, that pizza was still good – well, compared to its competition in the dining commons anyway.
For smaller gatherings where economies of scale are less important, I suggest Catfish Biff’s, The Monkey, or Smokin’ Joe. All three offer quality varieties with that spark of originality that simply can’t be found at the larger national chains.
In closing, if you ever stumble across an ad for a pizza company that you’ve seen little of and heard nothing about – it’s probably best to keep your distance. By even invoking their unholy name, I feel I do King Pizza far more benefit than they are due. It just goes to show you that not all local pizza shops are equal. In your humble critic’s opinion, King Pizza is a taste best left forgotten.
Hank Mylander is a junior from Westerville in Information Systems. You can bet he doesn’t want to be in his AMIS 659 class today. The Masticator can be reached via email at [email protected].
