Willow Street Woodfired Pizza, San Jose

Willow Street Woodfired Pizza (Westgate)

San Jose, Ca

The Wife and I love food cooked in a wood fired oven, especially pizza. This process of cooking is fantastic! Our dream is to have a wood fired oven in our home so that we can cook dishes like baked lasagna, pizza and even bread. So it was with great anticipation and excitement, we visited Willow Street. We had seen this place in the Willow Glen area of San Jose and Los Gatos many times, but we hadn't gone. So for Valentine's day this year we finally went.

The prices are fair, it's not too pricey. There was a bar stocked with beer and wine, and the bartender was available to mix it up. Bar stools were there for patrons wanting to simply watch the game or enjoy a pizza and drink. This location at Willow Glen has hopes to be a sports bar, it even has specials for Sharks game days, home and away. The place has 5 or 6 screens each with a couple different games going on at the same time. Though it poses as a sports bars, I found the place to be friendly for family, as there were plenty of tables and even a patio for larger parties to enjoy their time.

Though I mentioned the prices to be fair, I was not talking about the appetizer we had ordered. The picture below, shows the Manila clams priced at $11 for this small bowl. There must've been 9 or 10 clams in this appy, I repeat..9 or 10...for $11?!? Something was not right here. I had to read the menu again, did I order oysters at a $1 a pop? Ummm..no!

After that let down we finally got to the pizza. What was nice was that there were 2 different pizza sections in the menu. One section was dedicated to regular pizzas and the other, thin crust. I like thin crust especially from a Woodfired oven. There's something about the thin dough bubbling up in reaction to the fire. We liked the toppings on one of the pizzas of the regular menu and we asked if we could make it thin-crusted. Our waiter said yes, and we were delighted. We ordered the Italian Sausage, Pancetta & Mixed Mushroom pizza with the Italian Thin Crust. It was a good pizza, but nothing to write home about. I enjoyed the mushroom medley the best, but what I was really looking forward to was the crust, and it just fell short.

If I was in the neighborhood and wanted pizza, I'd stop by but I wouldn't go out of my way to visit this place again. Thus giving it a rating of:

3 out of 5 Slices.

Willow Street Woodfired Pizza

1554 Saratoga Avenue

San Jose, CA 95129

408. 871. 0400 tel

http://www.willowstreet.com

Colosseum New York Pizza

Oh boy, I am so glad I found this place. Actually, my friend LOVES pizza and she's the one who introduced me to Cicero's. We had planned to meet up for dinner and she yelped for a pizza place in Milpitas. Colosseum boasted to be real NY style pizza so we had to go and check it out.

I love this pizza! This is my new thin crust pizza place. I like it so much, I've been there at least 4 times in the last month. LOL

The owners are real nice, and are from Sicily and Brooklyn, NY. Apparently their brother in law opened up "A slice of NY" in San Jose and they just wanted their own fun little pizza place to open up.

The cheese is really good, and the crust is thin enough to be perfect in my eyes. The rest of the food on the menu is good as well. They have garlic knots, chicken wings, philly cheese steaks, and cannoli's!

Their food is so good.

$3 per slice is not bad at all.

Go to Colosseum. Tell them Beth and Chi sent ya. :)

Colosseum New York Pizza
761 N. Capitol Ave
Milpitas, CA

Still around!

Boy! It's been a while huh?

Well, truth be told...the Pizza Tour has been on hold for quite some time. We are not attacking the tour as rigorously as we should I think for a few reasons.

1) Scheduling...Hard to schedule time to go venture off and have a nice pizza date with the famz.

2) We might be a little pizza'ed out. Eating pizza is a very filling activity. LOL

Anyway- We'll be posting when we can get out and eat pizza...

2 new reviews will be coming soon:
1) Patxi's Palo Alto
2) Colosseum New York Pizza in Milpitas!

Happy eating!

The Pizza Box Milpitas July 30, 2010

Oh good old Pizza Box!! I remember going here as a kid in Jr. High and High School. It was a huge slice for $2. This was a place to hang out before going to nearby Golfland to burn a few quarters at Street Fighter II. I remember getting off bus 71 with my day pass in tow, getting a slice and then playing some video games.

I return to The Pizza Box every now and again, cause I just remember how awesome the pizza is. They serve New York Style slices meaning, the slices are huge and at a low cost for starving students! This day I got chorizo and sausage while my wife and sister both got just sausage.

There are no frills about The Pizza Box. It's such a dingy hole-in-the-wall pizza joint, one has to wonder how they pass health inspections. The place is simply not pretty. The service is spotty as well as the mean Chinese lady is still there doing her thing. I once joked that she has been in a bad mood for at least 20 years!! Her being in any other mood, would probably bring down the quality of the pizza. But what they lack in aesthetics, cleanliness and customer service, they definitely make up for it in taste and simplicity.

The pizza is bready but not too bready. It doesn't overwhelm the slice. The cheese, tomato sauce and toppings compliment the dough and each other well. At around $6 for the combo meal (2 slices and a drink) it just cannot be beat!

My family and I are certainly fans for life at The Pizza Box..well until they get shut down by the Health Department.

4 out of 5 Slices!!

The Pizza Box

1253 Jacklin Rd

Milpitas, CA 95035

(408) 946-6521

Great America Pizza Orleans Review

We had decided to add Pizza Orleans to the list of the many stops on the Bay Area Pizza Tour Stop while we were at Great America celebrating Beth's birthday. Beth ofcourse is the mastermind behind the tour. Pizza Orleans was added because it's a place reminiscent of our childhood. As young adolescents we found ourselves here often as it provided a meal that was kid-friendly, delicious and affordable. With Season Passes, we found ourselves here a lot. So reliving our childhood was an ulterior motive to 1) satisfying our hunger and 2) Reviewing yet another stop on the Pizza Tour.

So my thoughts...
The pizzas were simple as they provide the simple everyday pleasures of pizza. There were no fancy gourmet toppings, no stuffed crusts, no deep dish, no super thin. Just good old regular pizza. As you can see from the pictures in the previous post we stuck to traditional pepperoni and a meat lover's that had pepperoni, sausage and salami (I believe). The pies weren't too oily as one might expect from joints like this. I did find the crust to be a bit bread-y though. Overall, it just satisfied the pizza cravings.

Next time I'm at Great America, I'm going to eat at the Fried Chicken joint, another staple there which I've never tried before.

I'm glad we got a chance to visit Great America with our parents whom bought us our first slices as kids. We don't get that opportunity very often but it was nice to just enjoy it once again with them.

My rating: 3 out of 5 slices!!

Pizza Orleans at California's Great America

Pizza Orleans inside California's Great America. Santa Clara, Ca

Located near the Flight Deck ride (AKA Top Gun)

Pepperoni Pizza

Single Slice of Pepperoni on it's own individual slice tray.

Meat Lover's

Zachary's Review

Pictures have been posted for Zachary's! See post below...

Here's what I thought of it...

I LOVED the thin crust pizza. We got the Thin pizza with sausage only. I had 2 slices and it was HEAVEN. The mozzarella was fresh and so yummy straight out of the oven. Their ranch dressing was soooo good. YUM-O!

As far as the deep dish is concerned, I didn't eat the deep dish! Gasp! I know. I went there for the deep dish, BUT when I saw that they had thin crust pizza, I had to eat that...

I guess Chicago Deep Dish is a different type of pizza, one that I am not accustomed to. I did like seeing the stewed(?) tomatoes on top of the pizza. I love tomatoes, so I was excited seeing it. The only bad thing is that we got the Canadian Bacon, and that saltiness overpowered the tomatoes. (I just ate some of the topping that fell off one of the slices.)

With 3 people and 2 pizzas, we had a lot leftover... So I'm going to have a slice of the deep dish for lunch, as well as a slice of thin. That should satisfy my craving. I also have 2 containers of ranch dressing from Zachary's.

I'll let you know what I think of the pizza as leftovers. Sometimes i like pizza the second day... Let's hope it's the same for Zachary's!

My one gripe is that Zachary's did not have appetizers to order. With a 30-35 min wait for deep dish, appies would have been good. We did get a Caesar Salad, and that held us over...but maybe some fried zucchini would have been good.