I have no idea if there are still tickets available, but if you are interested in being a pizza judge, follow this link
to see if you can still get a now FREE ticket to the AOA Tournament of
Pizza Championship. This is going online a little late. The official
results for this pizza battle went up yesterday.
DC’s in Albany
I have a little bit of history with DC’s but only one visit
to their shop. I thought their sausage was good, but the overall slice was
lacking. But that was then, this is now and we are judging the slice in front
of us. Starting with a slice of sausage pizza: The rim of the crust had a nice
depth of flavor but the rim was a little bready. There was no char on the
pizza, in fact the pizza was a little bit light in color, and the bottom had
plenty of screen markings. The sauce had a pasta sauce quality to it and I
think it would have been nice on some ziti. It would also work for pizza but
there was too much of it here. The cheese pretty much slid on the sauce and the
slice couldn’t support its own weight. The sausage was good, although I’d say
it was better at my last visit. All the components combined to make a very middle
of the road slice.
Sausage Pizza
Crust:2, Sauce:3,
Toppings:3, Overall Taste:5 for a total of 13 points.
Moving onto the broccoli slice, I was surprised at how
similar this crust was to the sausage pizza. I guess there is something to be
said about the consistency of a screen. The only noticeable difference (and it
is kind of a big one), was that without the tomato sauce, this slice was able
to support its own weight. The cheese and ricotta worked well together, the
ricotta was spread out nicely over the slice and I thought there was a nice
seasoning to the pie. The broccoli was minced, I’m guessing frozen but without
any large pieces there was no frozen broccoli texture. While I think I would
prefer florets, minced is probably the way to go if you are using frozen
broccoli.
Broccoli Pizza
Crust:3, Sauce:4,
Toppings:3, Overall Taste:6 for a total of 16 points.
Marissa’s in Guilderland
I have had pizza from Marissa’s twice. Once was a whole pie
to go (after a previous Tournament of Pizza) that was alright, but nothing that
made me excited to return to the shop. The other time was a lunchtime visit for
a slice when I was in the neighborhood. My takeaway from these two visits was
that Marissa’s pizza was significantly better when reheated as a slice. That
second cook really helped the crust out. I was looking forward to seeing how
their pizza was fresh out of the oven.
Sausage pie first: no screen and some nice color on the
bottom of the pie. The rim on my slice was a little pale but there were slices
on the pizza that had nice little brown bubbles on the crust. The crust was
surprisingly bland by itself but it worked well when combined with the flavors
of the sauce and cheese. The sauce had a nice flavor and there was a proper
amount of it on the pizza. The sausage was thinly sliced pieces a link sausage.
It had a good flavor but was not especially eye pleasing. All in all, I thought
the flavors combined nicely to make a good slice.
Sausage Pizza
Crust:4, Sauce:4,
Toppings:4, Overall Taste:7 for a total of 19 points.
Marissa’s broccoli pie: The crust was darker on the bottom
than it was on the top. There were some bubbles on the rim and the slice had a
crisp snap when I folded it to take a bite. The drops of ricotta were well
distributed but very plain and not seasoned. The broccoli was minced and very
similar to DC’s. There was a lot of garlic on the slice. A lot…of what I’m
guessing is purchased minced garlic. With fresh garlic and better ricotta, this
could have been a much better slice.
Broccoli Pizza
Crust:4, Sauce:2,
Toppings:3, Overall Taste:5 for a total of 14 points.
Analysis
In the days after this round, I really started second
guessing my scores. I still do. This judging is hard. With 20/20 hindsight, I
think I gave Marissa’s two points they might not have deserved. The toppings on
the sausage pie sausage should have been a 3 and I probably should have given
the toppings portion of the broccoli pie a 2. The crust at Marissa’s was bland
on its own but I thought worked well with the overall pizza. It would have been
nice to have a 3.5 scoring option there. With this 2 point adjustment and the
impossible 3.5 scores taken into consideration, my scores for these two shops
are even closer at 30 to 29 points with Marissa’s still on top. Based on these
four pizzas, that seems right to me. On this night, I think Marissa’s was a
little better than DC’s, but not by much. Almost a coin flip. I have spent a
lot of time hoping that the other judges also slightly preferred Marissa’s and
that these 2 or 3 points don’t impact the outcome of the tournament and luckily
they didn’t.
Again, my feeling was that the pizza we sampled at Marissa’s
was a little better than DC’s and the scores showed that on my scorecard (33 to
29). Looking at the total scores from all the judges for Marissa’s I gave the
sausage pie 19 out of its 74 points (26%) and the broccoli pie 14 out its 60
points (23%). At DC’s I gave the sausage pie 13 of its 57 points (23%) and the
broccoli pie 16 of its 67 points (24%). In a completely unscientific way, it
would appear that the other judges and I agree on this match up.
Round 1: Albany Wrap Up
In another surprise to me, I liked the broccoli pizza more
than the sausage pizza at DC’s. My main take away from the night was how
important the marriage of individual components in a pizza is. The Marissa’s
crust was a little bland, but got significantly better when combined with the
sauce and cheese. I think the quality of the DC’s sausage got pulled down by
their sauce. Too bad there isn’t a way to make a Franken-pizza combining the
best parts of both shops. It was a very close match up and probably goes back
to that “any given pizza” theory. Same pizzas ordered at a different time and
the outcome of this round could easily be different.
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