Pie Five Pizza Co.

A new pizza place on Wanamaker opened in December called Pie Five Pizza Company. I was finally able to check it out for an early dinner this afternoon.

 Don't get confused with the other restaurant down the way called Five Guys Burger and Fries, (I reviewed that one the other day). They both have the number "Five" in the name but they are nothing alike. They are completely different places, and I would say to try them both.

Pie Five is called such because they claim you'll get your pizza within five minutes of finishing your order.

How is that possible?

I was watching the crew build pizzas during my wait, which wasn't too bad on a Sunday at 5 p.m., and it seems as if there are cooks who pre-bake the personal sized crusts before others put the toppings on when you're ordering. There were three or four employees who seemed to only be there to make and bake crusts in advance. I did get my pizza within five minutes, along with the rest of my order.

The way it works is you pick your pizza crust -- Classic Pan, Artisan Thin, Whole Grain Thin, and Gluten Free ($2 up-charge for gluten free) -- then you pick your toppings, anything you want. It's set up Chipotle-style where you walk down the line and tell a cook what you want for your toppings. It's $6.99 for a pizza with whatever toppings you want. Ten dollars gets you the pizza, a salad and a drink.

Side garden salad

If you want a side salad I would say to go for the meal deal because it's $2.99 for a salad alone and I just don't think it's worth that much money. With the meal deal it's half that and maybe more worth it. Still, I wasn't impressed. The side salads come in a bread bowl, mine was stale and hard. Just trying to break off a piece of it, I could tell it was stale. The salad was small and unimpressive. The pieces of romaine lettuce were huge and hard to eat because they were so big. I did appreciate that the dressing was already tossed and everything was already coated because if it hadn't been I would have had an even more difficult time eating the salad.

I ordered the High Five with Classic Pan crust. It's basically a meat lovers with Canadian bacon, ham, beef, Italian sausage and pepperoni. I added tomatoes to mine because you can add whatever other toppings you want, no extra charge. I thought the pizza was good, the crust was fluffy and crunchy at the same time. I enjoyed the crust the most, the toppings were good but I didn't like the beef, it seemed a little crunchy and overcooked to me because they were small little pieces, compared to the other meats.

You can pick one of their signature creations and add to it like I did, or you can build your own pizza from the crust and sauce up. They offer a variety of sauces, olive oil, Tuscan marinara, Sriracha marinara, bbq, buffalo ranch and alfredo.  For a list of the toppings, visit their menu page.

I plan to return and try a pizza on thin crust. My husband Ryan ordered a pizza on the Artisan Thin crust and I tried some, so I know I'll like it. I enjoyed that the crust was thin, but it wasn't like eating a saltine cracker, either. It was soft and thin while still holding up to the toppings. The only thing I won't be ordering again is the side salad, it just wasn't worth the hassle or the extra money. The bigger salads looked more substantial, but to me they didn't look like they were worth $6.99. Maybe I'll try one sometime but so far I say stick to the pies at Pie Five.

Paisano's Revisited

Paisano's Ristorante is one of my favorites in Topeka. I go there frequently and am rarely disappointed. That being said, my previous visit left me slightly so.

The service was a little slow, but I realize it's a sit-down, nice restaurant where people go to take their time and relax. But, this server was just slow, even when we were obviously ready to go. Normally I am not bothered by slow service but this just seemed ridiculous.

Roman Twins

The first thing I noticed when the food was brought out was that the servers weren't grating cheese on our food as they usually did. Instead, they were bringing out bowls of pre-shredded cheese to use for the entire meal. I asked our waitress when they started doing this and she said it's been a few months. I guess it has been a few months since my last visit... Ok. I wasn't impressed with the change. Although the server assured me it was the same cheese, only now it was grated in the kitchen in bulk, I was skeptical.  It didn't seem to melt like the other freshly grated cheese, and maybe it was because it wasn't as fine of a grate as it had been before. Either way, I didn't like it. (Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture.)

The food was good, as usual. I've never had bad food at Paisano's. This time I ordered the Roman Twins, my favorite dish. A combination of sausage canneloni and cheese manicotti in a cheesy tomato sauce, it's my comfort food. Creamy, string-cheesy and seasoned just right, I love dipping my breadsticks in the sauce. The mozzarella cheese inside the manicotti is stringy and elastic, like good pizza cheese. Love it.

I decided to take some tiramisu home with me. The marscarpone cream was light and creamy with coffee soaked ladyfingers underneath. Everything was as it should be and the coffee flavor was there but not overpowering.

Even though the cheese isn't grated fresh any more, I will be returning. It's disappointing when restaurants for convenience over quality, but as long as it stops with the cheese.

Here's a link to my previous review: http://tastingtopeka.blogspot.com/2015/01/paisanos-revisited.html