This entry has been a source of great consternation for me. My cousin—an avid follower of my quest—had suggested trying The Big Cheese, but as it was located a bit far away from me, I hadn’t gotten around to it.
Then, one Friday, lo and behold, it came up as a suggestion when another place was unable to deliver, and so we went for it. The results… were mixed.
At our Friday pizza lunches, garlic fingers are typically ordered to accompany the pizza. I usually have a couple of small ones out of a sense of duty, but they are really not my thing. I am all about the pizza. The garlic fingers we had from The Big Cheese, however, struck me as especially awesome. Topped with cheese and bacon, they just totally hit the spot, the right mix of flavour and texture and deliciousness. I think I had four large ones.
The pizza, though… the pizza was a disappointment. It looked promising, initially: ample cheese, generous amounts of ground beef, pepperoni, and other toppings. The crust appeared a little on the thick side, and a bit dark—perhaps it was a tad overdone. Unfortunately, the taste did not live up to the looks.
The toppings tasted fine, but the sauce was not noticeable and the crust basically had all the flavour of cardboard. I want to stress that the crust didn’t taste bad. Rather, it seemed to have no taste at all. Eating a slice of pizza was basically like eating a handful of pizza toppings with some flavourless filler material.
I just don’t understand how the garlic fingers could be so good—the best we’ve had at work, in my opinion—and yet the pizza could be so bland and dissatisfying. I mean, they’re basically the same thing! In an attempt to get to the bottom of this I may try them again in the future, on the off chance that it was a one-off bad pizza. Of course, it being a one-off bad pizza would not factor well into its consistency rating—reproducibility is key to a good pizza place, and certainly to the place that will become “The One”.
Based off this one experience, I couldn’t recommend the pizza though the garlic fingers are great. I reserve the right to change my mind, though, after a second tasting. (If I wanted to be snarky, I could argue that I haven’t really tasted anything yet, so it might as well be considered a first tasting still.)