Angelino's Cafe

The UCLA campus has a lot of kids who like pizza, so naturally there are a lot of pizza joints to fill their mouths. There is a little area called Westwood Village just south of the campus, where you can find many college aged kids, thus many pizza places, including Enzo's, Lamonica's and D'Amore's. I hit them all up at once. After Italian Express, I went to another small unknown place called Angelino's. Known on google as La Subs & Pizza.

The store front looks like a fancy Italian restaurant. However, inside it is anything but. It is just a counter and a few tables. With 2 older gentlemen inside, one doing the cooking and the other doing the sit down and relax job. I was told they were not going to be there long, the business was going to relocate to Pasadena.

They have 2 sizes. Medium and mini. Thats the sizes, medium which was only 10 inches and mini which was get this, 4 inches. Bite sized almost. So I got the 10 inch for 9$. A bit pricy for the size. They asked me if I wanted cheese or Margherita, I was confused by the question they said basil comes on the margherita, I like basil so thats what I got. There was a lot of it.

Despite the amount of basil on top it wasn't that strong a flavor. The cheese was a huge part of it. Tons and tons of cheese. It was a good tasting creamy cheese but just too much for me. Amazingly with all the cheese you could still taste the sauce, which wasn't all that bad. The crust though was no good. It was just soft and dough, it had zero texture wasn't chewy or crispy. Just cooked, floppy, soggy dough. It looks like it was made with a lot of care, which I respect, the crust was braided together nicely. But it just wasn't that good.

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Angelino's Cafe - 310-443-1918

10874 Kinross Ave.

Westwood, CA 90024

Open:

Mon-Fri 11am-9pm Sat: 11:30-7:30 Sunday: Closed

Price: $

Overall:

Italian Express

The UCLA campus has a lot of kids who like pizza, so naturally there are a lot of pizza joints to fill their mouths. There is a little area called Westwood Village just south of the campus, where you can find many college aged kids, thus many pizza places, including Enzo's, Lamonica's and D'Amore's. I hit them all up at once. So for starters here is a smaller lesser known place it seems, called Italian Express.

The name doesn't sound too appetizing. When I showed up The place looked a bit more promising. IT was in a cool brick building with a little out door patio. I guess I am a sucker for bricks. Especially if they are used to cook the pizza, which this place doesn't. It would actually be a cool place to hang out at if they had alcohol, but they don't. I ordered a large pizza which was 14 inches for $9. It looked better than the name.

The sauce and cheese were put on pretty generously. Pretty flavorful, light sweet sauce with a pretty creamy cheese, somewhat generic but not too bad. The crust was really crispy, especially on the end where it had a good crunch. However it was the wrong texture or the wrong kind of dough completely. It was very flakey and buttery, like a pastry, not like a pizza crust. Just didn't taste right to me. They don't claim to be N.Y. style so I have to give them credit for that, because it wasn't. It was an average cheap pizza, that ultimately satisfied but didn't really "deliver" what I was looking for. But they do... deliver.

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Italian Express

10845 Lindbrook Drive Westwood Village, 90024

310-208-5572

Open: Mon-Sat 10am-3am Sun-4pm-3am

Price: $

Overall:

Tidal Wave Mexican Food

Yeah I know what you are thinking, it's a Mexican place.  Their pizza can't be good.  I mean why does it even serve pizza ?  Well everyone likes pizza, so there has to be a pizza for everyone.  This is the closest to Mexican pizza I have found in L.A., of course I haven't really been looking.  The restaurant has of course traditional Mexican food which isn't too bad.  It also has about 7 kinds of pizza, including a mexican pizza, that has pinto beans, ground beef, mozz cheese, guacamole & pico de gallo.  They also have the classic Margherita (they call it the Mozzarella Pizza).  This is what I got, don't worry I went back for the Mexican pizza.  You can read about that below.  They have medium and small, medium is supposedly 12 inches and its about $10.   

The basil was surprising, even though that is what is suppose to be on the pizza, it is many times left out and this was the last place I expected them to include it.  So I give them props for that.  The rest was pretty far off from a N.Y. style pizza, obviously.  However, you could say it was some kind of guilty pleasure.  It had a very pleasurable taste, very sweet and soft and melt in your mouth, kind of.  The sauce was pretty canned.  So was the cheese.  The crust was a very different kind of material, different kind of dough.  It was very flat and flour-y.  Similar to a pita type material.  Similar to the crust of a pizza I had in Mexico actually, Fabrizzio's.  Although this one was not crispy at all, only on the edges, which were almost non-existent.   

So there isn't much of a reason to like this pizza, but I did.  Not nearly as much as even a mediocre slice of N.Y. style, but enough to enjoy it.  Is it good quality? No.  Is it N.Y. style?  No.  Is it enjoyable, yes.  

Tidal Wave Mexican Food

6112 Sunset Blvd. Hollywood 

(323) 467 - 4084

Open: Monday-Friday : 9am-7pm

Price: $

Overall: 

The Mexican pizza is a different story.  Without any pre-conceived notions of what a pizza should be, you tend to go at this pizza with an open mind.  Of course the base (crust) is the same as the cheese pie.  So still not crispy.  What it has is a lot of stuff, a lot of ground beef, a lot of beans, and thankfully a lot of guacamole that was put in the middle.  What it didn't have a lot of was cheese, I couldn't taste too much of it.    

It was pretty good, with the exception of the lack of cheese, I liked it.  Kind of like a burrito they forgot to roll up, or a tostada salad with a pizza crust instead of a crispy chip bowl.  I would give it a 3.5 rating since I'd get it again, and there isn't another place I know of that serves something  like this. 

Overall it was pretty enjoyable, but in a different way.  I find it hard to really see it as a pizza or at least a different style of pizza.  So much for an open mind.   It was round and flat.  Of course so is a quesadilla.  It has cheese and tomatoes on it, but not in the same way.  I guess by definition it is a pizza, just I suppose a Mexican style one. I don't really believe that the only thing that makes a style of pizza different from another style is the toppings.  I think toppings are just an extra, that is based on preference and what is available.  Just putting usual Mexican ingredients on flat round dough isn't a different style to me.  You can make a N.Y. style pizza and still put on beans, ground beef and guacamole, I think.  This goes for California pizza as well.  People say this is a whole other kind of pizza.  I disagree.  Yes, the crazy toppings on pizza like BBQ chicken started in CA, so I guess this style has a good argument.  Still, you can get a NY style pizza with BBQ chicken.  Different toppings doesn't mean different style.  At most it is a substyle of NY pizza.  A spin off.  Like the animal the giraffe, it is a species but there are many subspecies, like the Baringo Giraffe.  They are almost the same, but one has a slightly different pattern and lives in a different region.  I don't get the sense of a CA style pizza.  I suppose every pizza is just a spin off of NY style, and NY style is of course a spin of of Neapolitan style.  I could keep writing about this but I'll save it for another blog.  

My point I think was, what Tidal Wave was serving was Tidal Wave style pizza.  The fact that it had Mexican ingredients and was possibly made by Mexicans, doesn't quite make it officially a Mexican style pizza.  I don't know exactly what a Mexican style pizza might involve, but I don't think this was it.  It was still pretty tasty.