One of the other foods that could be done either well, or tragically poorly, is pizza. People also have a very subjective view point on pizza. My criteria for a great pizza include:

• The crust should be thin or regular, I do not want to eat a pile of dough.
• The sauce should contain herbs and not be bitter.
• The cheese should cover the entire surface of the pizza up until a small amount of crust.
• The bottom of the pie should be cooked so that a slice of pizza can stand firm by being held by the crust alone.
• There should be two or three toppings maximum.

For judging purposes, I’m only going to deal with pepperoni pizza to level the playing field.

In a fit of pizza need last night, Dustin and I went out to Little Star Pizza to see how it measured up.

Little Star Pizza
http://www.littlestarpizza.com
400 Valencia St.
San Francisco, CA 94103
(415) 551-7827

The availability of thin crust pleased me.

I had heard they were famous for their deep dish pizza, and most of the folks in the restaurant were eating a very deep looking pile of ingredients and cheeses so I was instantly worried. However, we were seated right away and all the staff were super friendly, so I figured I’d get a salad and abort mission if that was my only pizza option. But lo and behold, there was an entire Thin Crust menu with a ‘choose your own topping’ list. We ordered the thin crust pepperoni pizza and I asked for a glass of wine.

The service at Little Star is amazing.

Our waiter was super nice, very fast and he complimented the cameras. This place was hopping busy and crowded, so the likelihood for disaster was high. But they brought out our menus, drinks and pizza all within short order. Little Star, I give you all my foodie love for that.

Perfect structure, like abs on a skateboarder.

The layout of pepperoni was even, the cheese coverage was maximal, and the crust was thin. But would it flop like a crappy poker player once I picked it up? Hell no! Good for you Little Star. You can live.

The bottom of the pie was perfection, not burned but fully cooked. Not even the slightest level of sogginess to be found.

The sauce was a little bitter.

I kind of feel bad for calling it out, but it’s true. Tomato sauce is traditionally a little bitter. With various herbs and cheating with a little sugar, you can fix it but purists will not go there. They did have a heavy hand with the oregano, which I suspect was to cover the tomato factor, but it ended up tasting a bit earthy instead. Still very tasty, just not the end all and be all of pizza.

We still devoured our pizza.

It was a great pizza and I would return for more. The combination of the service and the atmosphere (art worth looking at - interesting people watching) along with the fabulous structure of their thin crust really did it for me. Little Star Pizza, you would get five stars if I did stars.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 3rd, 2009 at 1:06 pm and is filed under Restaurants. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.