From JUNK – PIZZA comes quite possibly one of the greatest pizza related creations of all time… A calzone stuffed with pizza rolls, AKA the Egg Sac. I have no words or sarcastic remarks, only that these images made me cry a little bit.  Don’t worry, they were happy tears.

They even offer you a picture tutorial on how to make your own, and why wouldn’t you?

Last night after getting back home from a long night at the Blind Pig, I decided a French Bread pizza was a requirement before going to bed.  What I didn’t do was eat it.  It sat in the oven all night on 425 degrees.  I think I am lucky to be alive right now.

I don’t like base Epic Portions off of posts from Thisiswhyyourefat.com but when I saw Pizza Hut Middle East’s new Crown Crust Pizza, I had to share it.  I knew I could find a bit information on it.  The crust has little pockets filled with meatballs and balls of Philadelphia-brand cream cheese.  Apparently the purpose of the cream cheese is to be spread all over the pizza.  That doesn’t even sound good.

Like a real G, I managed to locate a picture from a food blogger in Kuwait.  Like a real G, I said.

Can’t figure out why anyone would want to slather their pizza in cream cheese and enjoy a meatball or two to wash down all those olives.  I guess it can’t be worse than the 12 Cones Pizza, which is filled with creamed “crabsticks” , shrimps and pineapple slices.  If you’re currently in the Philippines, what are you waiting for?  Go get one!  Thanks to Genejosh, Epic Portions’ correspondent based in the Philippines, for this delicious picture.

By the way, Genejosh does not work for Epic Portions.  In fact, I doubt she even knows we exist.  I just stole that last picture from her.  Hope she doesn’t mind!

For the last few years, I have been fascinated in finding a way to construct some sort of pizza cooking “apparatus”(?) for myself to use at home.  My dream is that one day I will be able to make my own dough, sauce, cheese blend, and whatever else I feel like adding.  No more ordering Dominos, as great as their on-line ordering system may be.  I guess you could say that I long for pizza freedom.  Unfortunately, I live in the third floor of an apartment complex so not very many options are available to me that don’t involve the possibility of burning down my apartment complex.  I guess I could go the easy route and just purchase a pizza stone, but that’s just too easy.

This dream really began when I found that Dan from Thefoodinmybeard had constructed a brick pizza oven in his back yard, which just happened to be in Bermuda.  This would be ideal, but once again I live in an apartment complex, and I’m sure McKinley Management wouldn’t be too happy to find an enormous brick pizza oven constructed in the middle of their property, even if I was feeding the residents delicious DIY style pizza.  Seriously though, check this thing out.  Who wouldn’t want one of these things in their back yard?

And the result, things like curry pizza.  Amazing.  Check out the entire brick oven pizza series on Thefoodinmybeard.com Great stuff.

Realizing that building my own pizza oven would not be possible for another year or so, I decided to search for other options.  I had a gas stove, shouldn’t that count for something?  I came across a couple guys who decided to line their oven with fire bricks to simulate the brick oven.  Kind of a pain in the ass, but it sounded like a good idea.  Unfortunately my roommates declared this a horrible idea and that was the end of it.  It never happened but if I get stuck in an apartment complex for another year, my roommates might just come home to delicious brick oven style pizza.  How could they be mad?  eHow also has pretty detailed instructions on how to complete this.

The solution that probably makes the most sense to me currently is constructing a FrankenWeber, which may or may not have been first developed by street vendor in San Francisco called The Pizza Hacker.  The basic concept is to contruct the Weber charcoal grill into a mini wood burning pizza oven.  With the heat covered by the hood, it is easy for the grill to reach temparatures of up to 1000F, which is perfect for Neapolitan style pizzas.  Oh, and did I mention it’s portable?

Watch the Pizza Hacker work.  He simply has a table with jars of his sauce, buffalo mozzarella and a basil plant.  After he has constructed the pizza, it goes into the oven for only about two minutes, and then is topped with olive oil and additional cheese.  This is cool stuff:

If the video didn’t do enough for you, or you simply ignored my request, here’s a great picture of probably the best pizza will you will ever see offered by a street vendor.

After learning about the Pizza Hacker, I took my quest to Google to find out if the man was the only one doing this.  I found a few people that have been constructing their own FrankenWebers out of throwaway Weber grills and making delicious wood oven style pizza at home in minutes.  I think this is the solution for my brick/wood oven style pizza dream.

From the Pizzamaking.com forums

To summarize, I leave you with quite possibly the most delicious looking, and sounding, pizza I have ever seen/heard of in my life.  On top of this pizza is Cured Wild Boar Belly, pickled hot peppers, Calabrian chilies, Dry Farmed Early Girl Tomato Sauce, Buff Mozz, Grana Padano, Angelo Garro’s Homemade Olive Oil, parsley, and smoked salt.  Baked for only 75 seconds by the Pizza Hacker in his FrankenWeber.

On May 25th, 2009 I attempted to eat Bella Italia’s 30″ meat lovers pizza and failed miserably.  Looking back on the attempt,  we did fairly well, but our preparation was lacking.  We decided to give it a try the day of, and our stomachs weren’t even completely empty.  You may remember the end result looking something like this..

Well, I can’t let this embarrassment stand.  I need to go back and complete their current challenge of a 30″ pizza with a 30 minute time limit.  The beautiful part of this is I can bring two partners with me.  I would like to bring two Epic Portions readers with me to attempt this challenge. We will arrange a date and time when we can go in, and you will be a part of the glory, a post on Epic Portions, and a write-up on AnnArbor.com.  I will cover the entry fee, but it’s free if when we finish the pizza.

Comment here, e-mail me, talk to me in person, or however else you want to get ahold of me.  If I don’t know you, I need some proof that you’re a serious eater.  I can hold my own but I doubt I can finish the entire thing.  Get at me before Sunday and I will announce the team on Monday.

Aubree's Ypsilanti Township Location

Aubree’s is a long time institution in Ypsilanti, my adopted hometown. The original establishment graces Depot Town, a wonderful little strip of restaurants and bars just a mile down the road from Eastern Michigan University. Eventually Aubree’s added other locations, two in the Ypsilanti/Ann Arbor area and one in Marquette in the Upper Peninsula, near Northern Michigan University. This review will focus on their Ypsilanti Township/Whittaker Road location.

Built a few years ago, Aubree’s Pizzeria and Saloon fits nicely into the strip mall a mile from my house. Their pizza was rated top 25 in the Metro Detroit area, and while I would dispute that I would agree that they make a serviceable pie that they should be proud of.

This particular location has a couple flaws that are evident right away. The bar is ringed with 32” tv’s and while this may at first seem like a good thing it is just too busy. Your eyes are drawn to them and cannot look away. If they brought in a designer from Vegas or Atlantic City, they would tell them to tone it down, it is overwhelming. If this wasn’t bad enough, several booths contain small tv’s as well. From where I was sitting, I could see no less than seven tvs on a quick glance to the left. All of which were showing different content, from ESPN, to poker, to NTN and even cartoons. The smaller tv on the other side of the restaurant has keno playing on it, and I can tell you from experience that it is impossible for a six year old to look away. The art of conversation is lost at this place. You may as well go there prepared to watch tv while you eat, and save conversation for later. As far as ambiance is concerned, Aubree’s misses the mark.

The second flaw, although a minor one, is the choice of music. Every time I go there they are playing the same “best of the 80’s” satellite radio channel. Look, I grew up in the 80’s and know all the songs they play but I can tell you that while fun on occasion 80’s music is not what any restaurant should be playing exclusively. If you like listening to Def Leppard or REO Speedwagon while you eat, dive in, you have found your home. If anyone from Aubree’s reads this, please, expand the musical horizons.

Fortunately the food helps take your mind off the overstimulation and overdose of Bananarama.

Beginning with appetizers, I usually go for the hummus as it is quite delicious and my six year old son likes it as well. Served with pita bread, carrots, and celery, their hummus is a little heavy on the cumin, a little light on the garlic; a perfect interpretation if you ask me.  Overall a great prep for the gastronomic olympics that are to follow.

Let’s begin with the pizza. This particular evening we ordered a thin crust (which I am partial to) and I also ordered a Chicken Caesar Wrap with their specialty salt-thyme fries and ‘bayou sauce” which I will get into later. First, the pie:

Aubree's Thin Crust

For starters, they got the crust just right. Perfect thickness (or thinness, as it were) for a thin crust, crunchy and delicious. No special flavoring, but that is ok if they are going to cook it to a perfect crunch. The tomato sauce lacks any real robust flavor, there is nothing wrong with it, but it lacks pizzaz. I would prefer a hint of oregano or basil, but it is pretty conservative fare. As for cheese and toppings, again, this is an operation that knows its pizza and is not going to make amateurish mistakes. Perfect amount of both and a pleasing flavor but again, nothing that screams best pizza in the area.  Overall a workman-like effort, a well constructed pizza that while tasty fails to aspire to boldness.

The Chicken Caesar wrap, pictured below was another story. Their Caesar dressing was outstanding, not too garlicky with a nice tang. It comes in a whole wheat wrap which looks suspiciously like a whole wheat tortilla, but I’m not complaining. Too often a caesar wrap will come in a flatbread that overwhelms the whole sandwich.

Chicken Caesar Wrap with Salt-Thyme Fries

Along side the wrap comes Aubree’s own salt-thyme fries. While the use of thyme and potato is a solid combo, I felt they used too much and needed to ease up a bit. On the side I ordered their bayou sauce. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it was overall a disappointment. While it came strong with the heat, it lacked flavor. While I appreciate the effort and am glad that it is legit as far as the spicy quotient is concerned, I will say that in the future I will probably pass on paying the extra $2.99 for the bayou sauce.

The saving grace for this particular location is the friendly and attentive service. From management to the waitstaff, I have always found Aubree’s to be top notch. I suppose that if listening to 80’s music helps foster this, I’ll put my collar up, wear my ripped jeans and rock out to Asia.

Overall, Aubree’s stature as an Ypsi institution is well founded. Their Ypsi Township location, while bombarding the senses with busy tv’s and 80’s music, still holds its own with a pretty solid pizza and better than average sandwiches and burgers. La Fuente, which is located in the same strip mall, is a far better culinary experience but if you are not in the mood for Mexican, Aubree’s will certainly suffice.

After reading about Dominos’ new pizza recipe in pretty much every food blog on the internet, I thought I would take advantage of my location, and actually try it out.  Currently, Ann Arbor, MI is the only Domino’s market serving the recipe.  The reason?  It all started here!  This is until December 27th, when it will be launched nation wide.

I’ve never been much of a fan of Domino’s pizza.  In fact, I’m not much of a fan of any pizza chains.  None of them have anything that comes close to any local pizza joint.  Domino’s seems to be among the worst, serving bland pizzas that lack flavored crust or variety.  Thankfully, Pizza Hut will always be around to claim the title of “Worst Pizza of all Time.”  Recently though, Domino’s has attempted to add new items to their menu such as the American Legends menu, baked subs, and pasta bowls, but their regular pizza remains as bland as ever.  I guess this is the reason they decided to revamp their recipe.

According to Domino’s, the recipe wasn’t just altered, it was completely re-done:

“2010 will be our 50th year in the business, and we are kicking it off with the most aggressive promotion in the history of our company,” said Domino’s Chairman and CEO David A. Brandon. “This is the biggest product introduction we’ve done since…well, pizza.”

The primary changes include:

Crust – A garlic seasoned crust with parsley baked to a golden brown.

Sauce – Sweeter, bolder tomato sauce with a medley of herbs and a red pepper kick.

Cheese – Shredded cheese made with 100% real mozzarella and flavored with just a hint of provolone.

I figured this was a pretty big deal in the test market, but decided to call and ask just to make sure I wasn’t wasting my hard earned money on an old Domino’s pizza.  The guy who answered the phone had no idea what I was talking about, and had to ask a manager about “some new recipe”.  After receiving confirmation, he advised me that they were just using a brushed on garlic sauce for the crust, a new red sauce, and a different cheese blend.  So basically they just caught up to the concept of actually applying flavor to crust, added a couple new seasonings to their sauce, removed the “fake mozzarella”, and added a hint of provolone?  This wasn’t sounding good.

Upon my first glance, I couldn’t find much that was different.  It looked like the same Domino’s pizza I’ve been eating for the last 25 years.  The only difference I could see was that the cheese looked a little thicker.  Pretty sure that was from the pizza guy just using too much, though.

The crust looked exactly the same, except for a few green flakes and what looks like a combination of butter and Parmesan cheese.  I expected to see clear evidence of parsley and garlic, but I couldn’t even tell from appearance that this crust was any different than before.

The garlic and parsley flavor was actually pretty good, despite being nearly invisible.  The crust resembles garlic bread, and is little better than the old crust.  Of course, if you go to Hungry Howie’s this is a pretty standard thing.  Even DiGiorno’s has a garlic bread pizza.  Nice improvement, but not too impressive.

The “100% real mozzarella” cheese blend tastes exactly like the old cheese blend.  I did notice a little difference in texture, but that might have just been from the amount of cheese.  I couldn’t tell where this “hint of provolone” was.  Didn’t taste anything but mozzarella.  The whole time I was just trying to figure out what wasn’t 100% real about the mozzarella being used before.

The sauce was actually a pretty nice improvement.  I was a little worried about the advertised sweetness of the new sauce, because I hate sweet pizza sauce.  To my surprise, sauce tasted less sweet than before.  I’m not sure if it was because of the addition of the red pepper, but the sauce was nicely balanced between sweet and spicy.  This was the most impressive change of the new recipe, which is good because their old sauce wasn’t much to talk about.

Bottom line, Domino’s decided to switch up their pizza a little bit to get rid of the odd taste of cardboard and made a couple nice improvements.  It’s not much of a change, and I think it’s more of a marketing ploy to get people eating their pizzas for a couple weeks.  I wouldn’t reccomend running out to try it, but next time you try the pizza you might notice a couple changes.