Cheese pies and cheesecake (Allegro Pizza)

Cheap hole in the wall pizza plays a major role in my life. When I was at Columbia, I had Koronet, Pinnacle, and Famiglia, all located within a few blocks of each other. None of them were fantastic, in fact, barely passable would probably be a more appropriate description, but none of that really mattered to me in the middle of the night. When hunger struck, all I wanted was some form of dough, sauce, and cheese... in that order. Like an addict, I needed to fill that same void in Philly too. I had to find another source of cheap, dirty, pleasure, in the form of carbohydrates and dairy... and oh I did. That place is Allegro Pizza.



For $11, you can get a pretty sizable 16" pie. That's 201 square inches (rounding down for arguments sake) of pizza, or roughly 18 square inches per dollar. That's actually better than Koronet, given how wack their pricing scheme has been lately. In any case, while I'm pretty sure no one would consider their plain slices anything spectacular, it's a pretty good deal.



Their slices are pretty standard. Thin average crust with nondescript sauce and cheese. Nothing to write home about (yet... here I am writing about it?). Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's tasty, but I don't know if I'd say it was a sensual experience or anything close, but it definitely fills that void. You know what I'm talking about... that hole in your heart that yearns for a slice of cheap pizza that can only be characterized as average at best. Oh yes, I've found my pleasure palace of pizza in University City.



I don't know what I was thinking when I got this. I was tempted by a fridge full of cheesecake after lunch. It seemed like a pretty good idea at the time, but it was pretty fail. For $3.75 (which feels pretty expensive actually), the cheesecake is more dry and crumbly than thick and decadent, and the sauce is more chemical flavoring than actual strawberries. For how it looks, it's deceptively disappointing. I guess that's what happens when you get cheesecake at a pizzeria. Oh well, doesn't make their slices any worse, and that shit is what really matters anyway.