Debuting a new, semi-regular feature! I
tryout questionable food items so that you don’t have to in… Steveats. (Note:
Title developed in about 10 seconds of brainstorming.)
As part of
my continuing culinary adventures at gas stations, and at the urging of Eric
Rueb, I decided to give one certain food item at three different places a try –
pizza. The results were… not really that surprising overall, but individually,
somewhat surprising!
First
discussed and worst I had – 7-Eleven. This actually looked like the best of the
three pizzas available to me, as the cheese looked to be seasoned and the pizza
hot. Important note here – it’s an incredible curve that we’re judging these
pizzas on, as a good portion of frozen, store-bought pizzas are better than
these ones.
However,
while the 7-Eleven pizza looked OK, it was incredibly bland and greasy. That’s
a double dip of bad pizza qualities, since if I’m ingesting a bunch of calories
and oily cholesterol, it better taste good. The pepperoni was slightly better
than the cheese, but both left this reviewer cold.
In second
place is Cumberland Farms. This was only narrowly behind 7-Eleven in terms of
look, and it definitely tastes better. It’s kind of like good cardboard with
cheese. You know, the type that would be acceptable to send something precious
in, as compared to the cheap cardboard used for fast food, or to house gas
station pizza.
I think the
deciding factor in Cumberland Farms over 7-Eleven is the heat lamp. Cumby’s
seems to keep their lamp on a higher temperature, or *gasp* they might actually
ditch the pizza more frequently. This leads to fresher tasting cheesy
cardboard.
The
surprising taste winner is Speedway, because their pizza looks like it was
microwaved about a million times before being put out there on a heat rack
under some lamps. This wasn’t a fluke, either – I went at two different times,
and three different Speedways, and each time, the pizza looked like a warmed-over
substance strip mined from the surface of Mars.
However, it
definitely tasted the best of the three gas station pizzas I tried. I have no
clue why either. My guess would be that because it’s a bit thinner, it retains
its (probably fake) cheese taste and sauce a bit better than the other two.
Also, the Speedway ’za is definitely helped by the fact that they helpfully
offer up a bunch of seasonings. I went for the shaker of Garlic Parmesan, and
covered the slice, and that definitely helped.
All three
pizzas were edible, and since the going rate was two slices for $3 at all three
places, I can’t really complain about the price too much. However, if you’re
looking for an actual meal vs. a quick bite, then your Generic Chain Pizza
Place is better for $5, whether you favor Domino’s, Pizza Hut or Papa Gino’s.
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