Ever since I surprised L with a private pizza making class at Sur La Table for his birthday, we have been making pizza at home. Nothing beats a fresh, hot just-charred thin crust pizza, but when you don't have time to make the pizza dough and let your pizza stone pre-heat in a 450 degree oven for one hour, sometimes you just have to do takeout. We haven't been overwhelmed by any pizza in our area, especially after we were spoiled by homemade pizza.
Recently, however, we tried MOD (Made on Demand) Pizza. It's a newer concept, sort of a quick-serve, catered to you pizza experience set in an industrial space. The best part (aside from the taste) was that the price for the pizzas were $7.87 across the board. Are you a minimalist with just sauce, cheese and basil or do you load on the toppings? Either way, it's $7.87 per pizza. L ordered the Calexico (mozzarella, gorgonzola, chicken, jalapeños, hot buffalo sauce and MOD red sauce). I ordered my own creation - white sauce with tomatoes, gorgonzola and pesto. Literally, we had no more than ordered at the counter, filled our drinks and grabbed a table and our orders were ready. Both pizza were phenomenal. When I took a bite of mine, I may have orbited to Italy for a moment. It was hot (without burning the roof of my mouth), bursting with basil, cheese and tomato flavors and the thin crust was perfectly crisp and just slightly charred. L's was so good, he barely said a word while eating other than "Yeah, we're coming here again."
L and I both agreed that MOD is now our go-to pizza place. There is something to be said for ordering a meal and not being upcharged because you want to add gorgonzola. MOD is quick, fresh, delicious pizza that tastes like a nice old, Italian grandfather just made you his favorite pizza in his family's 400 year-old brick pizza oven in his garden. This is happy food.
MOD restaurants are located across the United States. Here's the list of locations. Have you tried MOD? What did you think?
