Contrary to popular opinion, Los Angeles does indeed have pizza. However, like most of our other natural resources (water, air, starfuckers) much of our pizza is foul. Not being ones to let sleeping stereotypes lie, the extended Hot Knives family established our very own Team Pizza franchise so that we may, in fact, be the judge.

Up first is Echo Park, a sleepy, lakeside burg just north of Downtown that’s more known for its awesome tacos and gentrification than for its pizza pie. We stumbled upon some pretty mixed results, but we won’t jump to any wild conclusions about Los Angeles’ pizza scene based on the results. (For that we defer to an excellent example of gonzo pizza journalism.)

Last Sunday at 7:26 pm we placed the fateful calls to five pizza joints within a 5-mile radius of our mouths, including one national chain (Domino’s), one regional chain (La Pizza Loca), and three local spots (Hard Times, Pizza Buona and Masa). Pics are in order, top to bottom.

Hard Times

Our caller had a hard time getting them to even pick up; after 12 or 13 rings we decided Hard Times was disqualified. What kind of delivery pizza place doesn’t answer their phone?!

Domino’s

Immediately after dialing we realized we had forgotten to procure a scale that deals in ounces — to weigh the pizza — and made two futile trips to nearby pharmacies before returning to find the Domino’s delivery guy waiting at the door. He beat the estimated arrival time of 30 minutes by seven minutes. That didn’t save it from tasting like corporate America, however.

Thanks to its tasteless, rubber cheese and perfectly spaced burn marks (creepy!) we decided this pizza lacked character or depth. Though some of us liked the tanginess of the sauce, everyone agreed the texture of the dough was too soft and far too donut-like to be taken serious as dinner. Domino’s got a 3/10 for taste.

Meagan: No stretch in the cheese.
Aubrey: Isn’t Domino’s the one that does the…”
Evan: Republican political donations, bastards.
Aubrey: No, the cheese crusts.

La Pizza Loca

This L.A.-area chain, infamous for using Mexican queso fresco, was next to hit the doorbell, beating the projected 30 minutes by five.

During the unveiling this pie got a lot of ooh and ahhs for its grease-stained box (oohs in this case were negative, the ahhs positive). La Pizza Loca’s slice also got props for its shape: a beautiful, idyllic pointy triangle. In taste, it fared less well scoring a 5/10. While the marinara was too mild, the dairy level was off the charts. Besides the Mexican cheese, there was a mellow butter flavor released all over the palate. It also got higher points for its heavy use of crusty cornmeal on the bottom.

Alex: Proper crust, weak sauce.
Buss: Yummy, greasy, cheesy buttery.
Lake: Ehh, nothing memorable.

Pizza Buona

Pizza Buona almost didn’t make the list, some in the audience weren’t so keen on it’s we’ve-been-here-forever vibe. It’s around the corner at the busy intersection of Sunset and Alvarado in a triangular shaped space. In the end, their pie proved to be what we in the pizza judging business like to call the “Trojan Horse.”

The delivery guy, who showed up in a reasonable but not impressive 30 minutes, was definitely the most chill dude we saw that night. He caught us still wiping our fingers from the Domino’s slices so we had to explain what we were up to. His pizza, on the other hand, was intense. The slices were hard to cut due to temperature and cheese overflow. In fact, few of us could keep the cheese on the slice. The crust was both praised and denounced for being “chewy” and it got the winning (but still sad) 5.5/10.

Lake: Good with Frank’s hot sauce
Evan: Hard to serve.
Aubrey: Melts in your hand, which is a problem.

Masa

This neighborhood hot spot is a stone’s throw from the house and yet the guy on the phone estimated a good one and a half hours for delivery. When the co-owner, a grizzly pizza veteran who was muttering about famous pizza men from Chicago, showed up himself, he got massive points. He claimed to have tossed our dough too.

Too bad for him his shit flopped. Masa is well known for their Chicago-meets-Chicano deep-dish pie. But we had to test their normal cheese pizza. The guy on the phone almost refused to let us order it, and the co-owner was extremely defensive about it. We even had to order two pies because they don’t make the regular in anything but medium.

On top of these shenanigans, the pie was pathetic. The crust looked more like something you eat during Passover and the sauce was nonexistent. The chef had thrown some basil leaves on top as if to fool the judges. The cheese was OK but it tasted like a quesadilla earning a 2.5/10 rating.

Aubrey: Dough guy — so nice!!!
Buss: It is like a pastry.
Alex: CPK, man…CPK.

Conclusion

Although Echo Park hosts a number of outposts famous for New York-style and Chicago-style pizza, many of them don’t deliver and those that do couldn’t cut it with straight cheese pizza. In the end, we can recommend both La Pizza Loca and Pizza Buona, but none of us feel stoked on them.

Although all testing was conducted using plain cheese pizzas, we didn’t want to leave it to chance so we also whipped up some designer toppings to throw on our extra slices: Truffled black olive tapanade, Sage salt shitakes, Garlic tomato salad, “Meat” lovers trio. In terms of cost and authenticity, we firmly believe in the method of delivery-meets-cooking we call “Toppas.” All those recipes, which will post soon over at Hot Knives, can be made in less than 23 minutes, so you’re sure beat even the best delivery boy.

The black and tan is a drink of beauty. It’s about balance and harmony. It’s right up there with yin and yang, light and dark, good and evil. And sucking on one has this uncanny ability to make you feel like you’re wearing a long, wizardly beer cloak.

Excluding some tepid Guinness and Bass ale concoctions we slurped at bars early in our beer career, our first deep and true black and tan experience was in Portland: Deschutes’ Obsidian stout mixed with Mirror Pond ale. The thick, oil slick of their renown stout is perfect for mixing with a crispy light ale — it’ll probably always be the ideal by which we measure all black and tans forever. If we lived in Portland, we would drink nothing else.

But we don’t; we live in California — where any number of flavor combinations lay at our disposal. To celebrate that enviable diversity, we put three ales to the black and tan test: Speakeasy’s Prohibition ale, Lagunitas Censored ale, North Coast Old Stock ale. We poured each one into a glass followed by Anderson Valley Oatmeal Stout and took note on how well each one cooperated. Indulgent, yes, but extremely necessary. And if you happen to drink your beers in the state of Oregon… well all of these are NoCal and reachable. In Portland, try John’s Marketplace.

Prohibition Ale

This amber-ish brew seemed the best choice among hoppier beers. Usually the bitter twist of a hop heavy beer wouldn’t lend itself to the delicate balancing act required of a “tan,” but we thought we’d give it a shot.

The result was totally drinkable, but nothing we’d repeat. The hops break through the stout like a National Geographic ship cruising through the North Pole. The herby aroma even makes it to the surface. But all in all, the combo didn’t fit — we weren’t, after all, looking for a ‘black and hops.’ Part of the problem stems from Prohibition’s own identity crises: it doesn’t know if it’s an amber or an IPA. It’s even won a medal in both categories in the World Beer Championship. And there’s no room in a black and tan for indecision.

Censored Ale

Annoying packaging gimmick aside, this is one of Lagunitas’ better beers. It’s light on booze and strong on red-tinted, sweet caramel maltiness. It’s trusty on its own.

When drizzled into a stout, especially this one, Censored knows how to play the part. The robust oatmeal heaviness led the way with the copper ale hitting tongue buttons on first sip and somewhere in the middle, without tampering with the sour stout aftertaste.

This match felt classic: It was kinda like pouring milk on a bowl of cereal.

Old Stock Ale

If you’ve had Old Stock before, you’re probably scoffing. Let’s just say we conducted said test on St. Patrick’s Day, so we were feeling cocky. (We also ate a large green meal and it still wasn’t enough padding to keep from getting dizzy what with the 11.5% ABV on this fucker.)

This brew is extremely toasty and dry. We imagine it’s what weathered old beer guys like to age in their basement and go down and play with when they’re mad at their wives. The immediate notes are masticated fruit and leather, straight up. Paired with oatmeal stout was ultra heavy, definitely too much but in a good-bad way, not a bad-bad way. The rolling aftertaste has more carbonation in it than most strong ales, which actually worked quite well. One danger with a traditional black and tan is the slightly stale, bubble-less mouthfeel of the thing. Here it was drinkable partly because of how it danced down your throat. This was not your average black and, but we dug it. We kept drinking all afternoon and dug ourselves a comfy little K-hole that was hard to crawl out of too though.

And the winner is...

Lagunitas Censored Ale

The waffle, with its elegant and demanding little troughs, is the brainchild of the Belgians. However, that does not prevent our home turf -- the presently sunny hamlet of Portland, Oregon -- from having its own page in the grand history of the waffle. After all, it is here that Bill Bowerman ruined his wife's waffle iron by pouring rubber into it, inventing the first lightweight Nike running shoe. It is in this state that young Steve Prefontaine set the American record for a 5000 meter race wearing waffles on the soles of his feet. A noble lineage, indeed. However, friends, Portland's association with waffle greatness does not end with Pre's violent, breakfast-unrelated, death. A new page has been written.

I love when something is the new something. It's the best cliche in the world, and when it's about food, all the better! I was going to just HyperLink the article, but it's much more fun to talk about which foods are the new other foods.

• "Insiders speculate [hummus] is well on its way to becoming the next salsa."

As a reporter, you might as well retire after that sentence! You can't top this! You talked to insiders about hummus taking over the place of salsa! A hummus article. Man. That gets me psyched.

More great quotes:

• "I like to see it in the house."
• "What is that made out of?"
• "We were told by some supermarkets that they would not be able to carry our product because it looked too Middle Eastern," said Rubin. In response, the company rid its hummus packages of an illustration showing men riding camels.
• Even the convenience store 7-11, perhaps best known for Slim Jims and Slurpees, has begun selling hummus snack-packs.

I love food news.