Pier 49 Pizza

First look:

Pier 49 is a local pizza franchise, I assume it was loosely based on the Pizza Styles served on Pier 49 in San Francisco. Looking around, everyone who is coming in either knows one of the employees by name, or they just seem like regulars. I feel like this is a cute niche restaurant that really should be discovered by the masses, if only to help a decent Utah company grow. The tables and chairs are a bit outdated, but they serve a purpose, and that is to allow for people to sit, eat, enjoy the food, and the company.

The place is very clean… one of the cleanest pizza places I’ve been to, at least from the customer’s perspective. They passed the under-the-table gum test - not even a stain to be seen.

The pizza’s a little more expensive, but I’ll let you know why below.

The menu is a little busy, with loads of options. I had no idea where to start, so I resorted to asking the cashier for suggestions.

The Food:

I opted for the Cable Car, with cheese bread, and a soda.

The Cheese Bread was decent… and it had quality cheese, which is significant because cheese has gotten expensive in recent years. Most pizza places have resorted to lowering the quality of the cheese in order to maintain the normal prices, or altering recipes to have less cheese. Pier 49 does not skimp. Both the pizza and the cheese bread had plenty of cheese - not too much, but just right.

The cheese bread came with a cold marinara sauce with little flecks of what I suspect to be an Italian herb blend. I feel like onion stood out in the marinara sauce… which didn’t make it altogether undesirable, but that may have been because they served it cold. The pizza’s sauce was heavenly though! Whatever was different about those two sauces was enough to make a night-and-day difference in flavor, even if the only difference was the temperature.

They use a sourdough bread, which actually compliments the pizza flavors really well. It’s lighter than your normal pizza crust, and bakes to a pleasant crisp on the bottom.

The Cable Car is a 5-meat pizza… Pepperoni, Canadian Bacon, Sausage, Hamburger, and Bacon. Each of the meats eaten separately were delicious, except for the Canadian bacon. Their Canadian bacon is really just a smaller deli ham cut up into quarters, which isn’t my favorite on a pizza, but there wasn’t enough of it for it to really affect the taste in a big way. I’m also not a big fan of canadian bacon as a whole, so I may not be the best judge for that. All of the other meats were perfectly juicy, with the right ratio of fat to meat. I was actually quite surprised at the meat quality. Apparently they don’t hike up their prices to meet a perceived quality, but rather they charge what they need to in order to deliver a quality pizza.

It’s important for me to note that the meat and cheese didn’t melt into a fatty-greasy mess when it was cooked. That’s how you can tell that the cheese is quality, and they have a higher quality of meat. With a higher quality of ingredients, your extra dollar spent on this pizza is not lost.

You will agree upon trying it.

Back to the marinara on the pizza. The black pepper really sticks out, and I like it! Also, it’s fresh enough that you’ll find loosely crushed tomato chunks in it. It’s ‘unprocessed’ preparation (meaning not blended up to within an inch of it’s life) lends to a fuller, more authentic marinara taste.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I leave you now with what I found to be the best part of the pizza:

They do not use cornmeal to keep their pizzas from sticking. I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again: A pizza with cornmeal on the bottom is a pizza that you’ll be hard-pressed to get me to eat...

but that’s not this pizza.

I would gladly eat at Pier 49 Pizza again.

Wingers Diner

Wingers is considered by some around here to be one of the “classic” Utah Valley Restaurants. Due to its success, it has grown into nearby markets in Idaho, Oregon, Nevada, and Wyoming.

First Look:

In visual style, Wingers seems to present a sentiment similar to the stereotypical family-type establishments of the 50’s and 60’s, however they also constantly have sports playing on several screens, and a bar you pass in order to get to your seat. The restaurant looked like it had recently undergone a facelift, with the tables and seats looking almost new.

The Experience:

When I walked in I was greeted promptly… and the communication was very efficient. Due to the look of the restaurant, I almost felt like they would be asking me how my grandmother was, and how the crops were coming along this year. On the contrary, I had barely walked in before I was seated at a comfortable booth, and the waitress was getting me water, and popcorn for my table.

I couldn’t help but notice that the restaurant was extremely clean. Even the floors were spotless. Just out of curiosity, I took my phone, and took a video of underneath the table to check for gum and spit wads. There were stains from where there had previously been some gum, but it was clean, and that made me appreciate the thoroughness of the cleaning.

The waitress seems like she's used to people moving fast. Things seem to be run very tight - with little room for error. It looks like they were perfectly prepared for and anticipating a rush tonight. I arrived at 6:00, and I was one of two people who were sat down on my side of the restaurant. I barely had time to look around before my salad was in front of my face.

The Food:

They supplied me with two dressings. One house ranch dressing, and one called “Creamy Amazing Sauce.” The creamy amazing sauce is very sweet, with a tang… it's literally a dressing with their delicious wing sauce in it. It's like a spicy thousand island, except none of the flavors are masked… You know what’s in it when you eat it. It's very simple, very good. The waitress said that people ask for creamy amazing sauce for their popcorn. I told her to prove it, because that just sounded disgusting to me. Looking me straight in the eyes, she ate some of my popcorn with the sauce on it. I tried it as well, and it's not unpleasant, but I like a little more tartness with my popcorn dips. To each their own though. I’d suggest you try it if you feel up to it.

The ranch is a sour cream ranch... very mellow, and a little bland for a salad, but perfect for dipping wings. I preferred the Creamy Amazing Sauce on my salad. It came prepared with two rings of onion, two cherry tomatoes, romaine and iceberg lettuce, and rye and white bread croutons. I liked the balance between the two lettuce types, as too much iceberg will give a very sweet taste to the salad.

Those who are coming into the restaurant seem to be very familiar with how everything works. Listening to those at the table next to me, it became obvious that they were regulars, as they were talking about several different plates that they had eaten, and held strong opinions about each. Apparently the consensus is that the salad with sticky fingers is delicious… but by the time I had heard that, I had already ordered my meal.

I had the sticky fingers meal, with beer-battered onion rings, and steak fries. The wings are covered with a secret sticky sauce, with some spice. They use hot sauce, corn syrup, and brown sugar on their breaded sticky fingers, and it all comes together to make such a scrumptious entree. The chicken is quality… though it does have a bit of a processed feel. (How could it be otherwise when 60-70% of the customers choose the sticky fingers…)  The wings are filling, and the onion rings are thick and cooked just right. The steak fries were just a bit watery in the middle, making me think that they were just frozen before they were fried, but with a little bit of the creamy amazing sauce, or ketchup, they’re just another thick fry that adds another layer to your meal.

The dessert is their infamous Asphalt Pie. Their Asphalt Pie is a mint chocolate chip ice cream on a chocolate cookie crust, topped with whipped cream, a caramel drizzle, and oreo crumbles on the top. Delish. I loved the tastes and the textures, but I had very little room for it after a very filling meal. They provided a box for me to take the rest home.

All in all a good visit. I recommend that you get their Creamy Amazing Sauce- that, along with the flavor of the wings, was the best part of the visit.