I had never tried Mattina's Pizzeria, though I had drive by many times. I looked up reviews today and saw that they were mostly positive, so I figured I'd give it a go. It's easy to find, located in a small plaza on Sheridan Drive. It smelled great inside, kind of an old time pizzeria smell, so I had high hopes but was ultimately a little let down. The pizza looked great; the 2 triangle slices were kind of oddly shaped, but filled the box perfectly. The crust had some burnt cheese on the edges, lots of spice on the top, but the sauce was were it fell short for me. I tried the sauce on its own, and it just seemed rather bland. All the flavor was in the spices on top.

This is not your average cheese and pepperoni pizza; there's flavor coming in from all angles. To start, this is a pan pizza and as such, the crust has crispy cheese and sauce on the edges. Those crispy spots have a great burned flavor all to their own. The sauce reminds me of sauce you'd find on top of a classic tomato pie; sweet and tangy, but with plenty of spice. The cheese and the pepperoni are both thick, which works really well. This is one of my favorite cheese and pepperoni pizzas.

Today the O.G. Wood Fire Pizza truck stopped by my office and I just couldn't resist. The idea of having a wood fire pizza oven on a truck is slightly odd, but it works pretty well. They offer 10" round pies, all made to order right in front of you. I decided to go with the Americano, which is tomato sauce, provolone, fresh mozzarella, pepperoni, and basil, for $10. After waiting roughly 20 minutes for the 4 orders ahead of me and my own, I finally got the fresh hot pizza in it's own personal pizza box. Opening the box, the pizza looks great, almost picture perfect, but once you dig in, you realize it's not that easy to eat. The crust around the edge has a lot of black burned patches, which really add some burn flavor. While some people might like the char flavor, I'm not a huge fan of it. The crust towards the middle of the pizza was a different story; it was very thin and fairly soggy, so thin and soggy that you have to fight to keep the slice from falling limp and all the toppings falling off. Speaking of toppings, the cheese and pepperoni were good, the pepperoni especially, with nice cupping and charring on the edges. The fresh basil leaves were also good and added a lot of flavor. The sauce was lacking in quantity, I really had to try to find a saucy spot to actually taste it, which turned out to mainly taste of tomato.

The cheese & pepperoni pizza at Franco's is good. I would say it's one of my favorites in the area. The sauce has a nicely seasoned and slightly acidic flavor, and you get a decent amount of it. The pepperoni is slightly burnt, giving that little added flavor. The only complaint that I might have would be that I could have used a little more cheese on the slice; it covered it, but only in a think layer.