PDX Pizza Week 2022 - Day 4

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Thursday, April 21, 2022

For today's Pizza Week exploration I landed on Gladstone Street Pizza, for their Pizza Week creation named Now I Actually Love Kale.

 (Notable that I actually like kale already, but was very interested in what they're doing with it...)

I had never been to this place nor ever driven by, although I'd been to the Safeway on Powell & Cesar Chavez Street that is a few blocks up and over a few times, so the general area was familiar.  Gladstone St. Pizza is in SE Portland, in the Creston-Kenilworth neighborhood.

I ordered through their link off their IG, and ordered for pick up in 35 minutes.

Turned out parking sucked and I had to circle over 1/4 mile to still end up parking 2 blocks away for street parking.

Pizza wasn't ready but staff person was apologetic and offered that I could grab drink for free for inconvenience.  I declined but appreciated the gesture.  Really was just like 4 minutes total before I was out the door with pizza plus side caesar salad I ordered.

Before I share what I got, I should share what I was advertised.

What's on it?: Red Sauce Pie with Dollops of Ricotta Cheese and Mama Lil's Spiced Crispy Kale

The Inspiration: This pizza inspired one of our most picky eaters to proclaim their love for kale. We toss the fresh kale in Mama Lil's oil before cooking it to crispy perfection. The tasty combination of the sweet ricotta cheese, tangy red sauce, and slightly spicy kale is perfection.

Aaaaand, this is what I got:



As a former fast food employee, I don't like being the guy who's complaining about "why didn't they make it like it looks in the picture," but I'm that guy tonight.  Also, was kinda burnt that for the medium size (not large) being priced at $20, I could have gotten 3 of the $3 slices they were selling of this and likely had more square footage of pizza than what I paid over twice as much for.

With venting here partially complete, I will acknowledge I enjoyed the pizza.  I didn't get all that much Mama Lil's flavor on the kale specifically, but I liked it on the pizza including for the crunch texture and with the ricotta.  I liked that this pizza had a heavier dough then either of the last two nights' pizzas.  I was eyeing those $3 slices while I was waiting and I think I'd likely go back to either get a couple slices, or maybe a whole large pizza.

Which leads me to the rest of my venting: I ate everything in one sitting.  $20 pizza, $4 side caesar salad that was DIY and croutonless (I actually ended up tearing pizza crust scraps and adding to salad to mimic croutons).  With gratuity that was a ~$28 meal in my belly.  Food is expensive here in Portland but I'm rarely spending over $20 for a single meal, even when I am going big.

So, 'twas a Thursday night miss for me here.  Including for this pizza not swaying me further on kale -- it was fine, but didn't blow my mind.

But alas, a new Pizza Week day awaits manana...

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