PDX Pizza Week 2023 - Day 1

So, for 2023 there are a total of 36 places participating in Pizza Week here in Portland.

Having blogged my 2022 pizza week journey for my first year living in Portland, I aim to keep it going here in 2023.

For Day 1 (Monday), it was a busy workday and I ended up not stepping foot out of my place until around 7pm to grab my first Pizza Week slice for a quick dinner.

I'd narrowed down the places I'm interested in this week from the 36 offerings down to 12, and tonight's slice was to be from Atlas Pizza, on NE Killingsworth St.

This Atlas Pizza location's offering is called Thai Hard 2 (note: each Atlas Pizza has a different specialty slice offering this week, for 3 locations total).

Per Pizza Week:

What It's Called: Thai Hard 2

What's On It: Curried peanut sauce, chicken, roasted red peppers, red onion, mozzarella, cashews, scallion

What They Say About It: Killingsworth is BACK to Thai Harder with another fusion this year! Creamy house-made curried peanut sauce base is the star of the show on this pie, bub!

This was my first visit to any Atlas Pizza location, and I thankfully ended up finding street parking pretty easy one block up, despite being right across the street from the Portland Community College's Cascade Campus as well as just a block away from a high school.

It was foreboding though noting both those schools, since upon opening the plywood-covered door to enter Atlas Pizza, turned out the place was pretty much packed with teens and young adults.  I was originally going either way for getting slices to eat there vs. take home, but decided it would definitely be a to-go order.

Ordering was pretty quick and the one guy behind the counter both taking orders, heating slices, and calling out orders was pretty efficient.  I ordered one Pizza Week slice and one pepperoni slice and my total was only $6.75!

I waited maybe 5 minutes total and then I had my small cardboard box w/ the slices and headed out.

Snapped the pic here before driving off and heading back home.

So while I had thought the Thai Hard 2 slice sounded tasty (minus the onion slices that would get taken off), I had low expectations overall, having scoped Atlas some time back and noting it was thin NY style pizza with crunchy charred crust.

That said it was a pleasant surprise to find I enjoyed both slices, and that other than for the crust on the pepperoni slice, crust was to my liking for a NY style slice at least.  The slices were big but ate quickly on account of the thinness of the crust and proportionally light layer of toppings on each.  I did like that the cheese and toppings were not sliding off the slices at any point.

For the Thai Hard 2 slice I enjoyed the overall flavor profile, but was something I'd just want to get as a slice in the future and that would be enough.  I registered only one cashew on my slice though, and while the curried peanut sauce was tasty for the few hits of it that I got, it could've been applied more uniformly to better get the flavor.

Overall was a pleasant surprise to find them palatable and cheap for easy pizza slice meal.