Stop 031: Moonlight Diner and Bar (Near the Airport)

 

Moonlight Diner and Bar

Location:  6250 Tower Rd.  Denver, CO  80249

With the concept of grabbing lunch at a random place on the back roads to the airport, my friend and I  stumbled across Moonlight Diner.  It’s shiny silver exterior nearly blinded my hungry eyes as it reflected off the fantastic solar display of  a traditional Colorado afternoon sun.   The moonlight diner drew us in like a giant space egg resting in the middle of a mundane nest of  cookie cutter homes and predictable shopping strips.  My initial idea was to get some classic diner food, but the fact that there was pizza on the menu got a 2^nd look from me.  After analyzing the pros and cons of not eating pizza, I decided to pull the trigger on pizza.  I considered the thoughts and feelings of my companion before I opted to order the Hawaiian.  A Hawaiian is a tough pizza to judge an operation by, but sometimes you gotta go with the moment.  My partner had an interesting  theory  that any decent breakfast place has a good shot at making a solid Hawaiian pizza  because they should have a decent house ham, which is 75% of what matters on a Hawaiian.  The pizza came out with a good look, and Damn!  That ham!  His theory proved to be right, the ham was excellent!   The pineapple was nice and tangy, good enough that we had a conversation about if it was fresh or not… but due to its even cut, it’s probably from a can, or cut by a man with a robotic arm.  The crust was good enough to play the role of crust, and had the charred feel of a wood fired pizza.   The sauce had decent flavor, and was prominent enough to differentiate this pizza from a loaf of ham and pineapple bread.   It’s always a treat when you get a good pie at a place that does not specialize in pizza, because there are so many places that focus exclusively on pizza, and totally suck at it!

Stop 030: Edgewater Inn (Edgewater)

Edgewater Inn

Location:  5302 W. 25^th Ave.  Edgewater, CO 80214

Howdy Paisano!  That is the catch phrase of Edgewater Inn, a cozy neighborhood bar and pizza shop that was established in 1953.  The Edgewater Inn has a great atmosphere which will bring me back regardless of what comes out of the oven.  The pizza is made from scratch, I just don’t think they use the best scratch in town.   If you look at the picture above you can see that this is not the most attractive pie, but I’m not a pizza watcher,  I’m a pizza eater.   Yet, as I approached the pizza  I could not  help but think it looks like the someone squirted a bunch of ketchup all over my pizza!   Right out of the gate my companion took an anti-mushroom stance, so after a brief discussion we opted for pepperoni, black olives, and green peppers to top our pie.  What can you say about black olives, they were fine because I like black olives.  I have never heard someone recommend a place and say you really got to try their black olives… The pepperoni was nothing special, but I must say that I was very fond of their green peppers.   I believe they were grilled prior to the baking of the pizza, and sometimes you just gotta spend a little more time on a topping.   The sauce on top of the pizza was bogus.  It had the consistency of warm ketchup and the taste of a slightly doctored  Spaghetti -O’s sauce.  The crust was on the thicker side of things, which I like, but it could benefit from a little more zest.  During our meal, my companion mumbled “its better than frozen pizza” as he reached for his 2^nd slice… and that is where I will leave it

Stop 029: Abo's (Centennial)

  

Abo's Pizza

Location:  7475 E Arapahoe Rd, Centennial, CO 80112

First off my picture is accidentally awesome!  See how it looks like the girl on the Westword Magazine is hoisting the pizza plate? 

I want to start off by saying that there are at least 2 total dicks that work at Abo’s, and I met both of them in my 15 minute visit.   Trust me, it’s  hard to have an opinion about your service when you order pizza by the slice because the window of forming a negative opinion is miniscule... but this pair of jackass teens showed that you can be rude, arrogant, and flat out sloppy while simply jocking a register and warming up a couple slices of pizza that have already been prepared.  Anyways, let’s talk about the product.   Abo’s offers decent NYC style pizza,  nothing  amazing here, but Abo’s is at the same quality level as your average NYC corner shop, around the corner from the NYC pizza shop that your friend says is the best because it is on the way from his/her apartment to the subway and its the only one that he/she consistently gets,  therefore it is heavily endorsed...

Which by the way,  I love reading pizza reviews of people from NYC because somehow that makes them experts on pizza  even though 75% of NYC slices taste the exact same; which is decent, but nothing that would warrant the use of the word phenomenal.  In fact, most NYC corner shop slices would receive a“3” on the Denver Pizza Train rating system

Abo's uses enough cheese and distributes their pepperoni in an acceptable ratio.  Their crust gave me no reason to run to the mountains and praise the lord, in fact one of my slices cracked in half after my first pull, forcing me to finish it in 2 separate conquests.  Abo's uses a decent sauce, which I kicked into 2nd gear  by using  a fair shake of Abo’s very own hot sauce (pictured above).  Abo's hot sauce has pretty good chemistry with their particular brand of pizza.   However,  I understand that when a consumer uses too much hot sauce on their pizza, they might just be hiding from the fact that their pizza has no game.  One huge strike against Abo’s is their  location, buried deep in a strip mall engulfed by steady suburban traffic around the corner from a hellish strip of I-25.  Although, in their favor is a mini-mini arcade that hosts a Last Action Hero pinball machine.  

Stop 028: Woody's (Golden)

Woody's Pizza and Watering Hole

Location:  1305 Washington Ave. Golden. CO 80401

It would have been absolutely asinine for me not to try the all you can eat pizza and salad bar for $11.38!   Let’s get the non-pizza items out of the way quickly… Woody’s has free popcorn, which I dislike based on the fact that I worked in a bar that had free popcorn, and when it’s free, the numbers break down like this.    50% makes it in the mouth of the consumer, 35% ends up on floor, and 15% in various other odd spots.  Their salad bar was decent, and featured a solid pasta salad with artichokes, that found its way onto 2 of my 4 servings.  The salad bar also offers made from scratch beer cheese soup, but due to my limited experience with that product, my overall baseline was determined to be too weak for assessment.   Let’s talk about the pizza!  I ended up housing 7 slices in 4 servings, which proves that I enjoyed the product.  They use 100% mozzarella cheese, and it is distributed in proper fashion.  The crust is garlic kissed, and puffy enough to be considered for bread stick potential when you reach the end of your slice.  The sauce has enough presence to participate in the flavor, and they use agreeable toppings.  The all you can eat deal presents a fair rotation of pizzas at all times, making sure to keep a respectable mix of classics, multi toppers, and specialty pies.  My servers name was Scooter (which rules) and he happened to be very friendly, just like everyone on their staff.   You might want to go during off hours, or you can expect to wait.  One last reason to love the all you can eat for $11.38 is that it is offered ALL DAY, EVERY DAY!