A Readers Tip Brings Us to Pizza 90...Finally - CLOSED

Pizza 90

5365 Alton Parkway

Irvine, CA 92604

Most people have a hard time keeping their New Year's resolutions. Yes, me included. As I've gotten older, I realize this is because we make resolutions that are not that fun to keep. This year, I changed my usual resolutions to save money, lose weight, and watch less TV. From now on, I will only focus on resolutions that I'd consider fun and advantageous to me as a person. One of the goals I set for myself this year is to tackle my expanding list of restaurant tips. That's what has brought us to Pizza 90.

Pizza 90 was a tip from a reader named Eric a few years ago. If you are still reading this blog, Eric, I'm very sorry it has taken me so long to get to your restaurant suggestion. Eric's pick was on the top of my list, which means it is the oldest restaurant tip I have yet to go to. Again, sorry for the delay, Eric, and I hope you still enjoy this restaurant review site.

The build your own pizza concept exploded a few years back. Some of the entrants in these Chipotle-style pizza concepts have already bowed out, but I was happy to see that Pizza 90 was still in business when I researched them before our visit. Pizza 90 is so named because their pizzas are fired up in a 900-degree pizza oven for 90 seconds. The 6,000-pound ovens are built in Italy and shipped to the US by boat.

There are currently two Pizza 90 locations, one in Irvine and the other in Sherman Oaks. We visited the Irvine spot on a Tuesday evening at half past seven. We must have missed the dinner rush, as there was only one person in the restaurant other than Katie and me when we arrived. As our visit progressed, a couple of customers filed in behind us.

The premise of Pizza 90 is pretty commonplace these days. You build your pizza with whatever you want on your pizza. Pizza 90 has a red, white, or green sauced pizza you can choose from, and then you add veggies, meats, and cheeses and finish it off with seasonings or maybe some garlic. Need to be simpler for you? There are 11 Neapolitan classics for people who want to avoid the headache of coming up with their own creations. Let's see how Pizza 90 compares to their other build-your-own pizza competitors.

Katie was pushing for a salad to start her meal at Pizza 90, and after having this Market Salad ($8.99), I'm glad we got this one. The market salad here is made up of a spring mix of greens, cubed apple, pear, plenty of blue cheese, and toasted walnuts, and we substituted the usual champagne dressing for ranch dressing. It's been a few weeks since we have had this salad, and I still think about it, which says a lot for a salad. The produce was fresh, the apple and pear added a nice sweetness, and plenty of blue cheese was included in this. We couldn't have asked for a better start to our meal.

Katie wanted to avoid being bothered to create her own pizza, so she selected one of their classics, the BBQ Chicken Pizza ($8.99). This pizza came with chicken, mozzarella, caramelized onion, red onion, and parsley and was finished with a drizzle of barbecue sauce on top. Katie liked the interaction of the toppings on this one but felt that there might have been too much barbecue sauce. Neapolitan pizzas are usually a little damp in the middle, and this one was no exception. She'd ask for light BBQ sauce next time, but otherwise, she would call this pizza yummy. 

My order stays pretty much the same when I'm at a build-your-own pizza place. On my Build My Own Red Pizza ($8.99), I got all the meats and added red onion and jalapenos. Nothing too crazy. I like to keep it simple. I was let down by this pizza. Katie was right, the pizza was wet in the middle, but I did expect that, but not to this degree. I liked the thicker-than-expected crust on this pizza, with its slight char to it. The toppings really provided little flavor. I had to douse each slice with red pepper flakes and parmesan cheese to keep things interesting.

Pizza 90 was fine, but it could not beat out my two current favorite build-your-own pizza restaurants, Blaze and MOD. It's not a good sign when the most memorable thing about a pizza place was the salad (although it was a really good salad). I felt the middle of the pizza here was too moist and it made the pizza too hard to eat with my hands. The toppings lacked any pop of flavor and made for a rather bland pizza. If you are near here and want pizza and don't want CPK in the same shopping center, Pizza 90 would be a fair option. It feels good to cross this one off of our list, and I look forward to getting to more of your restaurant picks very soon. 

Out of five diamonds (because 90 feet is the distance between the bases on a baseball field, also known as a diamond), five being best to zero being worst, Pizza 90 gets 2.5 diamonds.

For more information about Pizza 90, head to their website here: http://www.pizza90.com/