The Best Pizza in SD: Sicilian Thing (North Park) + Viva Pops VI

Yes, I now am ready to pronounce Sicilian Thing THE best, breaking its tie with Bongiorno's Miramar (though Cute Husband insists that I say: "except when Mike Bongiorno is there and the pizza is straight out of the oven"). We still love Bongiorno's Miramar, but it has become clear that Sicilian Thing is just super-consistent even when Paul is gone. Today I got:

--Nino Espinosa: spinach, stewed tomatoes, cheese
--Barack-oli Ricotta: duh, broccoli ricotta

Lots of fancy places in town try "artisan pizza" that's expensive (I'm talking about you, Blue Ribbon). Hands town, ST has the tastiest *and best value* pizza in town. It's working-class instead of all gussied-up, but it's inexpensive AND outrageously yummy. If you like NY pizza and haven't gone yet, what is the matter with you?! You can take your toddler too, of course....

The Nino Espinosa was out of this world: the flavors, and the crust. And I didn't even get anything Sicilian today....

Paul knows how to make a pie and how to get his staff to do it right too!

By popular request, Super-Toddler got to go to Viva Pops after (he's been a good boy lately). He got strawberry. Mom got creamy passionfruit (sorry, Dr. T. - I'm not talented enough to make these). Even Dad got into the action, though he has always declared he doesn't like popsicles and always resisted before. He ordered grapefruit. He decided: still doesn't like the texture of popsicles, but the flavor of the grapefruit was delicious, like fresh farmers' market grapefruit.

Stayed tuned for a post on our return to Searsucker, hopefully sometime this weekend!

Blind Lady Ale House/Viva Pops (V?) (Normal Heights)

In brief: Foodgirl gets lots of recs from her friends (and from yelp-surfing). BLAH is supposed to be "not blah." A friend says it's great, takes her kids - and proclaimed to me that the pizza is better than Basic Urban Kitchen ("fresh, wonderful ingredients, etc.").

Sorry - that doesn't matter if the pizza is BLAND!!! Maybe we had bad luck, but all three of our pizzas were boring, tasteless, not very interesting. Wished we had gone to Sicilian Thing - cheaper, faster, much yummier. Yes, BLAH has a great beer selection and games for kids. But it was too much pizza hype and not enough good pizza for us!

However, being on Adams Avenue was a fine excuse for....visit #5 (?) to Viva Pops. Anyone reading this tonight: they are giving away FREE VIVA POPS (!!!!!!!!!!!!!) at the Little Italy Farmers Mercado tomorrow morning (Sat.) b/c they are going to be on the cooking channel. Super-Toddler loved his strawberry once again: Mom resisted (so sad) b/c the BLAH blah pizza was sitting in my tummy.