Ithaca Restaurants Deliver a Lot of Food for Not a Lot of Dough
Stacy Schulist '01
Issue date: 4/6/00 Section: Diversions
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You would think that in a college town like Ithaca that most restaurants would take advantage of the immobile, busy student population and offer delivery. After flipping through the yellow pages, I learned that few restaurants deliver. And, if you're in the mood for something other than Pizza or Chinese food, you are out of luck. The following review includes the reactions of Laura Nogelo, (she spent four years in New York and knows her pizza) and Harris Ueng, a fellow food enthusiast, as well as myself.
Pizza Hut (257-2778) had enough marketing savvy to leave coupons at my door earlier this year, so I called them first. The cheerful guy who answered the phone let me adapt my coupon order (2 medium specialty pan pizzas for $12.99) to one pan and one thin crust. The coupon also offered 12 Wings for $4.00, so I included those in the order. The pizza, which I was told would arrive in half an hour, arrived hot 20 minutes late. The airy crust on both pizzas was oily enough to saturate two paper plates. The thin crust pizza was identical to the pan pizza, except it appeared to have endured a few more seconds beneath a rolling pin. The wings, accompanied by a thimble full of Bleu cheese dressing, were less greasy, but unmemorable.
Napoli's (272-3232; delivering until 12:30a.m. weekdays and 1:30a.m. weekends) offers Wings and Italian food as well as pizza, so we added Wings $3.80 (10 to an order) and Eggplant Parmigiana ($7.55) which comes with spaghetti and salad. Our food arrived hot one and one-half hours later (we were told it would be there in 45 minutes. While not particularly generous on the toppings - vegetable and sausage -- the pizza ($9.21-$16.02 for a 16" large) had a yeasty crust and zesty tomato sauce. It was definitely the best pizza we sampled, though we learned it does not reheat well. Unlike traditional Buffalo Wings, the meaty ones we received were lightly breaded and had become somewhat soggy from the ride. Dipping them in the creamy Bleu cheese dressing ($.50 extra) made a significant improvement. Upon tasting the Eggplant Parmigiana a brief debate ensued as to whether there really was eggplant in the heavily breaded fried things that lay beneath a layer of Napoli's delicious tomato sauce.
Pizza Hut (257-2778) had enough marketing savvy to leave coupons at my door earlier this year, so I called them first. The cheerful guy who answered the phone let me adapt my coupon order (2 medium specialty pan pizzas for $12.99) to one pan and one thin crust. The coupon also offered 12 Wings for $4.00, so I included those in the order. The pizza, which I was told would arrive in half an hour, arrived hot 20 minutes late. The airy crust on both pizzas was oily enough to saturate two paper plates. The thin crust pizza was identical to the pan pizza, except it appeared to have endured a few more seconds beneath a rolling pin. The wings, accompanied by a thimble full of Bleu cheese dressing, were less greasy, but unmemorable.
Napoli's (272-3232; delivering until 12:30a.m. weekdays and 1:30a.m. weekends) offers Wings and Italian food as well as pizza, so we added Wings $3.80 (10 to an order) and Eggplant Parmigiana ($7.55) which comes with spaghetti and salad. Our food arrived hot one and one-half hours later (we were told it would be there in 45 minutes. While not particularly generous on the toppings - vegetable and sausage -- the pizza ($9.21-$16.02 for a 16" large) had a yeasty crust and zesty tomato sauce. It was definitely the best pizza we sampled, though we learned it does not reheat well. Unlike traditional Buffalo Wings, the meaty ones we received were lightly breaded and had become somewhat soggy from the ride. Dipping them in the creamy Bleu cheese dressing ($.50 extra) made a significant improvement. Upon tasting the Eggplant Parmigiana a brief debate ensued as to whether there really was eggplant in the heavily breaded fried things that lay beneath a layer of Napoli's delicious tomato sauce.