Papa Murphy’s (Irving, TX)

Papa Murphy’s is a huge chain of take-and-bake pizzas. My folks and I used to order pizzas from there fairly regularly as they were affordable, big pies and they tasted pretty good.

Emoji review: 🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕x🏋🏋=💯

Vito’s Pizza Restaurant (Irving, TX)

My family wanted pizza. Since making homemade dough, waiting for it to rise, kneading it down, preparing all the ingredients, and baking pizzas would’ve meant plenty of dishes and a late, late dinner after an exhausting day, we headed out to nearby Vito’s Pizza Restaurant on Belt Line.

Emoji review: 🍕👪➡🎊; 🍕🍕🍕🍕🐖➡🐘

New York Pizza Pasta (Valley Ranch, TX)

I’ve ordered from New York Pizza Pasta a few times, but for photo purposes I took the family and we dined in for the first time last weekend. The place is definitely set up for you to get your pizza at the counter and then sit, but one of the cooks offered to serve us at a table, so we went for that one, as we weren’t sure exactly what we wanted.

Emoji review: 🍕 + 🙋 = 😎

Palio’s Pizza (Las Colinas, TX)

If you’re going by on Royal Lane, you’re unlikely to see Palio’s Pizza if you’re driving safely – it’s offset from the street, behind another building that contains a WingStop and some other restaurants. Conveniently, it’s within a mile or so from my apartment, so when I want to go pick up some pizzas, I like to frequent them.

Emoji review: 🍕 = 😎; 🍞🍖🍅 = 😚👌🏼

New York Pizza & Deli (Euless, TX)

We went out to a late birthday party in Arlington a while ago and, because it was set to start late, we thought we’d need to eat before we got there.

New York Pizza & Deli was mostly empty when we arrived, with a family gathering of some sort going on at one table and the rest of the restaurant to ourselves. The decor was what I remember local pizza joints to be from growing up in the ’80s – cheap tables, cheap chairs, self-serve soda machine in the corner; even an old arcade game and the games I only really remember as “The Claw” (Thanks, Toy Story). What’s really important is that they had Sicilian style pizza, and the other important thing is that it was both tasty and filling. Check out that cheese in that picture!

Emoji rating: 🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕=😍

I’ve had far too much great pizza to say it’s the best I’ve ever had. However, as one of the few non-national chains that isn’t pushing the wood-fired, thin-crust trend in the DFW area…it’s a welcome respite from the same ol’, same ol’. Look, I like wood-fired pizza. But not EVERYONE should be doing it. We need Sicilian-style pizza. We need cracker-crust. We need New York-style thin crust. We need Chicago-style deep dish. Sometimes “it’s pizza” just doesn’t cut it. NYPD’s offering was covered in lots of cheese, nice thick crust – the toppings were typical pepperoni and olives – and the family split a large and we barely got through half the pizza before we were stuffed.

Of course, when we got to the party, it turns out they were waiting for everyone to get there to order food. The food everyone had was…pizza. Sigh. While I may have regretted the choice of pizza when free pizza would have been available, that was the only regret – the pizza was good, worth the price, and the leftovers were great, too. Now to find a place that makes a good Sicilian crust in Las Colinas.