Sonny's Pizza Bistro

A beautiful yet dangerous pre-Christmas blizzard is blowing across Iowa today, but Ryan still agreed to head up to Saylorville to pick up Sonny's for our pre-family-Zoom-Secret-Santa-Christmas getogether. 

Lately I've only been craving Margarita (Margherita?) pizzas.  Maybe I've watched Home Alone too may times since mid-November and I just want to be a step above a plain cheese pizza. I don't care for a red meat and red sauce zza because of the acidity, but Ryan still likes a meatlovers every once in a while. Since I wanted a marg, I recommended we also get an Italian Meat.  There are only 2 size options, 10" or 12". 

If you're one of our seven readers you may have noticed we tend to prefer a fluffy crust.  Ryan especially; the thicker the better. As a crust agnostic I don't have any problems with any types. 

It took Ryan over 30 minutes to get the pizzas home (an hour round trip) in the winter storm and the crust was still crispy! It was a bit toasted around the edges, but had that delicious buttery home-made crunch that makes a zza so yummy.  

The Italian Meat was topped with  italian sausage, capicolla, meatball, and pepperoni. The Margherita was what you expect on a marg, it had red sauce and red onions too. Whole chunks of tomato too! Delicioso. 

I'm beginning to wonder if I should've structured my pizza-rating criteria more specifically.  Like a rubric: toppings 33%, crust 33%, sauce 33%, all the factors that go into our score.  But since we don't have any credibility as food critics (other than we love pizza), we'll just keep going with our gut instincts when we give a score. 

This was good pizza. If you are in the Saylorville area or close by and want to switch it up, check it out. Since we had takeout I can't speak much for the ambiance, only the pie. 

4/5 from both of us. 

DOUGH CO. PIZZA

Earlier this year when I started this project, I was sad to learn that Papa Keno's didn't make it.  I'd had it once when I was on campus for a business meeting, and found the lunch special to be delightful. My sadness has subsided now that I've tried the new pizza place in that spot: Dough Co. Pizza. I later learned that the guys who were franchising that Papa Keno's had opted to cut ties with PK to open their own pizza place, and keeping their lease in the same location. 

Dough-ly moly, this place was yummy. 

"New York style thin crust pizza with a Midwest twist..." 

I probably wouldn't call this thin crust, but maybe that's because I'm still accustomed to thinking of thin-crust like cracker thin pizza from Domino's or something. The dough was definitely crispy, but it had a thickness to it too.  But I've also never had real NY pizza, so I don't know what to compare this to. 

We ordered two pizzas: a Giovanni (Roasted chicken, house pesto, cream cheese, Roma tomato, parmesan) and a Margaret (classic Margherita).  Both were very tasty.  I was skeptical about the cream cheese on the pizza,  it was pretty good, but I preferred the Margo. Ryan absolutely loved the Giovanni. 

On this day, 12/14/20, when the first COVID-19 vaccine doses are being administered across the country, walking into a pizza joint made me feel so hopeful and excited for a future when we can go out to eat again. When we can order a cold tap beer or glass of wine to be served while we wait. To banter with friendly wait staff. Especially this place, which had an adorable mural (you know I love a good pizza pun, in fact, I almost named this blog Dough Moines) and plenty of tables. It will be a great college pizza joint when late night slices are a regular thing again (they probably still are, but I'm a littttttle far removed from late night slices at this point in my life). 

Anyway, back to the pizza. We loved it. I don't actually have a single complaint, which is a welcome change from my last review. Crispy and puffy crust, sweet tasty red sauce, good spice mix. Jack kept saying "more pizza!" but when I tried to get a video of it, he got camera stubborn. 

Here are some photos of my very happy pizza eating family. Way to dough, Dough Co. DSM!

Ryan's rating: 5/5

Chelsea's rating: 5/5

Beerhouse

On Thursday 12/3/2020 I had a major hankering for pizza. I had been in carb mode all day following a celebration for myself finishing grad school the night before. I've really had my eyes on a spot in Ankeny as our next Zza Moines stop, but because it was a Thursday, and we try to stick to a schedule, we weren't really feeling an hour roundtrip for takeout pizza. I noticed The Beerhouse on the list, a bar we'd been to once about four years ago.  I love pub food, and recalled that it wasn't too bad, so we ordered a few pizzas for pickup. 

The menu was pretty robust and we ordered a Honey Garlic Alfredo, toppings included honey alfredo base with chicken, bacon, red onion, spinach and roasted red peppers.  The combo and toppings were good, but I was majorly disappointed when I quickly realized this was a pre-rolled, packaged, probably frozen, flatbready type of pizza. It was not enjoyable, and I was very disappointed. I think this is a fine pizza if you're at the bar drinking and craving pizza.  The clever combo of toppings was well executed, but as long as I'm trying and reviewing all the pizza in Des Moines, this one doesn't really deserve to even be on the list. I won't even link to the restaurant because I don't want to be delivering negative reviews to the world for them.

We also ordered a hot sundried tomato dip that came with pita crisps.  The dip was cheesy yummy, I didn't care for the chips, too crispy, but Ryan dug them. 

Guys, I'm not gonna lie. I was so disappointed about this pizza that I immediately asked Ryan if he would make me "real pizza" over the weekend. Tomorrow (Sunday) he is planning to. Perhaps I'll dedicate a post to the yummy homemades I am lucky enough to have? 

Have any Des Moines pizza places emerged in the last year I should know about?  I have done a bit of editing over the last few weeks to add/remove restaurants but I'm not sure I've covered everything. 

Chelsea’s Rating: 2.5 ⭐️

Ryan’s Rating: 3.5 ⭐️