Taste of Westerville: The One Pizza - Eliminator's Late Performance To Small Crowd
The Blue Plate Special Kitchen Restaurant Review by Gary Gardiner
One in a series from The Taste of Westerville Restaurants
When my family first moved to Westerville, on Timberbank Lane, a cul-de-sac with 13 houses, the backyard bordering Blendon Township, we ate a lot of free pizza.
There were five of us. Wife, me, three kids, and a cat. Pizza was often on the menu, especially with Domino’s “30 minutes or free” promise.
The house we moved into had sat empty for some time while the owner and builder settled their differences over construction details that neither party was satisfied with. We bought the house “as-is,” not really caring that the fill dirt around the basement wasn’t as specified, nor did we notice the two trees that were felled when the contract called for them to be spared.
For several months, the pizzas we ordered for Timberbank Lane were delivered to Timberlake Drive in Annehurst instead of our house in Springborough.
After the required 30 minutes, while someone on Timberlake Dr. enjoyed one pizza with all meat, another with all veggies, a large bottle of Coca-Cola, and another of 7UP, I called to ask why our pizzas had not yet arrived, knowing they had been sent to the wrong address. The delivery driver had now locked that address into their memory and was driving trance-like, rocking to “Footloose” or “What’s Love Got To Do With It” blasted from QFM96.
Eventually, Domino’s either got a new driver or figured our family had had enough free pizza.
We kept eating pizza. It just wasn’t free.
I’d put off eating at Jet’s Pizza, the only pizza joint at the Taste of Westerville, because I’ve lost my taste for it. Too salty. Too many carbs. Too pedestrian to satisfy my palate. It has all the ingredients. Tomato (pizza) sauce, meat (pepperoni and sausage), cheese(s), peppers (banana), and possibly crispy edges.
Jet’s met all these criteria, but it didn't convince me to bring pizza back into my diet.
I’m not sure any pizza will excite me as much as spaghetti carbonara, shrimp scampi, curried chicken, or a brown sugar-glazed pork loin. Jet’s comes close, with the strong basil flavor in the sauce and the sharp, greasy pepperoni. The cheese is adequate. The dough was thick, thicker than I prefer, and the edges could have been crispier.
I usually order a medium so I can save half for another meal, sometimes for breakfast the next morning. This time I ate more than half, leaving less for tomorrow’s hungry moments. Maybe it was better that I gave it credit.
Late But Not Too Little
Eliminator, the ZZ Top tribute band from Kansas City, played a lightning-delayed set to a crowd of about 50 at the Alum Creek amphitheater Sunday night.
The band was fully prepped to begin playing a few minutes before the scheduled start time, but a nearby lightning strike forced a 30-minute delay before they could take the stage.
Despite the sounds of air-to-air thunder, lightning did not appear again around the stage, and the band began a shortened but enthusiastic concert that was small only in the size of the crowd, not in the performance.
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