Brenda is out visiting friends tonight, and I just finished a long drive home from Hillsdale, so you know what that means? It's pizza time. I'm feeling pretty exhausted, so I've debated with myself whether I should get the classic (Ginos, of course) or try something new. On one hand, Ginos never fails me, on the other, I wanted to add to this blog, and variety is the spice of rice. I landed on trying something new, and the next place on my list to try was Express Pizza House on Weber st. That's Express spelled X P R E S S Pizza House.

We had been away for a few days and it's been freezing raining, so my car is covered in a thick layer of ice. This along with my exhaustion from the Christmas seasons was the last push I needed to decided to order in. I ordered a large pizza with bacon, pepperoni, and sun-dried tomatoes. I of course got some garlic dips, but this time has the addition of the stores Gravy Momo's. A ton of the reviews specifically mentioned the gravy momo's, calling them delicious little drops from heaven such, so naturally I had to see what they were all about.

First impression

Delivery took about 1 hour from the time of ordering (for context this place is 4 blocks away) but the guy who dropped off the pizza was very nice and the pizza itself was hot and fresh.

Xpress Pizza

The two creamy garlic dips are generic Belvario sauces, so I'm not expecting a ton out of them, but perhaps the gravy momo's will make up for that. The momo's come in a white plastic container and their bright red sauce contrasted with it starkly. Not exactly what I was expecting for gravy momo's, but hey, 200 reviews can't be wrong, right? I opted for the chicken variant which was an extra $1.50 up-charge from the base vegetarian option. In total the large pizza, momo's, and sauces totaled $39.55, with delivery and tip the total was $50 flat.

Time to try them and see what this is all about.

Time to eat

A close up of the orange gravy momo's All right these gravy momo's are certainly not in gravy, but they're tasty. They're momo's sitting in a relatively spicy curry sauce. Well, some kind of sauce, and lots of it. They're definitely tasty, but spicier than I would have thought. I'm certainly not mad at the amount of sauce, but there it enough that I'll have a lot leftover. Likely I'm going to dip some of my pizza in the sauce (and still have some leftover after that). This all being said, good as they are, they are not the droplets from heaven that they described on Google reviews. They're halfway decent dumplings sitting in spicy sauce.

Xpress Pizza Sauce As for the pizza itself... The pizza was fine. I don't think there were any particular stand out qualities. If I had to choose one I might say that the pepperonis were nicely crisp, but the pepperoni's themselves were classic fast food pepperonis on a classic fast food pizza. The garlic sauce (as expected) was very mid and nothing to be too excited about.

They put AI in Pizza

A screenshot of AI generated background from their menu Something that has to be mentioned is that seemingly ever image of food on Xpress Pizza House's menu is AI generated. They put an insert in the delivery bag as well, with a bunch of AI generated promotional images. It looks like the only thing with an actual image on their website is their milkshakes, beyond that it's all AI generated nonsense. I of course have my own internal feelings about AI and the honest I expect when I look at a menu, but those are out of scope for a discussion about the quality of their food.

Verdict

Overall this pizza experience was mid to fine. I likely wouldn't return here as Gino's is certainly better both in experience and in quality. Nothing was stand-out bad but nothing was stand-out good, an absolutely middling experience.

Addendum

The next day I am feeling awful. While I don't think it's food poisoning it's a step shy of it. Probably the worst I felt after having pizza; certain more than just a pizza hangover due to all the sodium. I might have to knock down Express Pizza and additional 0.5 to 1 star due to making me feel so unwell.

This being said I'm going to have the rest of my pizza for lunch.