Restaurant talk

Every week, Advocate editors serve up restaurant news and reviews. Read excerpts below, and for the full reviews and more, visit lakewood. advocatemag.com/dining.

PIEFIVE

Thehospitality Sweet

12.05 A few months ago, a friend took me to a food expert’s workshop to check out his latest idea in fast food: quick personal pizza. The guy let us sample a couple of pizzas quickly cooked on an expensive circular stone pizza oven. The pizzas were good, and it seemed like a good idea. But what would happen, I asked, if one of the big pizza chains decided to get in the business? Wouldn’t it be difficult to beat them at their own game? The guy told me he wasn’t worried. The taste of his pizzas (he was planning to charge somewhere around $8.50 apiece) would be better than a chain’s. Well, that’s what Pizza Inn is doing with Pie Five,near Central Expressway and Henderson in the same strip center as Potbelly sandwich shop. Pie Five’s big deal: a 9-inch personal pan pizza (regular or thin crust) in five minutes or less for $6.49. Pie Five has eight or 10 specials, as well as a make-your-own opportunity to choose among the many meats, veggies and other garnishments. True to promise, the pizza went through a $10,500 Turbo Chef oven similar to what you see at Pot Belly, coming out the other end hot and ready to eat. Also on the menu was a $2.49 small salad and 5-for-a-buck cinnamon dough bits, which we didn’t try but looked like dots of pizza dough coated in butter and cinnamon. According to the Business Journal, Pizza Inn is planning to franchise quite a few Pie Fives over the next few years. —Rick

Wamre

11.14 Once there was cake, and it was good, but today there are myriad manifestations of the baked dessert: cupcakes, cake balls, cake pops, whoopee pies, personal cakes in cute little jars, and the list goes on. The best thing in contemporary cake is the creative, rich, fearless flavors. And, of course, who doesn’t love convenient cake derivatives, those forms that require no utensils or cleanup? Those coveted characteristics helped shape the idea for the cupcake push-ups, by neighborhood residents Meghan Adams and Kristen Adams Scott, founders of The Hospitality Sweet, a baking business the sisters started from home after becoming moms. The five-bite treats function like the old orange ice cream push-ups, but with cake, icing and various fillings as the contents. Oh, and what creative contents they offer — margarita cake layered with tequila lime buttercream, pumpkin roulade with sweetened mascarpone and crystallized ginger and s’mores with toasted marshmallow, to name a few. And, as with all items on the sisters’ sweet menu, the packaging is so aesthetically enjoyable, you almost hate to dig into them. Almost.

—Christina Hughes Babb