Pizza delivered to your door is no longer just a service, it's an iconography. Generations of filmmakers have known that a long panning shot over piles of cardboard pizza boxes, preferably complete with half eaten pizza, shows the viewer that "our hero" is going through a tough patch. So het up about his girlfriend/ family/ criminal tendencies is he that even boiling an egg is beyond him and "dialling out" is the only option.
The other bit-part traditionally held by the delivery pizza is the subtle but vital role it plays in the cop movie. You know the scene; there's dissension in the department, the sergeant's made a few unpopular moves but suddenly a new lead turns up. Everyone pitches in to crack the case, the "sarge" orders pizza all around, and over a big slice of pepperoni and mushroom, a whole load of bonding goes on. Of course, they also work out who did it - as soon as you see that pizza delivery boy arrive you just know the baddie's about to get it.
With the arrival of Friends and all its spin-offs, delivery pizza got a whole new starring role. Having a pizza delivered suddenly meant you had friends, fun, a life and a whole set of cheesy Polaroids to prove it. Phoebe, Rachel, Chandler et al are usually having such a good time that it's unnecessary for them to leave the apartment at all; getting pizza delivered into their hermetically sealed lives is the perfect answer. Delivery pizza - the seventh Friend.
In Ireland, home-delivered pizza isn't a statement like it is in the heady realms of Hollywood. If we ring for a pizza we're usually just saying "Hungry. Need food. Now," rather than giving some complex message about our socioeconomic state or psychological welfare. Ordering pizza is something that just about everybody does, as long as they live in a city or suburbs - there aren't too many companies willing to trek up the mountains of Mourne or across to the islands in order to satisfy a craving for ham and pineapple pizza.
Still, it can be a fairly dicey undertaking. Unless you have a favourite pizza joint that you call every time, you can be left looking at a greasy, soggy frisbee. We decided to give some of the pizza chains and a couple of independent outfits a trial run to see how their products compared. The order was for a large pizza with varying toppings and the panel was looking at the service, speed of arrival and heat of the pizza as well as its quality, quantity and presentation.
The Traditional Pizza and Pasta CoOutlets in Rathgar, Tallaght, Clondalkin, Santry and Phibsboro in Dublin
DEFINITELY the friendliest service when we ordered at the Rathgar branch, and our pepperoni and mushroom pizza arrived in almost exactly the halfhour promised. It looked good with a thin but not too soggy base and a nice crunchy crust. However, everyone agreed that the pizza was definitely on the cool side, and many of the testers thought it was rather bland. The tomato sauce also came under attack with comments ranging from "Low on tomato sauce - in fact, where is it?" to "A bit synthetic".
Price; a 16-inch pizza with two toppings cost £10.10 with no deliv- ery charge when the bill is more than £5.
Pinheads Pizza Outlets at South Circular Road and Rathgar, Dublin
WE had heard good things about this one and were looking forward to a pizza from an independent company. Delivery took 50 minutes - we were promised between 20 and 30 minutes and we live not far from the South Circular Road outlet. I didn't think there was much that could go wrong with a ham and mushroom pizza but apparently there is. It looked good and the toppings were ample but unfortunately the ham was of a very poor quality; "downright unpleasant" one taster remarked. It had a thicker base than the others we tried, and was in fact too thick - doughy and sticky and not nearly hot enough. Didn't go down well.
Price: a 15-inch pizza with two toppings cost £9.60 with a 65 pence delivery charge.
Apache Pizza Dame Street, Dublin 2. The com- pany plans to go countrywide soon.
THIS relative newcomer to the pizza delivery service world boasts the funky slogan "Don't call a cowboy, call an Apache". A request for spinach drew a blank so we went for peppers, black olives and extra cheese - the vegetarian option. This was definitely the most attractive of the pizzas, with a floury, uneven crust and a nice, uneven and authentic-looking shape. It tasted good too, and drew a lot of praise for its rich tomato sauce and because it had exactly the right amount of topping. Unfortunately it fell down on its temperature - everyone commented that it would be far superior if it was actually hot - and on the rather rubbery cheese.
Price: a 16-inch pizza with three toppings cost £10.50 with no delivery charge.
THIS is one of Ireland's biggest pizza delivery chains so we gave them a slightly more challenging order - pepperoni and extra cheese with pineapple on half and sweetcorn on the other half. It arrived quicker than promised and was definitely the hottest of any of the pizzas we tried. However, this proved to be one of the few good things about it. Our team drew particular attention to the sogginess of this pizza; it tasted very wet and fell apart "as soon as I looked at it" claimed one tester. There were also remarks made about the unpleasant pepperoni, rubbery cheese and poor appearance. Not a contender.
Price: a 15-inch pizza with four toppings cost £14.75 with no delivery charge.
Domino Pizza Branches in Rathmines and Dundrum in Dublin
ALTHOUGH our pizza (half anchovy and mushroom, half black olive and mushroom) took rather longer than the promised half-hour to arrive, it was still fairly warm. This was quite a favourite, with everybody picking up on its good, zingy, tomato sauce, tasty, thin base and crunchy crust. A couple of people felt they went almost overboard on the quantity of toppings but a cry did go up "Where's the cheese?" - definitely lacking mozarella. However, for all-round taste, this definitely did well and we also liked the hexagonal box which stopped the pizza sliding around and being destroyed before delivery.
Price; an extra large pizza with three toppings cost £11.90 with no delivery charge.
OVERALL, the standard of the pizzas delivered was disappointing, with soggy bases, rubbery cheese and a rather synthetic tomato sauce the norm. The choice of toppings is unexciting - it may be that the American delivery pizza has made it onto the big screen because pizzerias there offer such delights as artichokes, feta cheese, spinach and prawns. Despite the insulated boxes and bags in which they were uniformly delivered, heat remained a problem and microwaved pizza is downright unpleasant. However, sitting in front of the TV with a glass of wine or a few beers and stuffing yourself with pizza is a fine institution and should not be allowed to die out.
An alternative approach would be to phone ahead to your favourite pizza restaurant, order your goats' cheese, spring onion and tuna pizza and then pick it up yourself. The following restaurants all do a mean pizza and offer a takeaway service. Milano's on Dame Street and Temple Bar; South Street Pizza on South Great George's Street; Pizza Stop on Chatham Lane; Steps of Rome on Chatham Lane; The Gotham Cafe on South Anne Street; Bits and Pizzas on Patrick Street in Dun Laoghaire; Porto Fino's in Howth, and Pizzas 'N' Cream on Albert Walk in Bray.