Pizza in Humble

RC’s Pizza satisfies patrons with a palate-pleasing menu of sumptuous New York–style pizza, pasta, subs, and salads. The restaurant's staple, an 18-inch NY Giant pizza ($13.50 plus $1.75 for each topping) treats tongue buds to a taste of the Big Apple without the hassle of licking Times Square. All disk-shaped digestibles are forged from the kitchen's fresh-made pizza dough, such as the pepperoni- and italian-sausage-laden Sluggo pie ($18.75 for 18") or the white pie ($17 for 18"), which substitutes RC's house-made sauce with a blissful blend of ricotta, mozzarella, and soft mood lighting. RC's lasagna ($8.95) and jumbo meat or cheese ravioli ($8.95) hoist the banner for pillowy pastas, and the meaty, 8-inch Italiano sub silences gossiping bellies with genoa salami, provolone cheese, and a side of chips ($7.50). Greens lovers may graze upon a spicy antipasto, greek, caesar, or chef salad ($5.79 for a full order) drizzled with one of RC's four house-made dressings and Mother Nature's happy tears.

It's easy for first-timers looking at ZZ Gators Pizza and Pub's menu to become overwhelmed with all the choices. The staff can bedeck custom pizzas with more than 20 different toppings, which range from traditional items such as pepperoni and sausage to gourmet options such as feta cheese and artichokes. This means that customers craving a three-topping pizza are faced with more than 1,100 different topping combinations. Calculators break when attempting to compute four-topping pizzas. The addition of appetizers further expands the tasty math formula, which scientists have yet to crack because they always wind up passing out from hunger halfway through the process.

DoubleDave's Pizzaworks serves up an assortment of hearty, hand-tossed pizzas, Peproni rolls, stromboli, and more. Choose a pie from DoubleDave's selection of specialty pizzas ($19.99 for an 18", $15.99 for a 15", and $12.99 for a 12”)—the buffalo-chicken pizza outfits its surface area in mozzarella, chicken strips, wing sauce, and ranch dressing, while the duplicitous Dave's Fave offers carnivore-coaxing meatball and sausage or veggie-baiting tomato, garlic, and spinach variations on its olive oil, garlic, and oregano sauce base. Do-it-yourselfers are welcome to design their own pies ($10.99 for a 15", plus $1.59 per topping), choosing size, toppings, and the type of crust, and diners wishing to cram their cuisine into claustrophobic confines can opt for a half-dozen Peproni rolls ($7.99), with pepperoni and cheese wrapped into dough. Or escape the boot-shaped grip of the Mediterranean with a Philly cheesesteak stromboli ($10.99 for large, $5.99 for small).

Papa Murphy's Take 'n' Bake Pizza was born out of the owner's frustration with bad pizza from chains, which often tasted as if every ingredient was canned or frozen. Deciding to change the industry, Papa Murphy's tosses every ingredient, all of which are never frozen, onto the crust in front of the customer's eyes and sends them home to bake in a home oven. This dedication to fresh flavor earned Papa Murphy's the top spot on Zagat's National Chain survey.

Visitors can create their own take on the pizza pie or chomp into one of their signature pizzas, which range from meat-filled stuffed crust to calorie-conscious lite varieties covered in vegetables. Their appetizers and desserts follow the same pattern. Customers order raw cookie dough or cheesy bread ripe for the baking, resulting in every course being fresh from the oven.

Gatti's Pizza paints its signature crust of twice-risen dough with sauce made from a 40-year-old recipe passed down by the founder, Colonel Eure, who started the pie hub's first location in 1969. Real cheeses combine into a unique, smoky blend, forming a flavorful foundation dotted with toppings such as spicy italian sausage, pineapple, pepperoni, and shredded napkins. The menu trots out 10 specialty pies—including the bacon double cheeseburger, the Gatti's Deluxe, and the Superoni, which offers extra helpings of smoked provolone and pepperoni—as well as desserts in the form of cinnamon sticks and dutch apple treat pizzas.

Pizza Milano's kitchen team concocts flavorful casual fare, including inventive pizza pies made with New York–style pesto dough and a red-wine-based marinara sauce. In the Milano cheese sticks, a trio of cheeses infiltrates the New York–style dough, along with their allies, bacon and jalapenos, softening the ground for a coup by marinara or garlic-butter sauce ($8.99). Like rival twins, cheese-stuffed italian meatballs appear in two iterations—ensconced in a parmesan-encrusted hoagie with garlic butter and marinara ($4.99) or nestled atop a bed of pasta and immersed in sauce ($8.99). Specialty pizzas surprise stomachs with creative combinations, such as the refreshing Caribbean pizza, a circular island with flaky-crust shores and an inner terrain of fajita chicken, sweet mango, and fresh pineapple, where a conga line of red onions traipses across a three-cheese blend ($11.99–$15.49). Pizza Milano also decorates plates with pasta creations such as the chicken alfredo, which unites a four-cheese, white-wine-reduced alfredo sauce with parmesan-festooned chicken ($8.99).