Thursday, October 29, 2009
Needed tweaks aside, Tech Pizza's rolls rule
Tom Angleberger knows what he likes. So we've asked him to eat at NRV restaurants and write about them. If you have a restaurant to recommend,
e-mail him. Tom Angleberger
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As the swallows return to Capistrano, so does the pizza buffet return to Kabrich Street.
Blacksburg's midtown Pizza Hut closed a while back, reopened as a different restaurant and closed again.
Now the building is a pizza shop again with a very similar, if not identical, setup to Pizza Hut. However, it has a new name, new pizza, a full menu and enough orange and maroon paint to cover Lane Stadium.
I have to say upfront that I was not altogether pleased with my visit there.
But there's nothing wrong that couldn't be improved with a little attention to detail:
Offering more pizza variety on the buffet.
Checking salad bar items for freshness.
Restocking bathroom soap and paper towels.
A cheaper price for children.
Those sorts of things.
Although the cheese pizza I tried from the buffet was pretty good, it's the Tech Rolls that are the smorgasbord standouts. These are small rolls of dough filled with barbecue chicken or other pizza toppings.
I'm not sure how similar these Tech Rolls are to the legendary Crusties from Chancey's in Radford, but I would not be surprised to see them become a college student favorite in Blacksburg.
I tried a Tech Roll stuffed with cheese and pepperoni: delicious.
The BBQ chicken rolls seemed strange at first, but they could easily become addictive. It would be quite easy to sit there eating Tech Roll after Tech Roll watching sports on one of the three big-screen TVs. Or to call up late at night and order 40 of them delivered to your dorm room.
The buffet also features cheese steak sub sections and something all too rare in Blacksburg -- a salad bar. It was pretty well-stocked with veggies, but a little short on dressing options.
The dine-in/takeout menu offers all of the above as well as pasta dishes, buffalo wings, calzones, subs and, for dessert, baklava.
Bottom line: Tech Pizza's Tech Rolls could become a Tech favorite. The restaurant itself needs a little tweaking, however.
