Week in (Semi) Reviews: Miss Irene Does Pizza

We're pretty sure that there are lots of new restaurants still up for review (or revisits), but this week, The Virbilator opts to take a tour of Los Angeles' booming pizzeria scene (by our modest count, this is the third time in five weeks that she hasn't filed on a restaurant proper, but we digress). Anyway, she starts her tour at the granddaddy of the LA pizza movement, Spago, which holds up "just fine, actually." She then heads to some of the usual suspects of all shapes and sizes, with encouraging snippets for most: Pizzeria Mozza ("They're pretty much all terrific"), Angelini Osteria, Gjelina ("the pizzas [here] ... keep getting better"), Pizzeria Ortica, Riva ("The crust has had some glitches, mostly in consistency"), Huckleberry, Antica and finally, Bollini's Pizzeria Napolitana in Monterey Park, where "upgrading the quality of the topping ingredients would raise these pizzas to another level." [LAT]

THE ELSEWHERE & THE BLOGS: Miles Clement rides shotgun in the LAT today at Old Town Orange's Scottie's Smokehouse, the OCR finds Slow Fish has improved vastly since opening, Foodventures has a special foodventure at One Sunset, Eating LA goes to Palate post-Bruni, Dig Lounge is at Galbi-n-Kimchi, and last but not least, LA Eastside tackles Kogi Mania and shares the following gem of a line: "I must say it’s my first experience being at a food truck that have their own skinny security dude in full security gear sans gun."

[Spago photo via Flickr]