For the latest LP Eats food review and for the final pizza review of the third LP Eats series, we headed over to Plungington Road in Preston to sample Toni's...
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00:00Hi everyone, my name's Jack Marshall. I'm a digital reporter with the Lancashire Post
00:07and I'm in our Preston office today. It's getting pretty dark outside as you'll be able
00:12to see. Obviously with the days getting shorter and shorter, we're definitely getting towards
00:17the festive period. So what better way to celebrate the festive period than by capping
00:21off and rounding out our final episode in the LPE's Season 3, looking for Preston's
00:26best pizza. Now today I'm just about to head across the city towards Plungington Road to
00:31try Tony's, which is like I say, the final place we'll be doing. So yeah, I'm not really
00:36keen to get out there. It looks pretty cold, looks pretty nippy, but let's crack on. Someone's
00:40got to do it.
00:41Ayo, pizza secured. Let's get back and try it. It's too cold to be outside.
00:52Hi guys. So when I left here, I had just picked up my pizza from Tony's on Plungington Road.
00:56And I was heading back to our office to have a try. This is the day after now. So I've
01:00tried the pizza, I've made my notes and I thought I'd give you a bit of an update as
01:03to what I thought of the whole thing. Now I've got to say, the vibe in the restaurant
01:08when I first went in there was great. I was really enthusiastic about this. It's got a
01:11lot of reviews, a lot of really positive chat about it. Kind of one of those classic Preston
01:16local takeaway legends. So I was really keen to try it. When I went in, it weren't due
01:20to open until five, but at ten to five when I turned up, I was a little early, they were
01:24already like, it was already open. There were people already in there. There were three
01:27people already ready to queue in, keen to get their hands on a pizza. So I took that
01:31as a really good sign. That was really nice. The staff were really friendly. It's kind
01:34of like a cool, cool little place there. So I like the decor. I like the kind of Italian
01:38flag designs. I like the feel of a classic pizzeria. I like the staff. I like the fact
01:42that it was busy, even though it was literally like 10 to five on a Thursday. Brilliant.
01:46Everything about it was great. Five out of five for the vibe. I'm going on there. I've
01:50got to say, this is when I started having a couple of issues. I got the pizza. It looked
01:56great. My only qualm initially was with the fact that I ordered the closest thing to a
02:02pepperoni, which is a hot and spicy one, which has jalapenos on it as well. I like jalapenos
02:06just as an X-man. That's absolutely fine. But you want your jalapenos to be pretty thin
02:09cut so that you get a bit of a tang. You get a bit of flavor, not huge slices and huge
02:15chunks of it. It's like, you know, you've got a pretty hard pepper in most of your bites.
02:21Not for me, really. Not for me. So I didn't really enjoy that. But anyway, we start with
02:24the dough. The dough was nice and floppy, but almost too floppy. It got to the point
02:30where it was so lacking in structure that it was losing all the toppings on top. All
02:36the cheese was falling off. The sauce was coming off. The pepperoni was long gone. The
02:40jalapenos were so heavy they were tumbling onto the ground. It made it kind of hard to
02:44eat given how unstable it was. Now, like I say, you want a floppy slice of pizza. That's
02:49fine. But you want your dough to be quality where it's got its own flavor and where you're
02:52still going to pick it up and actually eat a slice of pizza. Even if you're going to
02:55have to like support it a little bit, that's fine. But this was just completely collapsing.
02:58So I'm going to give it a 2 out of 5 for the dough. It was okay, flavor-wise. But it didn't
03:04stand out enough and its structure just didn't work. So yeah, I'm being a bit harsh on the
03:082 out of 5 there, but that's how it is. Sauce and cheese, I'm going to be harsh again. It's
03:11a 1 out of 5. The sauce was just, it was there, but it kind of falling off. The cheese
03:16just fell off and was pretty flavorless. There wasn't much to write home about, if I'm honest.
03:20It was just, like I said, I wanted this place to be a proper classic takeaway, a bit of
03:24a hidden gem, but I'm disappointed with the sauce and the cheese as well. If it wasn't
03:30sliding off, it wasn't impressing me. So yeah, not that good at all. It was just, yeah, a
03:35bit underwhelming.
03:36Coming to something a bit more positive, toppings. Now, we discussed the jalapenos already, but
03:41we'll get on to the pepperoni itself. That was quite good. Nice thick discs, good flavor
03:45profile, nothing too uniform, nothing too crazy in terms of saltiness or spice. Really
03:48nice balance. Yeah, that was good. I'm giving them a 3 out of 5 for the toppings. Overall
03:53solid score.
03:54We've touched on the vibe already, so we're coming to value. Now, this whole pizza cost
03:58me £8.30, which I think, given the size of the pizza, it was 12-inch, given the size
04:02of the pizza and the fact that, you know, that's quite a lot of food. Yeah, I'm giving
04:08them a 3.5 out of 5 for value because, like I say, that's a solidly sized pizza for that
04:12price. Quality was slightly lacking, if I do say so myself. It was just a bit underwhelming.
04:19I wanted something just to knock my socks off and it underwhelmed me. I've got to say,
04:24I was really looking forward to this place. It gave a really good first impression and
04:27I was slightly underwhelmed. But anyway, nevermind. That's how it goes. Maybe they just had a
04:31bad night. I'm just passing judgment on what I had. That gives them a total score of 14.5
04:36out of 5. And that, as keen-eyed listeners will know, is the final review in our series.
04:42So stay tuned for next week when we're going to do a bit of a roundup, let everyone know
04:46about scores on the doors, and then we're going to try and speak to the winner to see
04:49what the secret behind Preston's best pepperoni pizza truly is. Thank you so much for watching.
04:55Stay tuned in the new year. We'll be kicking off a new series, looking at some of the cuisine.
04:59Thanks so much for watching again. Really appreciate all the support. And yeah, have
05:02a lovely Christmas in the meantime. Cheers.