Blue Cannon Pizza

Where: 4726 Borgen Blvd., Gig Harbor, 253.851.4800
Hours: Open daily at 11 a.m., close at 9 p.m. Sunday- Thursday, 9:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday
Cuisine: Pizzas, sandwiches, salads, appetizers with specific vegetarian dishes
Scene: Casual, semi-self-serve, kid-friendly environment in primary colors, minimalist decor; slight industrial feel with arcade-style games
Drinkies: Wine, domestic, import bottled and draft beers, fountain drinks, juice and milk.
Prices: $5-$20

ANNOUNCER: Tucked into a newly developed Gig Harbor shopping center that is filled with every imaginable retailer selling pretty much everything under the sun is Blue Cannon Pizza Company. At Blue Cannon it's all about the thin crust. The menu is not creative fusion focused, nor is it a walk on the wild side. Blue Cannon offers eight meat-laden specialty pizzas, five vegetarian pies, five French roll sandwiches and the obligatory salads, hot wings, potato wedges, chicken tenders, bread sticks and the like. All of this goes down in a casual, semi-self-serve, kid-friendly environment.

JASON: I've been hitting the gym pretty fiercely since New Year's and a recent trip to Gig Harbor was my weekly guilt-free cheat day. At Blue Cannon, eight cheese-filled raviolis made a decent appetizer. The inch and a half squares were breaded and a little greasy, but I didn't mind. The marinara they came with was mediocre at best. I know some restaurants try to play it safe by not spicing or seasoning food too much so they will appeal to the general palate, but bland is still bland. A casual place, the décor is fun in an industrial, minimalist way. Primary colors and arcade-style games will absolutely appeal to children.

JAKE: Sometimes I really dig the crispness of thin dough. Other days, when it's gloom city outside, I prefer a thick, pillowy crust that I can really chew. It all depends on my mood. However, with thin crust you rarely get mushy, raw dough. That's why we were surprised to bite into definitely raw crust on a visit in September, during the first two months Blue Cannon Pizza was open. Talk about a joy killer. And our order wasn't made correctly. We'd indicated half white sauce and half red sauce - sadly, the whole pizza was covered in that same mediocre marinara. The toppings were good; it's hard to go wrong with garlic, spinach, feta, red onion and kalamata olives on the Mediterranean. The other half held barbeque chicken pieces, more red onion, bacon and sweetly tangy barbeque sauce drizzled under fresh cilantro sprinkled on after the pizza was cooked.

JASON: It's difficult to know, was the order taken incorrectly or did kitchen staff misread the ticket? Did the chicken or the egg come first? Maybe the cook was busy texting and forgot toppings. Luckily, more recent visits have shown improvement in crust - though order accuracy still needs attention.

JAKE: Yeah, nothing grates my nerves more than traveling a distance to try a new place and then not getting what I ordered. On the bright side, I really liked Blue Cannon's Thai chicken pizza. The sauce was a big hit with us.

JASON: I found myself irritated, too. I also like the Thai chicken pizza, but the menu said sesame seeds. If the Thai pizza had any they stayed in hiding. I was also disappointed in how little chicken there was - at a glance it appeared to have less than half a cup‘s worth, probably less than four ounces. Peanuts, green onion and red onion slices were used heavily. Shifting gears, "The Meaty" pizza is a carnivore's delight packed with balls of Italian sausage, red pepperoni, pinkish ham and crumbled bacon. You could barely see through the meat to the crust. Unfortunately, the ground beef didn't make it onto the pizza; I wonder why skipping ingredients happens so frequently.

JAKE: We gobbled forkfuls of greens and veggies between bites of a Reuben sandwich. Crisp romaine, plentiful black olives, tomato and shredded mozzarella cheese graced a house salad while shaved Parmesan and croutons lay atop a Caesar. The Reuben has mild creamy ranch and Thousand Island dressing spread on a lightly toasted French roll holding a mix of corned beef and pastrami. Caraway seeds gave hint of rye bread and were used liberally. Mozzarella cheese stood in for Swiss; a traditional Rueben this is not. The meat had a nice salted earthiness to it and subtly tart sauerkraut wasn't very strong.

JASON: At the time of our last visit, dessert wasn't offered though we were told deep-fried cheesecake would be available the following week.