Hammy's Pizza: F* your Papa.

Your Humble Narrator (YHM) prefers to cook her own food. There's nothing better than slicing fresh veggies, frying garlic in olive oil, seeing the contentment in other people's eyes when they bite into some nutritiously decadent treat that was a raw and dirty heap of ingredients only an hour before. Restaurant meals are nice once in awhile, but YHM is usually regretful when the check comes, because it only serves as a reminder of how much more pleasant and inexpensive it is to cook at home. I also like my own food better because I can make it just the way I like it.

Still, occasionally it becomes inconvenient to cook. At the moment I'm sick, due to my first real winter in years; I'm originally from the South and have spent the past five years in tropical Australia and Los Angeles, so I'm stoned on cold and allergy meds only three weeks into my new life in Portland. I did whip up a mighty fine soup the other night from fresh garlic, onion, cabbage, carrot, potato, and lentils in a broth based on red wine and vinegar... but mostly I just want someone else to fuel me up so I can sleep off the drugs.

So this is the time for a restaurant review, and what better candidate than Hammy's Pizza? They're famous in Portland for delivering pizza until 4 a.m. (and starting in time for early lunch, too). With hours like that they could just as easily deliver Totino's Party Pizza to late-night stoners and still turn a tidy profit, but instead they're kneading excellent crusts from scratch and topping it with fresh, seasonal ingredients from local sources. Their sauce is transcendent, smooth and thick, oozing from under the cheese with a decadence that belies its nutritional value. And thank G-d for real vegetables! Where the chains will serve you a "veggie pizza" with onions and canned mushrooms in place of genuine produce, Hammy's will offer you anything you want. Artichoke hearts? Pine nuts? Eggs? No problem. All fresh and all there, piled so high that even the smallest slice requires two hands for balance to keep it all off your lap.

All the pizzas at Hammy's are also available as calzones, folded into a crust as simultaneously dense and flaky as Britney Spears. You do have to ask for dipping sauce (unfortunate - with a calzone that should be a given), but the cheerful, efficient service makes up for that. In the late night Hammy's delivers almost everywhere in Portland and still somehow manages to do it all quickly. So if it's pizza you want - and let's face it, everyone alive wants pizza as often as we can get it - Hammy's is one of the few restaurants that does it better than homemade. Eff your Papa. Call the place with the silly name instead.