Battle Downtown Santa Ana $5 Happy Hour Pizzas!

I bounce back and forth between The Crosby and Memphis in downtown
SanTana depending on what I want to eat. If I'm looking for Crosby chef
(and half-Mexi!) Aron Habiger to wow me with his monthly menu, I drop
by and read the magazines I bought at Rags next door. If I want the
comfort of a Cobra sandwich, or perhaps a po' boy, Memphis is for me.

Happy
hour, though, is where I get torn. Both make killer Manhattans, and
both offer great $5 happy hour pizzas, each with their own allure but in
vastly different sizes. I order each at least twice a month, depending on who I'm meeting and where–love them both, but which is the master of hipsters?

Click after the jump for my comparison, and behold the blurry photos I took of each!

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If you're with a group, the Crosby pizza is perfect. For 5 bucks, they deliver a gargantuan disc in the thin-crust tradition, baked with stretchy cheese and fresh tomato sauce (if you want pepperonis, you can have 'em–and it's still $5!). Habiger and his crew slightly burn the bottom, the better to lend crispiness. I can finish this pizza easily, but then again, I'm a glutton; one slice will do for a soul. My main problem with this pizza is the hot sauces that accompany it–while I like Sriracha and Tabasco, they don't have a Mexican hot sauce option. ¿Qué que?

Behold Memphis' $5 Happy Hour Pizza–smaller by half than the one at the Crosby, but also more gourmet. Those green bits you see aren't jalapeños but okra; the tomato slices are fresh and bouncy; the arugula, great. And they have Cholula, Tapatío AND Louisiana hot sauce to spike up the pie. It'll fill you fine for five, but I always find the cheese disappointingly rubbery–I like it, but this fromage is a letdown given the foodie quality of the rest of the ingredients.

Gustavo Arellano