Hot Lips Pizza

Name: Hot Lips Pizza
Location: Multiple
Contact information: Hawthorne: 503.234.9999, Pearl: 503.595.2342, Downtown: 503.224.0311, Raleigh Hills 503.297.8424
Web address: www.hotlipspizza.com
Hours: Monday-Thursday 11 a.m.-9 p.m.; Friday-Saturday 11 a.m.-10 p.m.; Sunday 12-9 p.m.
Cost: For a speciality pizza, around $19 for a large and $27 for a giant
Reservation recommended: None taken, but place pizza orders in advance if you don’t want to wait a long time for pick up
Good for: Gourmet, regional-emphasized pizzzzza
Insider tip: Go for the specialty pizzas – you can get cheese and pepperoni anywhere

Review: Hot Lips Pizza is a Portland chain that fights Pizzacato, Pizza Roma and Apizza Scholls, among others, for the best gourmet pizza in town.

The restaurant is heavy on organic, seasonal and local products, and features an ever-changing pizza of the day. Not good at picking toppings that go well together? Hot Lips has an extensive menu of specialty pizzas already picked out. The Juniper Grove Chevre Special with an olive oil base, fresh or sundried tomatoes, mushrooms and goat cheese is excellent.

Hot Lips is also known for their housemade sodas and electric cars that are used to deliver pizzas.

Although the pizza can be fantastically good, it can also be disappointingly boring and bland. I’ve had better luck with carry out than delivery, and for the prices, make sure you’re getting something gourmet. If it’s just plain cheese you want, save yourself $20 bucks and call up Papa Murphy’s.