It's Gung Ho vs. Annie's for All the Mozzarella in the 2015 Pizza Cup

Michael Wester | Nov 16, 2015 2:00 pm | 6 comments | 2530 reads

It's Old School vs. New School in the 2015 Pizza Cup Finals, as Gung Ho defeated Great Leap #45 in their Final Four matchup to earn the right to defend their 2014 crown.

It won't be easy, though: on the other half of the bracket is household name Annie's, who moved past Sureño to reach the final match.

It's now down to these two competitors to see who will take the title of Beijing's Pizza King – or Queen.

Pizza Specialists champion Gung Ho! is battle-tested after reaching the bracket via victories over Pizza Buona, Bottega, Pizza Plus, Tube Station, and finally Great Leap Brewing #45.

Annie's, champs of the Mid-Range Restaurants division, made it to the penultimate match by outdistancing Tiago Home Kitchen, Grandma's, Vineyard Cafe, Eatalia, and Sureño.
 

Meanwhile, the race is also on in the consolation match, featuring Upscale Restaurants division champ Sureño squaring off against Bar/Clubs champ Great Leap Brewing #45.
 

Voting in the Final Four is open until noon on Wednesday (Nov 18); click here to cast your opinion.

There's not a shabby slice in the bunch folks, so make sure you've tried 'em all before you cast an opinion.

In fact, the same can be said of the better part of our entire field of 64 ... there's nary a dud in the bunch.

In our last round of voting we asked you to rank the contestants that were eliminated before the start of the Final Four; we'll use this data as a starting point next year when seeding the 2016 Pizza Cup. With this, here's our almost completed list of Beijing's Best Pizza for 2015:

5. Pizza Plus
6. Ramo
7. Tavola
8. Eatalia

Add these to the rankings from the previous round, and we have everyone through # 97:

9. La Pizza
10. Tube Station
11. Mao Mao Chong
12. Vineyard Café
13. Loft Eatalicious
14. Haven
15. Mio, Four Seasons Hotel
16. Prego, Westin Financial Street
17. Pizza Express
18. Hutong Pizza
19. The Tree
20. Bottega
21. Bocca Della Verita
22. Sugar Shack
23. Q Mex
24. Luga's Villa
25. The Rug
26. Assaggi
27. Scott's Family Ristorante Italiano
28. Grandma's Kitchen
29. iFresh Pizza
30. Alio Olio
31. Via Roma, Kempinski Hotel
32. Park 17
33. Kro's Nest
34. Pie Squared
35. Xian Bar
36. The Den
37. Whale's Pizza
38. Pizza by LMPlus
39. Isola
40. Stuff'd
41. Jazz-Ya
42. Pizza View by Opera Bombana
43. Peter Pan
44. Kitchen Igosso
45. Flypizza & Hoodadak Chicken
46. The Local Bar and Grill
47. Lily's American Diner
48. Yummy Box
49. Pizza Buona
50. Nasca Cafe
51. The Irish Volunteer
52. Fratelli Fresh
53. Elisa's
54. The Veggie Table
55. Tiago Home Kitchen
56. Bene
57. Mrs Shanen's / Green Cow Cafe
58. FA Cafe
59. Charlie's
60. Passby Bar
61. Mixs Italian Grill
62. Casalingo
63. Agrilandia
64. Michael’s Place
65. Papa John's Pizza
66. Pizza Hut
67. Mr. Pizza
68. New York Style Pizza
69. 1st Floor
70. Red House
71. Domino's
72. Ricci Café
73. Lakers
74. Eudora Station Bar and Restaurant
75. Pizza Now
76. Windy City
77. Peter's Tex-Mex
78. Hercules
79. Frost
80. Time Cafe
81. PBD Pizza Bar
82. Miss Pizza
83. Mr. Fabbro
84. Alba
85. Pizza Maru
86. Nanjie
87. Parkside Bar & Grill
88. Abella
89. Cafe del Mar
90. Yonmeike
91. The West Pizza Pub
92. Monkey Mountain Club
93. Skyline Café
94. Fuel
95. Old Town Roses
96. Bella Vista
97. Yi Lai Er Qu

For those of you following at home, here's our bracket so far:

Images: the Beijinger

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admin's picture admin Submitted by Guest on Wed, 11/18/2015 - 13:08

Another Guest wrote:

I'm still waiting for the first annual hotdog cup!  I agree, too many of these silly fast food voting competitions.

if and when there are 160 hot dog places in beijing, we might consider it

Books by current and former Beijinger staffers

http://astore.amazon.com/truerunmedia-20

admin's picture admin Submitted by Guest on Wed, 11/18/2015 - 08:11

Spiderman121 wrote:
The only reason I see if they may enjoy Annie's is that they are Chinese and don't know any better, or that they have a family and like that is is of resonable value. But best PIZZA's, you've got to be kidding me

Please read the previous comment above.

Aw heck I guess reading comprehension is not your strong suit so I will excerpt below:

Admin wrote:
Interestingly for those that are under the assumption that Annie's is popular because Chinese people don't understand pizza -- we've interviewed 5 Chinese people as part of the series, and only 1 (or 20% of them) recommended Annie's. Eight of 19 (or 42%) foreigners we talked to recommend Annie's. Ipso facto, Annie's appears to much more well-regarded amongst foreigners than Chinese.

Books by current and former Beijinger staffers

http://astore.amazon.com/truerunmedia-20

admin's picture admin Submitted by Guest on Tue, 11/17/2015 - 08:36

And to answer your question: yes, fewer people vote in each round. The initial round had about 8,000 votes (round of 64) while the last completed round (the final four) had about 2,000. Usually this final round will end up with more than the Final Four.

It's pretty simple to understand: at the beginning, there are (up to) 64 pizza places actively soliciting votes from their followers. At the end, the 62 eliminated venues are not motivated to push voting.

Books by current and former Beijinger staffers

http://astore.amazon.com/truerunmedia-20

admin's picture admin Submitted by Guest on Tue, 11/17/2015 - 08:30

Have you taken a look at our Pizza My Mind series?

We have interviewed 24 people so far:

thebeijinger.com/category/blog-tags/pizza-my-mind

Guess which places have been mentioned more than any others?

Annie's and Gung Ho.

Nine of these people mentioned Annie's, while 10 mentioned Gung Ho.

(Pizza Plus, who has ended this year's rankings at #5, has the third most mentions, at 8).

None of these people look like they have been bribed by Annie's or Gung Ho to recomend them.

They also represent a fairly wide spectrum of pizza lovers.

Interestingly for those that are under the assumption that Annie's is popular because Chinese people don't understand pizza -- we've interviewed 5 Chinese people as part of the series, and only 1 (or 20% of them) recommended Annie's. Eight of 19 (or 42%) foreigners we talked to recommend Annie's. Ipso facto, Annie's appears to much more well-regarded amongst foreigners than Chinese.

If you take a look at the text of their articles, each person makes fairly rational arguments for their choices.

Annie's and Gung Ho are not my two favorite pizza spots, but I enjoy them both (actually I prefer Gung Ho's salads and Annie's chicken ravioli)

So, say what you will about the question of does popularity = quality, but there's no doubt in my mind that we have two of the most well-regarded pizzerias in town in the championship round.

Books by current and former Beijinger staffers

http://astore.amazon.com/truerunmedia-20

TX_Chick's picture TX_Chick Submitted by Guest on Tue, 11/17/2015 - 08:13

Really? I can see Gungho making it this far, but Annies? But I didn't even bother to vote. I like a lot of different pizzas from a lot of different places. I'm so tired of all these contests. Please give us a break!

It would be interesting to see the final tally of the total number of voters, but not the total number of votes. You can't count someone who votes every round. I'm guessing the number gets smaller every contest.

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