Hello and welcome to my first blog about my favourite foodstuffs - pizza!
This is my Italian pizza adventure - part 1 of 4
Please note, the opinions in this blog may have been affected by the following variables:1. How hungry I was at the time of consumption (sidenote - I am almost always hungry for pizza)
2. How much wine/beer I had consumed (in most cases I was at least tipsy)
3. How hot it was outside (fucking hot, pretty much 99% of the time)
4. How nice the waiters were (varied a fair bit - places lose points for rude waiters)
Generally I tried to give an honest lowdown and description of the various pizzas I ate whist vacationing in Italy - hope you enjoying reading about them almost as much as I enjoying eating them! (not really gonna happen).
1st pizza – Popi pizza
Similar to the Spanish, Italians tend to eat quite late in
the evening. So even though it was past 5pm when we set off from the apartment
in Rome in search of my first taste of genuine Italian pizza, it was
not quite yet dinnertime & the restaurant recommended by our host was still
closed.
Where there is an insatiable appetite for cheesy goodness however,
there is a way to find pizza, & consequently we managed to find a small
shop on the corner that sold it by the
slice.
In all honesty, the slice did look delicious. I chose onion
as a topping, and it was so chock a block with the bulbaceous vegetable that I
neglected to notice there was no tomato sauce on the pizza. Uh oh… without the
sauce there was no lubrication for the pizza to slide down into my belly, and
although the base was super crisp & tasty, twas too dry to be enjoyable.
Also, if I order onion on my fricking pizza, I want to be able to TASTE onion.
I did not.
A terrible start to my pizza introduction in Rome, my heart
was deflated & I could only muster a score of 5.5 out of 10.
Popi pizza?
More like poopy pizza.
(In hindsight even this score was too generous, I would downgrade it to a 4)
2nd pizza – Formula 1
So, it turned out the restaurant recommended by our host was
most definitely NOT suitable for vegetarians (the whole set up was basically
hunks of meat in a glass counter as you walk in… the chef hacks off a chunk of
flesh and grills it to your order – no pizza or even halloumi in sight).
Not to be put off by this series of unfortunate events
(also, cafes are called bars in Italy… no beer in most of them) we headed down
to San Lorenzo on a recommendation from a younger & more informed Italian
friend.
Formula 1 was pretty busy outside, a good sign! Most of
the reviews you read about Italians pizzas places seem to indicate that the
busier the establishment looks – the better the pizza will taste. I decided to go for a classic margherita this
time – no messin.
When it arrived it was slightly pale & not as delicious
looking as the first pizza I ordered - even if it did look heaps more
authentic. The topping was so cheesy
& gooey that it slid readily down my gullet, but the sauce was a little
lacking in richness (especially compared with pizzas I ate at a later date)
& I had the misfortune of eating a massive burnt bit from the crust that
was yuck. This was better than the first pizza, but only just! 6 outta 10
3rd Pizza - Pizza Cir
After walking around seeing the sites in the blazing sun for
hours, we decided it was time to find pizza place number three. I had already
prayed outside the Santa Maria church that this time - the pizza would be
good. WELL MAYBE THERE IS A GOD (at
least one for pizza) coz this lunch was fucking A!
First off – the waiter took one look at Tiff and bought her
over a super mega size wine glass, so + points for him spotting the red wine
alcoholic in the group.
I ordered the Bufala pizza – a slight upgrade on a regular
margherita as it comes with mozzarella made from Buffalos MILK (richer &
creamier than your average mozzarella) & fresh tomato.
MY FIRST TRUE ITALIAN PIZZA MOMENT HAD FINALLY ARRIVED.
It was loaded with super plump & juicy ripe tomatoes;
the cheese was heaped generously in little piles of gooey heaven; the sauce was
tangy & had a mouth-watering depth of flavour; the base was soft, chewy
& flavourful, and as you can see from the photo, it had puffed up
beautifully at the edges and formed a super delicious (non burnt) crust.
Also, check it – extra points for spicy condiments!
MY FIRST SLICE OF PIZZA HEAVEN! 9 outta 10! (holding back
that one point as I don’t wanna get too
overexcited at my first good pizza and go all out with a 10 – still believe the
best is yet to come)
4th pizza – KISS
My mum decided to get to sleep relatively early, so Tiff
& I went on a late night pizza mission. The place we had looked up with
amazing reviews was closed (damn you internet for lying to us) but we meandered
back towards our accommodation & managed to find one super tacky looking
pizza takeaway place just down the road from us called KISS pizza… and they had
BEER! (I think you can tell that from the above picture). Score.
The guys in there were super friendly, and the manager had
the most bizarrely good American accent that totally duped me into thinking he
could speak English - when he had in fact only learnt a few key phrases that he
could repeat to perfection.
Aside from the great service, we really weren’t
expecting much so were pleasantly surprised upon opening the pizza box back at
home & seeing a relatively decent looking pie covered with rocket &
tomato with a dabs of requested hot sauce.
The sauce however, wasn’t generous (the tomato sauce OR the hot sauce) and the crust was so overdone it broke
into shards in your mouth. Not pleasant.
Still better than the first 2 pizzas I
had though! A drunken 8.5 outta 10!
(I didn't think it was that good when I sobered up but the beer obviously helped them score higher)
5th pizza - Pizzeria da Marco
After a hard day s(trolling) the Vatican, making fun of the
Pope, & taking pictures of me making out with my girlfriend in various holy
places – we met up with some friends and stopped off for a spot of well
deserved lunch. It was, to be fair, a pretty touristy place to invest in some
pizza, but so close to God it seems like you had no option but to be ripped
off.
This pizza, as you would expect, was decidedly average.
The cheese was not as fresh or tasty as the previous pizzas
I had experienced, and the base was doughier & much more dense. I think the Dr Oetker funghi pizza that I get from my local
Turkish shop back in London is probably on par with this one.
Also the chilli oil was not spicy, what’s up with that?! I
just ended up with an oily fuckin pizza. My scores are getting harsher - 6/10.
That concludes part 1 of my Pizza adventures in Italy! Part 2 coming very soon... next time featuring pizza from the BIRTHPLACE of the heavenly food - Naples!
