Pizzeria Mario Espresso - Hiroshima

They say you can't judge a book by its cover but when it comes to judging western restaurants in Asia I usually judge them by the quality of English employed in their menu.  As in, if it says Serveral kinds of saues can be seleeted and some of the choices are Block pepper sauce Retchup and Mexico cilliy sauce, I'm not expecting too much.  Although the place was super cozetastic and had what I would describe as an up-north cabin on the coast of Maine nautical theme (for some reason), the menu could use review by someone who speaks English at greater than an age 4 level.  Therefore, for this and other reasons, including, but not limited to, that I was in Japan, I had my doubts.

Nonetheless, it gives me much joy to whole-heartedly report that their pizza is AWESOME in all capitals, which means I'm not kidding around.  After a somewhat depressing day learning about nuclear war and wandering around in the rain NOT attending a baseball game (it was rained out), this was just what I needed.

The crust at this place is the kind of crust you dream about at night.  Well it is the kind I dream about at night, at least. Soft, chewy, bubbly, slightly crispy at the slightly burnt places. I mean COME ON.  Doesn't this look delicious?

Topped off with some deliciously tasty tomatoes and fresh mozzarella - I felt like I was in heaven. Which is weird, because I was in Hiroshima (one of the top ten most non-heaven like places in the world).  

At the time of eating, I declared this was the best pizza in Asia.  Maybe I was a little hasty but next time you are in Hiroshima you should definitely consider Pizzeria Mario Espresso in between stuffing your face with okonomiyaki (which you should also do).

Crust: 10
Sauce: 10
Toppings: 8
Ambiance: 9
VFM: 9
Overall: 10

Pizzeria Mario Espresso

Kind of near the Parco department store...
This may or may not be the address: 7-9 Fukuromachi, Hiroshima

Jaspas Junk Pizza

While I'm often known to say: "There's nothing better than a delicious pizza" I found out recently on a Jaspas junk that "There is nothing better than a delicious pizza served al fresco on the top deck of a junk in the middle of the South China Sea on a lovely day after having had 8 beers."

For being made on a boat, this is surprisingly good pizza. The crust is chewy but not too much so, and there is a good amount of cheese. For some reason I really like the fact that they cut it up into really thin slices. My only complaint is the sauce - it is a little tomato pastey...

Needless to say, if Henry Hudson had cooked up some Jaspas pizza back in June of 1611 his sailors on the Discovery would not have mutinied and set him adrift with his son John in Hudson Bay leading to his eventual death.

Crust: 7
Sauce: 5
Toppings: 8
Ambiance: 10
VFM: 9
Overall: 7

Jaspas Junks
Tel: 2792 6001

Pizza Milano

It is axiomatic to state that there are very few good outdoor dining options in Hong Kong.  I suppose this could have something to do with the heat, humidity, pollution, lack of sidewalk space, cockroaches, high floor area ratio and a general propensity of this city's residents to prefer air conditioned areas to the outdoors.  The relatively unknown Pizza Milano is one of the few rooftop restaurants in Central.  It doesn't really have a view per se, but there's nothing like that grand old Hong Kong feeling of being completely surrounded by hundreds of buildings to make up for the lack of view.  Am I right?

Thought so.  Now on to the pizza.  I'm delighted to say it was actually pretty good.  I might even come back for it even if they didn't have a rooftop beer garden.  The crust was thin but not too crunchy, and I'm a sucker for golden delicious air bubbles, as shown here:

As the toppings, sauce etc. were not particularly remarkable other than that there was an adequate amount of cheese which I appreciate, the only thing I have left to say about this place is that the service teetered ominously on the precipice of horrendous. [I should get a part time job writing high school vocabulary review worksheets, yes?]  At one point, we had to call the restaurant on a cell phone to ask them to deliver a San Miguel we ordered twenty minutes previously. It was delivered within 30 seconds after that, but still.  No one should have to go through that much effort for a beer as crappy as San Miguel.

Crust: 9

Sauce: 7

Toppings: 8

Ambiance:  7 (this is the average of a 9 for the rooftop beer garden and 5 for the spotty service)

VFM: 7

Overall: 8

Pizza Milano

9/F, Cheung Hing Commercial Building

No. 37-43 Cochrane Street (directly to the west of the Lyndhurst Terrace Pizza Express, next to 7-11. The entrance is on Gage Street)

Central

2581 2848

For more on rooftop terraces in the Kong, see here.

Pizza Simpatico

I hate that phenomenon where everyone tells you something is really good and then you expect it to be really good so then when you go and it's just sort of ordinary you are really disappointed. This accurately describes my experience with the movie Crash (which won the Oscar for best picture in 2004) and Pizza Simpatico (which won best pizza in Timeout HK for 2009).
Well kiddos, it's 2010 and I don't think Pizza Simpatico is going to make the varsity squad this year.  I'm not sure if this says more about the deliciousness of Pizza Simpatico, or my extremely refined and sophisticated pizza palate.
First, the ambiance was a little too operating room and a little light on the coze.  Strike one.  The toppings could have been fresher, more delicious, more plentiful, etc.  Strike two.  Lastly, I'm still annoyed that this was voted best pizza in Hong Kong. Because it isn't. Strike three.

On a positive note, the oven looked 2 legit 2 quit. Perhaps with extensive training of their staff by someone with an extremely refined and sophisticated pizza palate, they could put that puppy to work.

Crust: 5

Sauce: 5

Toppings: 5

Ambiance: 5 (However...I'd give them another chance if the weather were ever perfect for patio pizza dining)

VFM: 5

Overall: 5

Pizza Simpatico

Shop 19, 1/F, Peak Galleria, 118 Peak Road

The Peak

2849-0001

UPDATE:  Now closed.

This changes the pizza landscape

Domino's Pizza (NYSE: DPZ) released its quarterly earnings this week, and boy oh boy were they CRAZY!  You can read all about it here, but its save to say that I was right. Domino's does rule.

Also, for those of you out there looking for a good gift for me, a subscription to Pizza Today would probably be pretty sweet.

Pizzazorama Part II

For this installment of my adventures in home pizza mediocrity, I took a mulligan on two recipes I've tried and liked before.  

For the first pizza, I went with Pizzazorama Part I - Tony G's New York style crust. I still really like this crust because it is delicious and easy to work with.  I used Hong Kong Flour Mills Golden Statue Bread Flour, which I like for a few reasons which I will not discuss here because it's boring.  But if you knew anything about me, you'd probably guess one of the reasons involves availability at Wellcome instead of at an expensive expat grocery store a mile away.

Look mom! A pizza that is actually shaped like a circle instead of an amorphous blob!

Not for long lil Duff, you have no clue how to properly use a pizza peel.  Sorry, try again.

The below uses what has become my favorite one-day crust (as in, does not require overnight cold fermentation) which you can find here under Candidate Number 2.   The edges still ended up a bit crispy but I will fix that next time with olive oil...which is what I also said last time but forgot.  Geeze I should totally like keep a record of what I do each time I make a pizza in the form of an internet journal complete with recipes, pictures and commentary or something so I don't forget these things.
Also, in case you haven't found out yet, Mexican pizza is delicious (Happy Cinco de Mayo Amigos!).  Using chorizo as done here (available at Wellcome, surprisingly) has the double benefit of being (1) delicious and (2) better for lazy people because it eliminates any work and/or forethought required in actually making taco meat.

I'm thinking I need to come up with a signature sign off a la Walter Cronkite or Ron Burgundy so I don't just end posts awkwardly with a picture of a misshapen pizza.  Thoughts?

Black Sheep Cafe

I was planning on parking it on the couch with eighteen episodes of Gossip Girl and some melted cheese last Saturday but NO of course it had to be absolutely perfect beautiful sunny weather for the first time since December so I was forced to go outside and hike Dragon's Back to Shek-O. Luckily my unhealthy habits prevailed and I still ended up at a pizza place.  I will work on the Gossip Girl situation at a later date.  Such as during a typhoon.

I usually associate Shek-O with overpriced, mediocre Thai food.  I can tell you that you are going to have a hard time convincing me to go to one of those places again knowing what I know about the delicious 'za available.

Firstly and most importantly the crust.  The crust on the first two pizzas we ordered could have been cooked longer, therefore we didn't like it very much, as evidenced by the following:

Actually it was good, but we ordered a third pizza and the crust was nearing perfection.

We went with the margherita, magic mushroom and Planet Cheese (capitalized due to its status as a proper noun describing a particular place) pizzas.  The magic mushroom pizza had white sauce which was nastastic, but other than that the tomato sauce on the others was actually really good - not too thick, no tomato paste flavor and not too strong.

The Planet Cheese and margherita pizzas were virtually indistinguishable but that may have been our fault for nixing the anchovies on the latter.  Although since when do margherita pizzas have anchovies?  I would have gone with slightly more cheese here but its not a fatal flaw.  

The ambience is cozetastic and perfect for sitting outside if it's not too hot.  One thing that I don't understand is the back room which is filled with black lights and the accoutrements that usually accompany them...but I guess it goes with the magic mushroom pizza?  In any event, don't let that fool you into thinking you can come here on a college stoner's budget...the munchies to dollar spent ratio is a bit low.  

Crust: 9

Sauce: 9

Toppings: 7

Ambiance: 7

VFM: 6

Overall: 8...but I'm leaning towards a 9

Black Sheep Cafe

Somewhere on Shek O Road

2809 2021