King Arthur Perfect Pizza Flour Blend, Pizza Dough Flavor and Pizza Seasoning

As a result of my mom being awesome, I received King Arthur pizza dough flavor, pizza seasoning and perfect pizza flour blend for my birthday. As a result of me being a huge nerd, this was basically the best birthday present ever. Except for my pink and purple Huffy bike (1985). But this was definitely up there for this millennium.

First, let me say that you should all really be buying your flour exclusively from North Dakota Mill in Grand Forks, N.D., the largest flour mill in the U.S. and the only state-owned milling facility.   We all know good bread/pizza crust starts with good flour, right? Right. And we all know good everything starts with North Dakota, right? Right.  However, if you really must buy your flour from outside America's heartland, King Arthur (based in Vermont) is a good choice and their website is helpful if you run into trubs with almost any kind of baking experiment.

King Arthur Perfect Pizza Flour Blend

According to the package, this is basically a mix of all purpose flour and durum flour with some baking soda. Or is it baking powder? No, soda.  I did a very unscientific experiment which kind of didn't really make sense since the King Arthur blend has additional leavening agents in it by making the recipe on the back of the package with Perfect Pizza Blend flour and Arrowhead Mills unbleached all purpose flour.  Let's just say if making pizza dough were a jousting tournament, King Arthur totally knocked the other guy off the horse and then had his horse step on the other guy's face. Compared to many other pizza doughs I've tried, the dough was very easy to work with, did not tear or roll back and was easy to toss and shape.  The outcome was also impressive, resulting in a crispy on the outside, chewy on the inside middle thickness American-style crust. If you are not that into screwing around with a bunch of different flours and types of crust and other complicated baking things, this flour is for you. If you are into that sort of thing, I would still keep some of this around on stand-by for those days when you accidentally make dough that has the consistency of lumpy, half-dried out (you know when it gets crusty edges?) Play Doh.

King Arthur Pizza Dough Flavor

Anything that makes something else taste more like garlic and/or cheese is a no brainer. I whole-heartedly endorse this product.

King Arthur Pizza Seasoning

There are a million pizza seasonings out there, but I like this one because it smells fresh and is less heavy on the oregano flavor.  This is good to keep on hand to season the Frisco Madness no-work pizza sauce recipe described here (i.e., if you just use smushed canned tomatoes as pizza sauce). I would caution, however, that there is some salt in it, and if you're not sure how salty your canned tomatoes are, you should taste them before seasoning to make sure you're not turning your pizza into a salt lick. This is likely only a problem for you if you live in Hong Kong and can't buy San Marzano tomatoes, which you all know you should be using on your pizza if you can get them, correct?

King Arthur pizza-related baking products: buy them!

Um...

If you don't live in Hong Kong (and if you don't, you must like me a lot if you read this blog), maybe you don't know about seafood "pizza."

In addition to it being covered in seafood, it also has thousand island dressing instead of red sauce.  

Being a purist, like I am, I refuse to eat this pizza. But thankfully, my teammate JP has graciously offered to review it upon his next sojourn to HK. Watch this space.

Pizzeria Italia

Located on Mosque Street, Pizzeria Italia is the kind of crappy-looking Hong Kong pizza joint that sort of makes me want to cry.  Therefore, I had never been there in over 2.5 years of mid-levels living.  But, I take a friend's recommendation very seriously, so when my friend Joy and fellow tycoon (or, at least, Tycoon Court neighbor) recommended it, I knew I had to try it out. Also, I had no food in my apartment and I was walking home in a hungry and lazy mood with time to kill on a random Tuesday so I thought I'd give it a shot.

I was impressed! First of all, the crust is tasty. I am going to have to walk back there and check out the oven because it made delicious crispy/charred on the outside, doughy on the inside crust. Booyah? Indeed.

In the spirit of simplicity, I ordered the margherita (aka, plain cheese), and truth be told, the cheese could have been higher quality and the sauce slightly less sweet, but I think there is definite promise here. I can't wait to go back and try some more flavors.

Further, if you don't happen to walk past Mosque Street on your way home, never fear.  Pizzeria Italia appears to have their own driver (my numero uno criteria for delivery food in HK) like my other fave non-pizza HK delivery place Indian Village (also, conveniently located on Mosque Street...why I need food to get delivered 3 blocks is another story entirely) so your pizza *might* actually arrive hot! He sits on an orange leather lounge chair in a doorway right next to the restaurant, so basically he is your main man.  Here is the driver from fellow Mosque-street pizzeria Zafferano having a chat with your main man at his post on the lounge chair.

I also have to give a special shout out to the VFM factor on this one.  I think you can get at least twice the pizza for the same price over Pizza Express. Just sayin...

Pizzeria Italia
1-9 Mosque Street
2525.2519

Crust: 9
Sauce: 6
VFM: 9
Ambiance: N/A (No dine-in area)
Toppings: 5
Overall: 7

Note: during my sojourn on Mosque Street I had a fabulous realization: Mosque Street is the pizza boomtown of Hong Kong!  There is not just one but three (or four...depending on if you count Pizza Hut) pizza places in one tiny block.  I have never been to any of them because they all look like the aforementioned crappy-Hong Kong kind of pizza places that make me want to cry, but I've now realized that you can't judge a Mosque Street pizzeria by its cover.  As such, you can consider this part one of my series on Mosque Street Pizza. Fun!

Equipment Review - Star Trek Enterprise Pizza Cutter

Christmas can be a stressful time of year, especially if you wait until last the last minute to buy your gifts. Therefore, while most normal northern hemisphere humans are just starting to get excited about spring showers, May flowers, picnics, baseball games, etc., I'm starting my Christmas 2011 equipment reviews so you can get a head start on filling up your gift closets for those lucky pizza lovers on your Christmas list.  Or for those lucky pizza lovers who, for example, have a birthday on April 28.  

First up, the Star Trek Enterprise Pizza Cutter, available at ThinkGeek for $24.99.  I gave this to my dad last year on star date 2010.25.12 and it was a smash hit.  He didn't use it for two weeks because he was considering whether to display it on his desk or use it to cut pizza.  That's certainly a tough one, dad!

Below, getting ready for its maiden voyage through the Heggie's Pizza quadrant.

But enough intro, here is my one sentence review:  It looks sweet, it certainly cuts through pizza just as well as a standard pizza cutter, and it will have the recipient boldly ordering pizza on occasions where no man has ordered pizza before.  Do it.

Don't mess with the best cause the best don't mess: a tribute to the Domino's on Military Drive in Green Bay

You all know about my love of Domino's.  In January, I had one of my best delicious and rewarding pizza moments ever, thanks to Domino's employee of the year (as appointed by me), Charles (pictured).  In the words of my friend, who wrote a customer compliment card to the manager of this fine establishment, "we received excellent service from your staff on the evening of January 8, 2011. We had a large order very near closing, and the staff was kind, personable and efficient when dealing with our (10+ person limo) rowdy group. I was particularly impressed with Charles, who was professional and helpful when assisting us with our crust choice and helping us acquire red pepper flakes. In addition, the pizza was delicious! Much better than Domino's in Chicago. I appreciate the care you put into running a clearly top-notch establishment."  I couldn't have said it better myself.

As a side note, should you ever decide to rent a party bus and drive it to Green Bay, Wisconsin in the middle of winter, I highly recommend stopping at Stirrups in downtown Green Bay, a self-described low down urban country bar, for an ice cold Miller Lite and a do-si-do around the dance floor to the tunes of Alan Jackson. Tell 'em Large Marge sent ya.