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.

Paisano's Central

I'm not really known to jump on bandwagons.  In fact, my first instinct when a mob of people tell me something is really spectacular is to find a way to disagree. Naturally, then, when I heard the hype about legendary Sai Kung pizza joint Paisano's coming to a location within stumbling distance of LKF, part of me really wanted to hate it with the fiery passion of a thousand red hot burning suns. Or at least be able to say in my most contemptuous voice "eh...it's ok...you know Hong Kong pizza...never very good" while shrugging disappointedly.

But FINE I admit it, OK? It IS really good.  So the disagreeable part of me was pissed, and the other part of me was overjoyed, and sang songs of praise to the heavens, for a new era of pizza had dawned on central Hong Kong, and just as the prophets had forewarned, it was indeed a delicious new era.

But you've already read all that crap about how good it is in Timeout and HK Mag so let me just tell you a couple of things you may not have heard already:

1. I don't love the sauce.  Please see me after class for more details.

2. I am just as crazy about giant pizza slices as the next gal, but the size of these slices is unambiguously, positively, categorically and outrageously ridiculous, some might even say preposterous, and almost as unnecessarily absurd as this completely excessive string of words describing the size. 

3.  Seriously though, I asked them to cut them in half the second time.  This isn't a too much of a good thing is a bad thing situation, it's just impossible to eat.  Especially if you eat it standing in the street outside the store - as God intended for you to eat it.

4.  I'm a firm believer that pizza slice vendors should remain open past 11 pm.  All night long would be preferable.

5.  I hope they start delivering soon as advertised. And I hope they know how to deliver pizza. As in, while it's still hot.

Crust: 9

Toppings: 7 (good cheese levels but the sauce is just ok)
VFM: 8
Ambiance: N/A

Overall: 9

Paisano's

9 Lyndhurst Terrace

Central, Hong Kong

2544 4445

Weekly Recipes on Geoff's Twitchen

Starting this week, I will be collaborating with Geoff over at Geoff's Twitchen to share with his many adoring readers some of the results of my homemade pizza experiments.  You can find the first entry here.  If you are one of the few HK food lovers who doesn't yet know about Geoff's Twitchen, head over right away!

Cul-De-Sac

Tucked away on Wing Wah lane down an alley from Lan Kwai Fong, Cul-De-Sac is one of Hong Kong's few late night food shops that doesn't serve exclusively noodles and fish balls.  I know I sound like a broken record here but although you could do better, you could also do much worse for pizza and/or late night food here in the Kong.  Cul-De-Sac also has a variety of other late night favorites like poutine and a good beer selection. However, if you're at Cul-De-Sac I would be willing to bet you probably don't need any more beer.

Crust:  A bit crackery, but generally inoffensive. 6

Sauce:  I hate it when the sauce gets baked into the crust, and this stuff doesn't really have much flavor.  2

Toppings: Basic, but ok.  Good cheese levels.  6

Ambiance: Alleys are nice, but not really to eat in.  4

Overall:  5

Cul-De-Sac

GF Block A Winner Building
Wing Wah Lane
Central

NYPD Pizza

The evolution of pizza from ancient flat bread to its indisputable position at the apex of culinary perfection is not really fully documented or explained. However, the evolution of pizza from the aforementioned apex to a pile of questionable quality cheese, premade dough and canned ingredients that arrives to your table (or...tvs stand?) in a cardboard box (Domino's is, natch, excluded from this description) is pretty easily explained by general human laziness. 

Nonetheless, allow me to step off my high horse to admit that a good, hot delivery pizza can sometimes be the non desert equivalent of a cool drink of water: refreshing and nourishing, like the nectar of the gods.

I'm not saying that this is what NYPD Pizza is, but in a land devoid of edible delivery pizza, I think you could definitely do worse.

Crust: Garlickly goodness? Yes sir!  Tastes a lot like the "new" Dominos, actually: 7

Sauce: Real tomatoes!! 7

Toppings: They screwed mine up, but I didn't see any problems otherwise: 6

Ambiance aka delivery: 5

VFM: 7

Overall:  7

NYPD Pizza

G/F, Shop 15

Finnie Street

Quarry Bay

2668 6973

Pizza Luce

One of the first and more unfortunate pieces of knowledge you acquire as a first year corporate lawyer is which pizza places deliver late night to your office.  One of the accompanying unfortunate pieces of knowledge you acquire is that eating delivery pizza late every night is really bad for you.  This is precisely why as you gain seniority in any corporate setting it is important to learn to delegate your work to junior people so that you can leave and go out to pizza late at night with your friends.  Although this is still wildly unhealthy, it is much more fun.

During my time working in downtown Minneapolis, Pizza Luce and I got to know each other well.  I still think they have some of the best toppings in the world. My favorite (pictured below) is the Ruby Rae, which has the toppings on upside down (which means more tomato sauce – yay) including sausage, cheese, garlic, spinach and tomato.  I’m also a fan of the baked potato pizza (classic carb on carb action) and the Pizza Lupe, which has ground beef, black beans, green onions, cheese and lots of other stuff. I especially appreciate the Pizza Lupe for those difficult evenings when you can’t choose between a pizza and a burrito.  The crust is, for me, unremarkable, but it stays out of the way and holds up the toppings like a champ.

Pizza Luce

Minneapolis, MN USA

Crust: 4

Toppings: 10

Sauce: 9

VFM: 5

Ambiance: 8

Overall: 8

Yosemite Pizza

There are a few things my annual trip to Yosemite for the birth of the great nation of the United States of America is known for, however pizza is not exactly one of them.  Ever since the great pizza grilling fiasco of 2006 (?), when we cluelessly tried to cook individually-topped personal pizzas for 20 people over a small, medium heat wood fire (somewhat shockingly, with limited success), it has been off the menu.  This year heralded in a new era of Yosemite pizza for two reasons.  One, Pizza Factory opened in Groveland to supplement the Mariposa location, bringing we toss ‘em they’re awesome that much more accessible for those driving to the cabin from the SF area instead of LA.  If you’re wondering about the Pizza Factory, you might want to check out Deets’ Pizza Factory ratings map, which can tell you which Pizza Factories to drive hundreds of miles out of the way (even ITE* even WTGP^) for and which ones are worth a miss.  Second, we had a small enough group that it was practical to cook pizza in the oven.

Although these turned out slightly burnt, they were tasty, had the advantage of being cooked inside away from the world’s hungriest mosquitoes and were fuel for some of the best views in the world the next day.  Never underestimate the importance of pre-hike carboloading.

I mean with these views, seriously, who gives a sh!t about the pizza?

*In THIS economy

^With THESE gas prices

Ziti's

If you haven’t been to Tin Hau lately, there’s a cute little strip of shops on Tung Lo Wan Road that includes local pizza joint Ziti's.  If you had never eaten out at a restaurant in Hong Kong, you might be surprised at its tiny size, limited wine list (one bottle of red and one bottle of white on offer) and bright lighting.  If you frequently dine out here, then I think you know the drill. 

My favorite pizza of our order was the Mediterranean, which included a healthy dose of feta cheese, artichokes, olives, grilled eggplant, zucchini and bell pepper.  The toppings were delicious. The margharita was uninteresting and disappointing.  It didn’t taste much different from a cheese pizza from any major pizza chain.

The crust at Ziti’s is thin and crispy and tastes fresh, however I prefer a chewier crust or something with at least a stronger flavor. 

Although I would go back to Ziti's for the Mediterranean, I think I might be better off trying to recreate it at home with better crust/sauce.

Crust: 6

Toppings: 4

Sauce: 4

VFM: 5

Ambiance: 3

Overall: 5

Ziti's
G/F, 110 Tung Lo Wan Road
Tin Hau, Hong Kong

2576 7700

Additional location on Hoi Wan Street, Quarry Bay

Papa Murphy's

Although I’m known amongst my friends for hanging on slightly too dearly to the nostalgic taste of pizzas from my childhood (although note that this is actually predicted by the so called Pizza Cognition Theory developed by Sam Sifton which as I'm sure you all know states that the first slice of pizza a child sees and tastes...becomes, for him, pizza), I will defend my love of Papa Murphy’s until I die.  If you’re not familiar with Papa (we are on a first name basis), his pizzas are prepared while you wait in an oven-safe tray for baking at home.  Delight crust is Papa Murphy’s lower-calorie crust but it is definitely my favorite because of its crunchtasticness.  The beauty of Papa Murphy’s is that it has the convenience of a frozen pizza in that you can eat it whenever you want, is a deal at US$7 for a large, and the toppings are 9,000% fresher.  In this case I enjoyed my Papa Murphy’s Rancher deLITE pizza on a beautiful Minnesota day at my parents’ house overlooking Lake Sylvan while loons called in the distance.  Perfection.

Papa Murphy's

Crust: 9

Sauce: 5

Toppings: 9

VFM: 10

Ambiance/Delivery: 8

Overall: 8

208 Duecento Otto

I'm sure you're already you're feasting your eyes on this miraculous looking, fantasmagorically charred pizza and wondering gee, what country do I have to travel to to get that?  

Well guess what, kiddos, this pizza was served in your very own backyard at the new restaurant 208 Duecento Otto on Hollywood Road. According to their website, they serve rustic Italian cuisine from a New York perspective. Since I have no idea what that means I am not sure if they achieved it but I do think they have potential in the pizza department.  

I'm not cool enough to have reservations at hip new places like this one so we ate in the outdoor patio area outside of the bar.  Rumor has it that 208 has an "authentic Napolitana" oven imported from Italy.  I could barely get them to serve me a pizza (waited probably an hour) so I figured that getting a tour of the kitchen or speaking with someone about the pizza oven was probably low on the priority list.  Nonetheless, you can tell that whoever made this pizza had some idea what he or she was doing.  It wasn't perfect, but I am tempted to go back and try again in about a month once they have their bad-yet-typical-of-new-restaurants service issues ironed out and everything up and running full time to give them another chance.  The crust is very thin yet filled with delicious chewy bubbles and charred to perfection.  However, it came out slightly soggy which makes me think either they haven't quit figured out how the humidity affects their dough or their oven wasn't hot enough. Or maybe they just rushed it since they forgot about our pizza and when we asked after everyone who was seated after us was finished eating they had to rush it in and out of the oven.

The quality of the toppings was exceptional.  I could have used more cheese, but the tomato sauce was very tasty and the cheese probably would not have been missed by someone who was less obsessed with cheese.

To sum it up, this place is a hip, fun alternative to the delicious-food vortex that is Soho/Wyndham St. and I hope more restaurants like this, the Press Room, etc. spring up in this area.  If you like pizza this is a must-stop on your list of restaurants to try.  Thanks to Erica for the tip on this new place!

Crust: 8

Toppings: 9

Sauce: 9

Ambiance: 9

VFM: 7

Overall: 9

208 Duecento Otto

G/F, 208 Hollywood Road

Sheung Wan

2549 0208

If it's good enough for Jack Abramoff...

Think you're too good to work at a pizzeria for US$10/hour?  Spend a few years in a federal prison for tax evasion, conspiracy to bribe public officials and various types of fraud and you may think again.

According to Yahoo News, our friend Casino Jack is working at Tov Pizza in Baltimore.  I wonder if they're going to re-write their menu as follows:

Tribal Bribe Pizza (shaped like a craps table) - US$85 million
Island Influence Pizza (featuring the traditional cuisine of Guam) - 36 payments of US$9,000 each
Senator's Favorite Pizza (comes with free golfing trip to Scotland) - US$0
Representative's Favorite Pizza (comes with free use of box at all Washington Sports Venues) - US$0

Mamma Mia Pizzeria

It's been a long time since I've had the pleasure of writing a review of some decent pizza; I'm just disappointed to say that this restaurant is located in Oxford, England approximately 6,000 miles away from the Kong.

Here are the things that made this pizza way better than Hong Kong pizza:

1. It was delicious.

Margherita di Bufala Pizza

San Fernando Pizza (Spinach, red onions, cherry tomatoes and goat cheese)

You thought that was it didn't you?  Ok here are the other reasons:

2.  The sauce was really really good. It was bright and zingy and it made the pizza taste like an explosion of tomatotastic flavor.  It is notable that I put this before number 3 because usually the first thing I consider is the crust.    

3.  The crust was also good, although it suffered from center sogginess disease (a blight caused by winter mold that ravaged the pizza crops of Italy during 1845-1852, causing the country's population to drop by 20-25% due to mass starvation and emigration).  

4.  CHEESE, glorious CHEESE! We're anxious to try it.  Three pizzas a day!  Our favorite diet!  Side note (or maybe re-writing the lyrics of food, glorious food from Oliver with cheese-related references was the side note and what is coming is the main note): the margherita pizza was notable in that the mozzarella was uncooked.  I'm not sure if this is traditional in Italy (don't think so?) but I prefer it cooked.  

5. I love goat cheese.

Below: gratuitous dining companion elbow shot

Crust: 9
Sauce: 10
Toppings: 9
VFM: 6 (Is anything in England a good value for money?)
Ambiance: 7
Total: 9

Mamma Mia Pizzeria

102 Walton Street, Jericho

Oxford

01865 311211

Peak Bar

Ever been wandering around Soho with a group of friends and no one will make a decision so you just end up going to an obvious place that's easy to find that's not that awesome but yet not that terrible?  If you were looking for drinks you probably ended up at Staunton's. If you were hungry you probably ended up at Peak Bar.

Why is it called Peak Bar even though it's not on the Peak?  Unclear.

Peak Bar actually has a pretty legit-looking pizza oven, which results in a tasty crust, especially compared to most other pizza joints in the area.  And just because I saw a cockroach crawling down the wall there once doesn't mean that there are lots of cockroaches.  Remember, if you see one cockroach there are actually zero other cockroaches where that one came from.  

The sauce is pretty good and I like their use of extremely melty cheese.  Therefore, if you are in the mood for eating a decent pizza while watching people stand on an escalator Peak Bar could be a good fit for you.  Don't worry about the cockroach thing...it's Hong Kong and you've probably already eaten many cockroaches since you got here.

Crust: 7

Sauce: 6

Toppings: 6

Ambiance: 7

VFM: 6

Overall: 6

Peak Bar

9-13 Shelley Street

Central
2140 6877

Barolo

As I walked into Barolo I saw no one.  This is usually not a good sign, however as it is my duty to faithfully search out and report on the good, the bad and the ugly of HK pizza, I tried it anyway.

Unfortunately, I'd definitely have to put this in either the godawful category or the godawful category.  That's a combination of bad and ugly I think.

Crust: 3

Sauce: 2

Toppings: 2

Ambiance: 5 - Good people watching on Hollywood Road

VFM: 4 

Overall:  3

Barolo
30 Hollywood Road

2810 1600

JoJo's Kebab Pizza Curry

You may have seen JoJo's Kebab Pizza Curry on Hollywood Road.  Or, you may have blinked, and missed it.  By my count, it was open for less than three months.  How a restaurant that sells pizza by the slice and kebabs can fail in a neighborhood where 85% of the foot traffic at any given time is wasted is a mystery of the ages...but then again this is Hong Kong and it is located in a vortex of WTF far outside the boundaries of the universe of common sense.

Since I had this picture already uploaded I wanted to at least say something about our good friend JoJo's pizza. However, since it's in poor form to say mean things about dead pizza restaurants (lest the ghost of pizza past haunt you in your sleep), I won't really review it. I was going to give it points for originality, though. I can truly say there is no other pizza in HK that tastes/d like this one.

May JoJo's Kebab Pizza Curry rest in peace.

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.