The SO and I (but especially the SO) are continually on the hunt for decent pizza in Australia. Coming from NY, the bar is set very high.
What we’re coming to realize though, is that Aussies seem to have a very different definition of pizza, which seems to involve piling on as many different flavors and toppings as possible. It sometimes comes on the brick oven style crust, which is getting closer to what we expect, but there is no distinction between underlying crust and edge crust. We’re beginning to appreciate this style but we don’t really consider it pizza.
Which is why whenever we try a new place, we order one margherita style (‘plain’ as we know it doesn’t seem to exist) and one with toppings for when the margherita disappoints.
Last night, we ordered in from Zaitoon Woodfire Pizza.
We weren’t expecting much. We were trying it because it’s the only pizza place in our neighborhood that isn’t a chain. We ordered the margherita as usual and the peri-peri chicken because if all else fails, I do like peri-peri sauce.
We called it in and I went to pick it up 20 minutes later. Though the menu advertises dine in or takeaway, be forewarned that the dine in option is a couple of plastic tables and chairs, not an all out restaurant. Whiteboards in the eatery promote their new pizzas, not listed in the menu. Since I had already ordered, I didn’t take note of the details this time around.
The pizzas were ready when I arrived but as it turns out, they were only accepting cash. As there is no mention of this on their menu, I’m unsure of whether this is the norm or not.
On the plus side, the cost was $30 for the two pizzas + a bonus1.25L drink – less than the $34 I was expecting to pay for the pizzas alone. Unfortunately, this didn’t save me a run across the street to an ATM.
Upon returning home, we opened the boxes to two very different pizzas. Unsurprisingly, the Peri Peri was a jumble of toppings. The Peri sauce was good but something in the rest of the mix just didn’t seem to go. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it; maybe the tomato sauce or the type of cheese? I probably won’t be ordering it again to figure it out.
Now, the margherita was a pleasant surprise.
It wasn’t overloaded with cheese and had a nice scattering of basil. It still lacked the edge crust we were looking for but the existing crust had that nice burnt flavor to it. I thought the red sauce was very tasty, but altogether it’s still just not a NY pizza.
That said, if I were ordering in, I might get their margherita again and try another topping pizza, but if I’m really having a pizza craving, I’d probably try elsewhere. My SO currently puts Pizza Gusto in the lead, but we’re still on the hunt.
Anybody else know of NY style pizza in the region?
https://www.facebook.com/Zaitoon.pizza
**I wrote this post mostly from my mobile phone so it may contain odd formatting. Still playing around with the mobile app.
Jenerally Eating 