A Little Slice of Life: Pizza+ Lets Your Tastebuds off the Leash
To get you in the mood for the ongoing voting in the 2014 Pizza Cup (The Elite 8 will be announced today (Nov 12) at 1pm – vote here after 1 to send your favorite on to the next round). In preparation for the vote, we sent our minions out to patrol the streets for pizza. Here's a selection of what they've found:
Pizza. On one hand it’s a food designed for sharing with its ubiquitous pre-sliced design. On the other hand it’s usually very difficult to find one particular flavor that all mouths agree upon. Wouldn’t it be nice to explore a range of pizza toppings without having to place an order tantamount to creating your own version of the leaning tower of pizza boxes?
Pizza+ know how you feel, and have made it their duty to sell pizza by the slice as well as whole 13-inch round pies to give you the widest range of pizza flavors on daily offer around Dongzhimen, Chaoyang Park, and at their newest venture in Shuangjing. One hundred percent Italian in origin, with 95 percent of ingredients imported including mozzarella, flour, and mineral water regularly coming in from this far-flung European destination, the pizzas that come out of their ovens could sneak past the border and back to the home country, no questions asked.
Taking advantage of their special Monday offer (50 percent off all pizza), three different slices were cut and served from their glass display cabinet after being re-heated (not nearly long enough though, take note Pizza+; cold pizza is good the day after, not at the time of ordering). The Forest (RMB 20/72), winner of the 2011 Pizza World Championship, was rich in thick truffle cream lines with walnut pieces poking through the mozzarella to give a crunch unlike most pizzas possess. The deep nutty elegance evoked the name well and made for an unusually delightful mouthful.
The Four Seasons (RMB 15/55) is a pretty safe, standard range of flavors, with a tangy tomato paste holding the mushrooms, sausage, ham and artichoke tastes on a level playing field. The third pizza, a tuna and onion combination, was selected because I asked the delightful server what her favorite slice was; hence the Adriatic Sea (RMB 15/55) was served. While fish on pizza is not my go-to, the salty blend didn’t linger long in the mouth and was good enough to continue biting into.
A new experiment on the board for the winter months is an Eggplant Sausage pizza (RMB 18/62) boasting tomato paste, eggplant, sausage, and Parmesan cheese. While I'm uncertain how the texture of eggplant will co-exist alongside sausage, I figure it's worth giving a go next time, the worst I can lose is a few mouthfuls.
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Photos: Erin Strong
