Listen Up Beijing: 10 Simple Rules for Making my Pizza

I have eaten a lot of slices in my life, and while my current waistline offers me few tangible health benefits, I feel it does entitle me to speak truth about pizza. Now, I’m not going to mention any particular pizza establishment and certainly there are places that already abide by most – if not all – of my suggestions. I don’t want anyone to spit in my food. I also don’t want to offend any sponsors of this fine website.

Seriously. My editor told me that if I lose a sponsor, then I’ll have to pay her to publish on the blog.

Nevertheless, I have over the years been subjected to enough bad (or at least not quite good enough) pizza to feel justified in offering a bit of constructive criticism.

So with that caveat in mind, here are a few gentle suggestions to the pizza makers of Beijing:

1. More sauce.
Can’t emphasize this one enough. You need to put more sauce on your pizza. If you’re making a pizza at this moment, look down at it. It needs more sauce. Too many places apply pizza sauce like they are painting a jianbing. It’s not a thin coating; it’s a serious layer. Put more sauce on the pie before I take a bite out of 20 people in Sanlitun like some sort of rabid schnauzer.

2. Please label jars of table condiments.
Is that parmesan cheese? Grated garlic? Industrial-grade ketamine? What is this I'm putting on my pizza again?

3. Think about your toppings.
In fact, look at your menu. See the list of pizzas? Look at the list of toppings for each pizza. Found it? Good. Now eliminate the last topping in each listing. You don’t need it, and it’s probably messing up an otherwise good pizza. I’m getting tired of these artisanal pies with one too many ingredients. Salami, peppers, mushroom and … wasabi-coated peanuts. Just. Stop.

4. Pizza can be square.
It can be round. It may not be eaten with a fork.

5. If you offer delivery, invest in insulated pizza boxes.
Cold pizza is only good when eaten the morning after as a way to fight off an otherwise violent hangover. Your drivers may be the best in Beijing. They may be Fast & Furious on a scooter. They may be able to fly on flipping broomsticks. It doesn’t matter. Unless I live in the same building as your oven, it will not arrive warm if you don’t use an insulated pizza box. Before I assumed my current magnificent form through eating pizzas, I used to deliver them. I know of what I speak. Keep your pizzas warm, keep your customers.

6. Pepperoni and salami are different toppings.
Sausage is a third option altogether. They are not to be used interchangeably. That is all.

7. The correct cheese for a pizza is not slices of processed American or cheddar cheese.
Fortunately, we live in an age when this rarely happens. Trust me; it used too. There was a time in Beijing when the Internet kind of worked but the pizza really sucked. Not sure which era I prefer more …

8. Hot sauce shall be made available.
Tabasco sauce is acceptable. Specialty hot sauces are preferred. Siracha works really well in a pinch.

9. If you’re Italian, please disregard the previous eight rules.
You think you invented pizza, and you won’t care what an American writes about it anyway. In fact, if you are Italian, you probably already stopped reading this awhile ago. Which is good because then you won’t freak out when I write: “Pizza: Italians invented it. Americans perfected it.”

10. Vote in the Pizza Cup. Go to the Pizza Fest on October 15 or 16.
Let your voice be heard in the great competition of pies in it for the prize. Click here for tickets, or here for special pizza deals.

Please feel free to add your own suggestions and/or mercilessly skewer my culinary barbarism/pizza jingoism in the comments section below.

Happy eating.

Click here to purchase tickets for our 2016 Pizza Cup at Wangjing Soho, October 15-16.

Photos: imgarcade.com