This Week In Pizza: Cowabunga

 

Road trip! Grab your best mixtape, load those 2-4s in the trunk, bring your most garish Hawaiian shirts and get ready to roll because... um... we're going to Hamilton? Uh... wooooo...

Jokes aside, I've spent ninety-five percent of my life giving little-to-none in the way of thought towards the city affectionately known as "The Hammer". Recent creative developments have necessitated my visiting Hamilton on a semi-regular basis and so it's been a neat experience getting to explore a bit of a place so neighbourly close to Toronto yet so vastly unknown to me. 

This exploration has to include their pizza scene, obviously... with the most renowned place to folks outside of Hamilton being Cowabunga (dudes). Like many other reputable pizza joints, Cowabunga opened up in 2020 (a challenging year to start a business but a good year for delivery food that travels well) and appears to have become a sensation from day one... the crown jewel being their celebrated "Best Cheese Slice In The World" victory at the International Pizza Challenge last year. That's best in the world, which means better than just number one! The article is definitely worth a read: crazy to think it all almost didn't happen because their luggage (with the ingredients inside) vanished at some point crossing the US border. 

 

 

The birth of Cowabunga and their considerable success is a testament to the strong connectivity of the online pizza community... with founders/co-owners Andy Huynh and Justin Tanada initially meeting and interacting via Instagram through a shared love of all things pizza (I can relate, fellas). Both worked in various pizzerias for some time and eventually tried their own hand at making their own pies... at first hoping just for a stall in a Hamilton farmer's market before a space on Upper Wellington Street (in an area known as "The Mountain" to Hamiltoners/Hamiltonians/Hamiltonites/sorry I don't know) became available. 

The small space had been a previous home to other pizzerias over the years (meaning less work to modify the place for pizza production) and once ready, the intention was to be just a simple takeout spot. Clearly the demand for their pies said otherwise.     

  

 

While that original location of Cowabunga is further south and still a take-out only venture, I checked out the newer one (a much shorter stroll from the West Harbour GO Station) which has a considerable amount of seating (including a streetside patio), a full bar (the pink and blue lights tucked into the back of that photo) plus an assortment of arcade machines because... well you can see it's just that kind of place. 

 

 

I had other business in Hamilton more urgent than pizza (believe it or not) and so getting a full pie wasn't ideal from a time perspective. Fortunately there is a sizeable slice counter... although unfortunately they didn't have any of their quite intriguing 1-Up creation available... but fortunately they did have some of those famous cheese slices fresh from the oven. Fortune! One slice of cheese, one of pepperoni, a dip... and I was on my way. 

 

 

I think part of what has made Cowabunga such a widely appealing sensation is their straight-forward simplicity, although there are some well-crafted details to be found within said simplicity. The pepperoni slice definitely falls under what I like to call an "Arcade Slice" wherein it's loaded with pepperoni and is plenty greasy on the fingers (perfect for loosening up the tight joysticks and buttons on a Frogger machine). But not too greasy: it's far from dripping oil or making the paper plate transparent. Just the right amount here. 

There's also terrific light crunch to this slice... with gentle pillowy softness around the crust and cheesier middle. The pepperoni (as you can see) are the little cups and have a lovely crispiness to their edges. The overall texture of the slice really is excellent: enjoyable from first bite to last, losing none of it's pleasantness even once cooled off. 

That texture really is the key here as the flavours, while also really good, aren't especially distinctive or mind-shattering in their own way. Odds are you've tasted these nearly-exact flavours at this strong quality before at another likewise fantastic pizza joint. I'm not docking points for that... a damn good pepperoni slice like this is more than welcome anywhere on my block. 

 

 

Now we have the big one. The dough-winner for Cowabunga which launched them into international pizza fame. 

Honestly, if not for that award there's next to zero chance I'd have ordered this. I'm really not a "just cheese" slice kind of guy. Maybe if there's some blue or goat or some kind of additional smoked cheese on there... but just basic pizza cheese and sauce? At least a classic Margherita has some basil on there. So boring.

 

 

Nevertheless I obviously had to, so here is that cheese slice from Cowabunga. 

Like the pepperoni slice, the texture is wonderful. Easily foldable (if that's your thing) and floppy enough to droop a little off the edge of the plate (these slices are also quite sizeable). Again I love the softness of the dough here... it's quite bready (possibly sourdough as well) and nicely baked without being overly chewy or stiff and crumbly. It sounds silly to say (I mean write) but without question my favourite thing about both these Cowabunga slices was the actual sensation of eating them. Endlessly satisfying.

For "just cheese" there are some layers of flavour in here also. A tiny hint of sweetness, good oiliness... while the tomato sauce definitely has a dominant touch of finely ground garlic powder in there. The mozzarella is baked just right to still have some gooey give to it and not have any kind of that tough/crunchy bubbled shell (that tastes like plastic) you often find from far lesser pizza joints. Instead those baked bubbles on the cheese are light and airy, the slice still plenty cheesy and soft beneath. 

Beyond all that... it tastes like a cheese slice. A really, really good cheese slice sure... but it's a freaking cheese slice. I can't possibly elaborate on that any deeper, right? Good lets move on.

 

 

Quickly on the dip, which is a Truffle Parm. Way more of the parmesan flavour than any truffle, the richness of which shows up faintly here and there but is barely noticeable. Really tastes like a quality housemade caesar salad dressing (it probably is) without any fishy saltiness... making it a more than acceptable pizza dip. 

 

       

Overall! I don't really have anything negative to say about Cowabunga Pizza. No immediate criticism jumps to mind. I loved both slices on first bite... although the cheese slice did lose that well-meaning charm and become semi-boring about halfway through, which as I said is more of a 'me' thing (cheese slices just don't excite me).     

Would I recommend Cowabunga? Absolutely. While I am going to give a high grade, I will say that a true final judgement lingers upon how their more complex pizza offerings fare. Among other pepperoni and cheese slices I've ever had, these would rank among the very best... but I'm not quite there as far as saying they are among the absolute best pizzas I've ever had until I dive deeper into their bag, if that makes sense. 

Still, they are pretty darn good... making me eager to try some other Hamilton pizza joints (Tony G's, Mai Pai) that have also been recommended to me. For now, I'll give them an "A--" with the potential to move up significantly should those more complex/diverse pizzas be as good or better. If they opened up a location in Toronto and maintained this level of taste and quality, they'd comfortably make the Top 25 for the entire city.   

          

 

This Week In Pizza: Terrazza

 

From Italian, "terrazza" translates into English as "terrace" which honestly still works as a name for a restaurant, right? "Honey, lets go out for dinner at Terrace"... it's an elegant sounding word! Brings to mind an image of somewhere outside and comfortable, probably with a great view of a landscape. Replace that with just 'patio' and it doesn't quite bring the same sophistication, does it? "Dear, we're going to be late for our reservation at Patio!" These subtle differences between similar meaning words... endless fun. 

Terrazza gained some recent publicity when famed online pizza reviewer Dave Portnoy paid them a visit for one of his videos (for the record I visited Terrazza for this review several days before Portnoy did... just saying). This however was not the first time this low key Harbord Street restaurant was associated with a notable event: back in 2022 owner Frankie Lasagna (yes he's happy to tell you that's his real name) notoriously missed catching Aaron Judge's historic 61st home run ball by just a couple of feet ("I needed a fishing net and I would have got it"). Shoutout to my long time friend, occasional pizza-trying-associate and partner in trivia night crime for remembering this delicious nugget.

 

 

In my Annette Food Market article I mentioned how Annette is one of my very favourite streets in all of Toronto... Harbord Street likewise would make such a list (future article maybe? Hmmmm). Somewhat overlooked between the much livelier downtown arteries of Bloor and College, Harbord brings a breezy residential quaintness I've always enjoyed immensely. Plenty of little shops, parks, trees, cafes, the western portion of the UofT campus, interesting brick houses... and of course a history of renowned restaurants (Piano Piano, The Harbord Room) have called this stretch home. Plus, they have a bike lane. What's not to like?

The origins of Terrazza are indeed tied tightly to Harbord Street. Frankie Lasagna (he of the infamous home run ball miss) was practically born into the restaurant business: in the late 1980s into the 90s his father ran LIPS (a fast food style joint apparently known for their "Fat Lip Burger") in the same space Terrazza currently occupies. Lasagna and his family grew up in the Harbord/Shaw area and keeping those roots was clearly a priority when the opportunity came in 2008 to open up his own spot. This page on their website explains it all in a little more detail.

 

 

This is the part where I come in. See, an old close friend of mine and I had initially planned to finally try Public Gardens on King West. Problem was... this being a Friday evening... they were booked solid all night, not even a waiting list (damn trendiness). So we hatched a Plan B: Giulietta! Neither of us had ever been and they've been on my infinitely growing need-to-try pizza list for some time. Plus the temperature was gentle and made for a pleasant walk. Problem was... this being a Friday evening... Giulietta was also totally booked up! This was a pickle indeed. 

I checked my Pizza Map (yes I keep one digitally, don't act surprised) and noticed we now weren't too far from Terrazza (a place I knew very little about beyond their name on my list) and so headed there, hoping this third time was indeed the charm. After all, we were getting pretty darn hungry at this point. 

Fortunately, we were in luck and got ourselves a table on their lovely (and quite leafy) streetside patio. Famished as we were, we agreed upon a rose shrimp dish as an appetizer to share... a dish so tasty we both forgot to take a picture of it! (like I said, hungry). Let this now be known as the Legend of the Terrazza Rose Shrimp: anytime you're intending to review something but it's so delicious and you are so starving that you just forget to snap a shot of it... there it is.

Seriously though, that rose sauce was so damn good we were eating what was left of it with our forks. 

 

 

While I went for the pizza (obviously) my esteemed reviewing compatriot ordered their carbonara, which I acquired some of in exchange for one of my slices. 

I've always found carbonara somewhat basic (boring) among pasta dishes (I like em saucy... there's a saying that'll never be taken out of context, nope)... but this Terrazza carbonara really brought a lot of good, deep flavour. There's a consistent eggyness on every bite, a nice touch of ground pepper and crumbled crispy bacon throughout (as well as some thicker strips)... plus the addition of chili flakes (sprinkled generously by my friend) added a good layer of heat to these more grounded, salt and pepper flavours. 

 

 

While between the two I've no regrets towards my pizza choice (even if I weren't Mister Crazy Pizza Reviewing Man) nonethelsss I was quite impressed with Terrazza's pasta. They certainly made a dish I don't often gravitate towards quite delicious. 

 

 

With their pizza, alongside a few signature offerings Terrazza does the "build your own creation" thing... which unsurprisingly I endorse wholeheartedly. Setting me loose to devise my own pizza, in a casual dining restaurant no less, is akin to handing your child a large plastic bag in a chocolate shop and saying "have at it". 

The wheels of imagination immediately spun into motion upon seeing the potential combinations... almost overwhelmingly so. You can overthink these things, after all. However, I settled on three toppings that are a usual go-to for me: pancetta, goat cheese, and caramelized onions. Salty, creamy, and sweet. Hey, this isn't my first pizza rodeo (Pizzodeo?).

 

 

What we have here is a fairly soft and floppy pie: very cheesy (even without the goat cheese) with a very minimal amount of crispiness within the dough. Somewhat oily but not overly so, which is mostly from the onions anyhow. 

The toppings are fantastic. The goat cheese brings a fantastic dry creaminess and is spread out considerably and generously throughout the pizza. Caramelized onions bring just that right amount of oniony sting with a sweet softness that combines so wonderfully with all the cheese on here... meanwhile that pancetta... great stuff. A perfect balance of fatty and crispy, never at all chewy and you just enjoy every bit of it you get on here. 

 

 

I'll say this is a very very good pizza without any real weaknesses. When you get closer to the crust, the heaviness of the cheese gives way to a more airy, spacey texture... with the bread having a notable floury taste to it. It's baked perfectly as well: slight char in the right places, cheeses all the way melted. The tomato sauce, while good, didn't make much of an impression on me (at least not enough of one for me to actually take a note of it). 

Still, the toppings are really the star of the show here... and not to sing my own song here (which is obviously what I'm about to do) but that flavour combination of cured pork, goat cheese and sweet onion is a definite winner I highly recommend to anyone. I can't exactly give Terrazza credit for my own creative (and modest) genius... but I will give full credit for utilizing excellent ingredients and preparation in making this taste as darn good as it does. 

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Overall! I think what we have here is quite simple: very good Italian restaurant makes very good pizza. Is it among the absolute best in the city? In my books, not quite... and I'm not going to look up what Dave Portnoy scores it because I'm not all that interested, personally. I was actually here first, damnit!

What I see here is an extremely charming restaurant in a lovely part of Toronto that I indeed recommend checking out if you so please. The pizza doesn't quite have enough of that intangible "whoa" factor that is unmistakable in the absolute greats of the greats... but it is pretty darn good and I'm happy to grade it in the strong "B++" range, placing it in the level of Toronto pizzas you definitely should go out and try someday. 

Just make sure, if you also get the shrimp rose... take a picture for me!

                              

Quick Bites: Wendy's Grilled Cheese Cheeseburger

 

 

Odds are that you, like me, have recently been seeing occasional ads promoting a new menu item at Wendy's that may raise an eyebrow. A grilled cheese sandwich combined with a cheeseburger? Wild! Man you gotta try that! After all, you only live once... (and it's a short life indeed if you're eating stuff like this).

To be honest, this item really strikes me as purely a "wow they made that?" gimmick designed to attract a curiosity market (and seeing how I am currently writing about the thing... I guess it worked). A grilled cheese hamburger isn't all that new or unique either (Burger's Priest for example was blowing people's minds a decade and a half ago with this type of witchcraft). At least KFC's Double Down challenges the very notion of what a sandwich actually is/can be... even if that example is less tentpole innovation and more existential crisis.  

 

 

Here the composition is simple: it's a typical Wendy's single cheeseburger (sans tomato, lettuce, sliced onion and ketchup) with an additional bun/bread and cheese slice on top and beneath the burger. You can make it a double patty if you prefer but even at this point you've already abandoned all hope ye who enter here. 

 

 

There's a way this thing could've maybe worked but the sheer mediocre-ness of Wendy's is a critical limitation. Sadly, the processed cheese not melting at all within the "grilled cheese" portion of this sandwich is simply an instant failure that cannot be recovered from. 

Think of a really good grilled cheese sandwich for a moment: that light crispiness, maybe semi-buttery, with the gooey cheese ideally oozing out from between the toasty bread slices. Personally I favour an old cheddar over fake plastic cheese for a grilled cheese sandwich but the crucial point is that the cheese melts... which clearly this Wendy's one does not. 

The top and bottom buns aren't all that grilled either, which results in every bite having a strongly cakey (almost biscuit-like) texture amongst all that cling-to-your-mouth fake cheese. There's the slightest subtle griddle flavour in here as well but really, you can tell this is something very little time or effort was involved in making. It's hard to make a dry sandwich taste appealing and slathering the burger patty in generic mayo is not the way. No thanks.

After two bites I approached this more as a regular cheeseburger, which made it somewhat more enjoyable... although the lack of any supporting condiments beyond mayo and plastic cheese (there's an amount of fried onion so minimal I barely want to mention it) results in a solidly below average burger and well below the okay-ish standard you typically find from Wendy's.

So yeah. It underwhelms as a burger and as a grilled cheese sandwich it's a complete dereliction to the concept. Don't let curiousity tempt you, stay away.

 

 

Because I don't actually eat fast food all that often (seriously, it's only for reviews like this!) I was completely unaware Wendy's now offer a vanilla version of their famous Frosty dessert. This I also had to try. 

Honestly, this was a pleasant surprise. For something quite obviously not high quality ice cream or vanilla, those flavours and textures (artificial they may be) did linger in the mouth far longer than anticipated. Once melted and liquidy (the cream becoming weirdly thick and bubbly) the enjoyment and suspension of disbelief did fade considerably... but I was genuinely impressed to get something tasting close enough to resembling real vanilla. 

The only issue became an unshakeable thought about how something in here was missing. I love the richness of a creamy vanilla... but it's a simple, repetitive flavour. This needed another presence to complete it...

 

 

...like some Rolos! You only live once indeed...

 

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Overall... the grilled cheese cheeseburger really serves little purpose, both for Wendy's or the consumer. It isn't tasty as either a cheeseburger or a grilled cheese... the flavour is just unmelted fake cheese, cakey bread and mayonnaise... plus it isn't even visually appealing or crazy enough to approach 'online sensation' territory'. 

The vanilla Frosty on the other hand... a terrific and smart innovation I just might have to revisit again once these warmer summer days become more consistent. Maybe Reeses Pieces as my addition next time (I'll plan ahead and not get them while the dessert is melting, whoops)...