This Week In Pizza: Wood 900 Grill and Bar

 

 

Allow me to take you back to a scene last November (of 2022): I'm miserably on the Queen streetcar running late for work (thanks to said streetcar) and just staring out the window in hopes of relieving my growing anxiety about this unbearable situation. This is why I bike in the winter when I can, folks. Despite my internal screaming the car lingers at Parliament and Queen for abnormally long, and through the window on my right I spot something: a new pizza joint. 

Fast forward almost a year, and various circumstances found me hungry and in that particular neighbourhood. Wood 900 had indeed been on my Big List of Pizzas To Try since that initial discovery, but like a good nine tenths of that massive list I hadn't been in a huge hurry to seek them out. 

You walk in and the interior is not typical of a pizza place... more like a cheap diner disguised as a fancy restaurant. The entrance is dim aside from some neon, and then the actual inside sticks to a fairly basic colour scheme. Not an insult, for the record... there's nothing unappealing about it beyond it's stark simplicity. If not for well over a dozen booth tables you'd think this was just a large well lit dive bar, and perhaps it was previously. 

To my delight, in 2023 dollars the prices here are extremely reasonable. I'm not sure I can ever recall a wood-fired pizza at this low a price point... even eleven years ago when I worked at the Ossington Pizzeria Libretto their pizzas cost more than Wood 900's offerings do now. Certainly a curious eyebrow raiser, but no matter. In I went for their two topping special... tax and tip later it was fifteen bucks. Like stepping into a time machine! 

The place was also nearly empty on a Friday night (hmmm) but they were getting a bunch of orders on the phone. Indeed, during my brief time inside an Uber delivery driver got rebuked for not arriving with a proper bag.

 

 

My two toppings were spicy salami and mushrooms, and immediate positive points for using mushrooms with some moisture to them. I talked about this in my review of Ambassador, but as delicious as mushrooms are on pizza one problem I constantly encounter is how they dry out and wither in the oven. So having mushrooms here with an agreeable, juicy texture was a very pleasant surprise. The flavour? Fairly lacking of that rich, wonderful earthiness you normally expect... these are semi-watery and I suspect previously frozen. 

The spicy salami, however, I quite enjoyed a lot. Finely sliced, not oozing with grease, with a nice little kick of sting just to let you know it's there. Solid stuff. As for the cheese... fairly standard mozzarella I'd say. Enjoyably gooey, with some of the waxiness you get from cheaper cheeses (and lacking the delectable soft buttery taste you get from the really good stuff. So far... with okay-ish mushrooms, enjoyable salami and mediocre mozzarella... pretty all right I'd say.

You're probably thinking, as I was... come on now. This is a wood-fired pizza coming in at almost half the price as almost any other of that style in the city. There has to be a horrible catch! Indeed. Not horrible, mind you (or me I guess, considering how I framed that)... but this pie has some glaring shortcomings and the main culprit is the bread. 

There is some nice char, but aside from that it tastes of nothing but dryness. The bottom of the pizza is excessively dusty, like to the point it coats your fingers after a few bites. This can happen depending on the type of oven, and with a stellar pizza it's a mere inconvenience rather than an irritating nuisance. But really, the issue is how much this bland crust feels chalky and dehydrated in the mouth. It's less noticeable in the center of the pizza, where the cheese and toppings are doing the work (in fact, the slightly droopy texture in those parts is extremely nice)... but when you start taking bites of the outer edges, the true quality reveals itself. 

The sauce isn't much to talk about either. It's at the level of your generic, store bought canned fare. Tiny bit of sugary sweetness, which again sorta works on the cheesier bites... but it's very meh. Another issue was the reheat: I used the frying pan on low heat and slightly covered it (to lock in even more of the moisture), but even executing that considered step could not save this crust from drying out even further. It didn't translate well on second heating... most of the flavours were more muted and the awful bread crumbled apart in staleness. Didn't even eat those bits. 

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Overall. The biggest "bad" of this pizza stands out the most: it's an unappealing, flavourless dusty crust that might be one of the least pleasant I've encountered in my many pizza travels (at least, not counting the worst of the big pizza chains). It's a glaring weakness that drags this down pretty significantly, because otherwise there's rather a fair bit of charm to this. It's a cheap wood-fired pizza that does its best with the limited quality it has, and when fresh I enjoyed about 75 percent of it. They get the droopy, gooey feel of a wood-fire pie quite right, and while the flavours suffer on the reheat that foldable texture mostly remained. 

It's a tough one to grade. They're far from a "must try", but I had more moments of positivity here than I did with say, District Pizza... which for just two slices was significantly more expensive than Wood 900. Lets say.... Wood 900 gets a "C++". If they had even mediocre dough this is easily a couple grades higher, but alas. An admirable effort.              

 

This Week In Pizza: District Pizza

 

 

 

Appearances can be deceiving. While oftentimes an attractive looking spot will offer up a likewise quality product... I've encountered many sleek spots where all the effort went into the flash and none into the actual pizza.

District Pizza is a rather swanky spot in the Distillery District neighbourhood of Toronto. With it's large glass windows it looks more like an art gallery from the outside than a pizza joint. Heck, there is even art inside:

Those are indeed painted pizza boxes, which I cannot recall ever seeing displayed in such a way at any other pizza joint. It's a nice touch, and definitely supports my "art gallery" comment above. 

It's an appealing interior, but that said what really matters most is the flavour and quality of your pizza. How does District grade out on that front? I ordered two different slices to answer this very question: their version of a meat-lovers, and a special of the day/week/month with pulled chicken, chorizo, cilantro and pickled onions. The two slices came in around twenty dollars, which is awful steep even by today's standards. The Distillery District is a touristy destination, and clearly there's a touristy price markup in play here.

 

 

Looks decent enough. But flavour? Alas, this is where it all falls apart, my friends. The chicken is fine and nicely seasoned, the pickled onions a nice addition of sweetness... but dear lord this slice is way, way too damn oily/greasy. Like, to the point your fingers still smell and feel of it hours later. You could lubricate a bicycle chain with this stuff. 

The culprit is mostly the chorizo, which is rather unpleasant in its excessive fattiness (and sadly prominent on the other slice as well), and that flavour bleeds into every bite of this sorry pie. A shame, because the rest is rather okay... but that greasiness dominates the entire non-crust aspect of this pizza. It quickly becomes tiresome and slightly stomach-turning.

For the record, I have to mention here that an overtly oily pizza need not be a bad thing. Fresca on College is one of the oiliest, dirtiest (in a good way) slices you'll find, but it works better for them because that oil doesn't dominate the other flavours as it does here. Plus, that Fresca oil is garlicky so... checkmate.

This Meat Lovers one (officially named "Pleased To Meat You", yeah) is a bit more tolerable on the oily front, though not by much. Strangely, this pizza reminds me a lot of the chain Pizzaiolo: there's a sort of herby, olive oil taste to things, in the crust especially. There's a similar hint of light wheat in there as well.

Both of these District Pizza slices tasted rather undercooked as well: an undeniable doughiness that I usually don't mind, but a greasy slice like this really needs more crunch and crisp to counter-act it. Un-surprisingly, on the reheat (in the pan) was an improvement for this very reason. More crisp and it cooked out some of the excessive oil and grease. You could still taste it and the flavour domination sadly wasn't avoidable... but it wasn't nearly as unbearable as when fresh. Another disappointment: there are red chilis on this slice, but is it spicy? Nope. Barely taste em. What a shame.

 

Overall... I went into this one with what I'd call "curious expectations". Most of the reviews I've found regarding this place have been negative and I see why. It's way too expensive for what you're getting, and while there is some modest quality... even without that awful oily sausage taste this would be far below a must try pizza place. It's never good when your pizza reminds me of a prominent Toronto chain, and I'd frankly much prefer what the chain offers (they're also much cheaper). 

There's enough 'good' hidden away in here to save it from being completely terrible, but I cannot recommend trying District Pizza... not even out of curiousity. Maybe if it wasn't ten bucks a slice? Give me a break. Giving them a "C+", and even that might be generous. I like the cool style, but the substance is flawed.   

This Week In Pizza: Somun Superstar Sequel

 

 

It's an interesting question, when having reviewed a pizza place before... how long is a necessary length of time until a revisit is prudent? At least two thirds of places on my big list are places I've only tried once (and more than half of those I don't require or desire a second visit) and the fact of the matter is: places can change. Certain chefs or pizzaiolos come and go, recipes get revamped, a mini-chain expands and the quality diminishes, new ownership mixes things up... or hell our own tastes as pizza enjoyers shifts as well.

In my experience trying places multiple times, almost always the secondary/later evaluations tend to be lesser to some degree. Or in the case of my true favourites (Descendant, Defina) my high levels of expectation have been happily maintained. My point is, aside from getting Pizza Nova on a good day (and those good days have been real rare the past several years)... I can't exactly recall a recent notable pizza that has been even better on my second try. 

I wrote about Somun Superstar back in 2020 when (like most of us) I had nothing to do... so I tried a bunch of restaurants closeby to me (takeout at the time, of course). Somun Superstar is a Bosnian joint that specializes in their baked somun bread, essentially the Balkan version of flatbread or pita. When first opening in 2019 they specialized in cevapcici sandwiches with their baked-in-house breads. The pandemic hit and, considering they already had a large oven, decided to start offering pizzas on Friday and Saturday nights. This caught my attention, and led to the article linked above.

 

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Well, if you skipped the link, spoiler on that article: it was overall a very good pizza, elevated by its exceptional dough (shocker) and texture, with the rest of the elements doing a serviceable job. I do recall that they didn't cut their pizzas at the time, so I think I brought a knife and fork with me when eating it in a nearby park. 

Coming back now over three years later, was quite interesting. I admit I still have not tried their sandwiches yet, despite their location sitting about six blocks from my house (it requires trekking up a monstrous hill, okay?) Somewhat recently they ditched the "Friday or Saturday" pizza night thing, and now offer pizza every evening of the week they're open. It's still a limited window: you can only order a pizza after 4pm and the place closes as early as 8 some nights. 

Anyhow... after a long windy walk buying some Halloween candy, I stopped in Somun Superstar and ordered their Smoked Beef pizza. Here is the whole thing below:

 

 

 

Taste or flavour aside... that is just a beautiful looking pie. My first time trying Somun Superstar, I went simple: it was sliced sausage, mozzarella and sauce. Not here. This above is a pizza with their dry smoked beef, sudzuk smoked sausage, tiny basil leaves, tiny sliced mushrooms, kajmak cream cheese, and your usual tomato sauce and mozzarella.   

To cut out the dramatic buildup... the quality matches the aesthetic. This was simply phenomenal. Absolutely fabulous pizza. Again, the bread/dough grabs the spotlight... a light, yet fluffy and pillowy bread that is soft on each bite, almost heavenly how good this is when still warm and fresh from an oven. While I was waiting, a couple came in just to order some of the fresh flatbread by itself... just saying in case you don't believe me. I've said it a lot but having excellent bread is such an underrated aspect in a pizza: it makes the texture of it so incredibly enjoyable and can elevate otherwise mediocre ingredients. 

Fortunately, the other elements of this pizza far transcend mediocre. These toppings have a fair bit going on... but flavour-wise it's really the dry smoked beef that stands out. It is on the dry, chewier side, but who cares when you can get this much zing into such a thinly sliced and then baked meat. You get the smokey flavour more than the dry, but both are noticeably there...  almost like sipping a fine scotch in meat form. Really interesting and flavourful. The sudzuk is more like a black peppery, with mild-ish spice, thinly (and perfectly for this) sliced sausage that likewise isn't shy with flavour, but not dominating on bites either. This gives a hint more juiciness than the smoked beef, and they work in tandem marvelously.

But wait, there's more. The dollops of kajmak cream cheese, multiple ones on each slice, add some pleasant creaminess to it all. It's a loose cream cheese, with more of a thick yogurt consistency than your spreadable Philadelphia-like brand... and it provides a nice subtle hint of rich sweetness. A very fine balance to the multiple beefs adorning all of this pie.

The mushrooms and basil leaves are very much background features here: I only noticed each respectively on a couple of bites throughout the whole pizza. Tomato sauce is even less noticeable: I do greatly appreciate when a place (especially made to order) isn't a wallflower with the sauce and sadly my biggest complaint here is that you hardly get a whiff of it. No sense of what their tomato sauce tasted like at all... this could've been a white pizza very easily and made little difference. For a lesser pizza I would seriously dock some points... but man everything else here was just so remarkably good I'm willing to allow the moving screen. 

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Overall! Gee golly, I don't say this often but within my second slice I already knew this was one of the best pizzas I've had this year. To bring it back to my introduction about trying places again, it was very interesting to see how different Somun Superstar's pizza was after three years. Their foundation is their great bread and that delicious high quality remains... but this pie was much less poofy and more refined than that first one I'd tried... and more evenly cooked as well. They pass the reheat test (the bread loses a lot of that beautiful softness but gains some fine crispiness on the pan, low heat), the distribution of toppings is impeccable (each bite has something to offer, yet few are the same), the overall balance of everything is there... I don't know what else to say. 

When I first tried them in 2020 it was clear they knew what they were doing, but as suddenly making pizzas on top of their usual offerings (during a pandemic no less) was perhaps not in their initial grand plans... my theory is that they were fairly raw at the pizza game back then (my first review would've been within two or three months of them starting that). They were good then, and now with three years to work at it, they've gotten even better. Much better. In 2020 I gave them a "B+"... this one here is on the lower side of an "A--", for real. Needs more sauce, and maybe the simpler offerings are a bit more generous with that... but everything else just works so fabulously. The smokey beef, the creamy sweet dollops, the delicate dough, good solid mozzarella... its harmony and diversity for the taste buds. This is a Top 20 pizza place in Toronto, full stop. Bosnian pizza. Check em out.               

 

          

This Week In Pizza: La Famiglia on Danforth

 

 

 

If you've read even just a few of these pizza reviews, I'm sure you must know by now how much I love my long intros... but there isn't a whole lot of buildup to this one. Rejoice!

In seriousness though, I'm couldn't even find out how long La Famiglia on Danforth has been around for... their website or the rest of the almighty internet providing zero information (although keep in mind, my research ability/willingness grades out optimistically to "Lazy"). This place could be celebrating fifty years tomorrow, or three. Who knows? They even have an extensive FAQ page on their site... and go figure it's dozens of questions about deliveries and 'how to pay' type stuff. Bah!   

So, the story of how this little pizza parlour came to be is entirely a mystery to my knowledge. Location? That's easy: a side-street corner in the middle of the uneventful stretch of East Danforth between Main Street and Woodbine (filled mostly with car dealerships and supermarkets, with the occasional random cafe or restaurant). Walking into their space in the middle of a weekday afternoon, you get the sense of a small, old European cafe or bar (complete with soccer match on a big screen). With only a few small tables inside, this is more of a take-away joint and they do offer slices... so I went for two different ones (coming in at around 12 bucks all together... although at first the fella forgot and only charged me for one... "six bucks for two slices? Best deal ever!")

 

 

No real description needed for what our first slice is here (obviously their vegan potato and pesto offering, duh). La Famiglia describes themselves as a New York style pie and they definitely get the prerequisite crispness down. It's a fairly thin crust and there's some happy crunch to the bottom of each bite, a nice foundation for the intense cheesiness of this pizza. Indeed, the cheese-to-everything-else ratio is rather askew here, especially the Hawaiian slice, but it is a quality mozzarella at least... a hint of butteriness lingering on the tongue. As for the rest... pineapple is pineapple and the ham, while lean and tasty, is a bit dry on the edges (as will happen to ham if sitting out for even a short while). 

 

 

Slice number two! Not exactly sure what you'd call this one, but the basics are: pepperoni, roasted red peppers, thinly shaved sausage, and a healthy dose of seasonings. It shares that same crispness as the Hawaiian but the flavours here are much more dynamic. You get a good balance of sweetness from the red peppers, which themselves are pleasantly soft and fresh-tasting... complimented by the sausage and pepperoni combo (not overly salty as well, thankfully). The thinly sliced/shredded sausage is a bit unusual as well, but that does keep it from overwhelming the other flavours with its fattiness as many chunkier bits of sausage can when on a pizza. You only get a hint of it this way, and it's interesting to see sausage in such a secondary role.   

I didn't get a lot of tomato sauce on either slice, which is not ideal for my particular tastes, and it is an overall hindrance to this pizza. When you do taste it, the flavour leans more on the herbal tomato sauce side rather than acidic, hearty or sweet. Alas, the lack of sauce does lead certain bites into the Dry Side of The Force, particularly once it cools down. Fortunately a thinner crust pie can get away with this much, much easier than others.

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Overall! For a basic, thin crust slice... this was pretty good. Emphasis on "basic": this is a shorter review than usual because La Famiglia on Danforth keeps things incredibly simple. Just straight-forward thin pizza with good quality care and ingredients, which shines through most with that irresistible crispness to each bite (the crust has it as well). The cheese is somewhat excessive but that's a very minor complaint, and if not for that lack of sauce presence I'd really call this a mostly unknown pizza gem in Toronto's east end. Regardless, it's simplicity doesn't necessarily equal "bad", not at all, and both slices hit the spot quite a bit. This gets a strong "B" grade from me... if you happen to be walking by and the slices look fresh from the oven, I doubt you'll be disappointed one bit.      

This Week In Pizza: Pie Bar

 

 

Not counting my dreadfully forgettable experience with a Loblaws pizza (you, dear reader, should forget it too), it had legitimately been over a month since trying a new pizza. Not just that, but any pizza. Unthinkable, right? I mean, I made a couple on pitas at home and also tried an okay one in St. Catharines (the photo came out blurry so guess it never happened)... but even then, these are about 3-4 pizza experiences for me in the span of six to seven weeks. Geez, no wonder I've had the Autumn Blues lately...

I'm just gonna blame that Loblaws "pizza" for all that and now move onto something better (hard not to be). Pie Bar! Reading that, your first question may very well be: "What-bar?" "Thai-bar?" "3.14-bar?" "Pry-bar? Get a... crowbar!"     

If you're still reading after those attempts at something resembling joke-like product, yes indeed there is a place in Toronto called Pie Bar and indeed they are an establishment with both a bar and a pizza oven (with a pizzaiolo even). They'd been on my list of places to try for quite sometime, but more so as a curiosity than a place I'd heard much hype about. Some quick inside baseball: when discovering a new pizza joint I always check their average Google review rating (and quantity of reviews, of course). It's not really a conscious screening process on anything below 4, which is probably not worth the time trying anyway (almost all independent pizza joints are comfortably above). There are several McDonald's locations I bet that average higher than 4/5 stars, and well... I guess those must have the secret real recipes, not the Krusty Brand imitation gruel-I mean regular McD's fare.

I only mention this Google review thing because Pie Bar, coming in exactly at 4.0/5, has one of the lowest scores I ever reviewed. Well, that I've seriously reviewed anyhow... when I reviewed Little Caesar's it's not like I went halfway to Hamilton just to find the one with the highest Google rating. Anyhow, this 4.0/5 of Pie Bar always struck me as odd. The menu seemed decent, the location exceptional, and the name... easy to make half-assed jokes about! More than a few places I've tried have had much higher average scores, only for me to discover nothing to enjoy. 

Getting into it... Pie Bar is located in a place called the Queens Quay Terminal. It's a low-rise condominium overlooking the lake in downtown Toronto, with a sort of large public lobby area on the ground floor connected to a bunch of... things? There's a grocery store, a chain pub location, some kind of fried chicken sit down/take out... considering there is a collection of plastic bench tables for communal seating, this is almost like a minimized mall food court. Only sleeker and with that unmistakable fancy condo smell! Actually, compared to a big mall bombarding you with noise and stimulation... the quietness and simplicity of this was very preferable.

I was leaving work at BMO Field (TFC were baaaaaaad this year, man) and called in my order ahead: their pesto Margherita pizza (already unusual and intriguing) and some wild-boar bacon as my own chosen addition to it. "It'll be ready in ten minutes!" said they over the phone. Uh-oh. Naturally, I got a bit confused finding exactly where Pie Bar actually is (probably not the first person) but eventually I made it while the pizza was still fresh and heygeezdudeenoughhurryupandtalkaboutthestupidpizzaalready!

 

 

Important to note that Pie Bar uses a wood burning oven (you know the ones) and so this does qualify as a wood-fired pizza. You definitely get the flexible, droopiness aspect of that: trying to eat a slice of this without even folding it a little is an excellent method of accelerating laundry day. 

There's rather a lot going on with this pizza. Plenty of good, plenty strange, and one major flaw. Starting with the flaw: the dough/crust just has nothing going on. No real char or fresh bready taste here, a crust on the chewier side... for a pizza that is on the underdone side (which I like), there should be way more softness on the edges to this. Like baked bread after a couple days, it's firmed up.

Onto the good! The composition is excellent. I haven't had a pure Margherita pizza in forever (they're endlessly delicious but also not... exciting to me?) and the skilled execution here was a pleasant reminder how delightful the basics can be. Something about that extra soft, subtle sharp, buttery bufala mozzarella (and this was definitely bufala, you can tell by how it melts) meeting leafy basil and tomato sauce together in one bite... I mean there's a reason it's a classic standing the long tests of time. The Beatles of pizza configuration. 

Continuing that flimsy musical analogy, the pesto (their menu) and bacon (mine) additions would be like... later era Beatles? It's unmistakably them, but now there's more? Some of their very best stuff is in that period, but Pie Bar is far, far from the Abbey Road of pizzas. In theory, I'm still confident that adding wild-boar bacon to this was an inspired choice... but it contributed to the strangeness. This bacon itself was tasty, very fatty and thickly sliced, reasonably plentiful, and sneakily salty (to the point I had salt-lips for several minutes after). Compared to regular bacon, flavour-wise there wasn't much difference (the pork flavour lingered slightly longer) but this was a very tender, larger cut that texture-wise, fat and all, really found a nice role within this pie.

The pesto... well its all over this, as the photo shows. And as a pesto it's quite decent... much heavier on the basil and pine nut flavour blend over any hint of garlic or pepper. But I think it's another weak link here, and that's more on Pie Bar thinking this pesto would work on a Margherita rather than I adding bacon onto this thing. Talking flavour, adding a basil-heavy pesto onto a pizza that already has basil on it... well guess what, your pizza is really gonna taste a lot like basil. Which if you really like basil... knock yourself out! I'm one to talk... I'll order a pizza with nothing but cheese and garlic, get a garlic dip on the side, and then lament there isn't more garlic. But objectively, as a menu item with this particular pesto spread about, it's a bit much for the average taste bud. I didn't mind the constant semi-sweet leafyness... but it's spread out so evenly that when it bleeds into every bite, it compromises the other flavours.

Another issue: the blending of the oiliness. This happened on a few particular bites but was noticeable enough... the residual oils of the melted cheese, the olive oil in the pesto, and the grease oozing from the large fatty bits of bacon... all merging together and fighting for control in your mouth. Like tasting three oily things at once and they layer on your tongue. Not unpleasant by any means, but it was far more notable by its oddness rather than a positive taste. 

A more potent tomato sauce probably could've bumped this pizza up significantly... given it a bit more balance rather than letting these many various flavours clash for attention on occasion. There is plenty of tomato sauce, which is a positive on the more straight-up Margherita tasting bites. The sauce itself? Very light beyond a faint sweetness. Something more robust, with a hint more zing could've really added something to this: a balancing counterpoint to a grounded, oily pesto. It's a merely good tomato sauce but is just missing something to really elevate it.

 

Overall! Pie Bar is good, but not 'really good' because despite some strong quality and execution, certain elements don't quite mesh. It's a very mediocre pizza crust (and well-below average by wood-fired pie standards) and the oiliness of the pie confuses when it tastes like three different oils at once. Smaller dollops of pesto, rather than spreading it about, would've likely balanced this better. Still, they do more things right than wrong... the quality of ingredients in the cheese, basil, bacon, and sauce are all very much there. It seems the high price (this was about 27 bucks) reflects that quality, and while I'm happy to pay for a place that uses the true good stuff... this has too many weaknesses for me to truly recommend it. Perhaps this explains the lackluster Google score as well: a premium price for a merely good pizza... I can see that annoying some people. 

Pie Bar is a surprisingly weird one I'll throw in the "B" grade range. I enjoyed it, but they're distant from being a must try.                                     

This Week In Pizza: Loblaws

 

 

 

We've been on a winning streak lately with pizzas... time to punch downward a little bit.

Might have gone too far in that direction, maaaaaaybe just a bit. Hoo boy. I've considered doing a special review one day of well known frozen pizzas and pitting them against each other... and now I suppose I have to (despite this one technically not being frozen upon purchase).

There's not much to dive into here beyond that this is some damn weak stuff. It looks decent, sure, how could a pie loaded with this many meats not be... and those meats are indeed the only redeeming element here. The pepperoni is generic and greasy, but the sausage chunks actually have some modest pepperiness to them and that is indeed real bacon hidden in there (and somewhat juicy, though it dried out badly on the reheat). 

The rest of this? Bad. Bad! The cheese has this gooey, plasticy taste that reminds me of processed cheese (which I've never been a fan of anyhow). It melts well, but it tastes like nothing even resembling mozzarella or any kind of cheese. Same with the tomato sauce... there just isn't anything flavour-wise, no acidity or sweetness, no sting... it's just kind of there (and there definitely are some large pockets of it). Existing only as tomato-like texture, because it's a "pizza", obviously.

I suppose I shouldn't have been expecting much, but even my low-ish expectations suspected something in the "C" range. Instead? This is some Pizza Pizza level stuff. Cardboard flavours, fake cheese, uninspired tomato sauce, bizarre crust (much like a frozen one with its lack of breadiness and awkward stale crunch)... like Pizza Pizza you only get some pleasant taste from them meats adorning the top, and it can semi-satisfy when fresh... but beyond that? Super weak, and not a whole lot else going for it.

Fortunately I got this pizza for a half off price, which still added up to around five bucks and if another similar opportunity came along? I wouldn't bother. It's not completely horrible or offensive (it only offends by its blandness) but the lack of flavour and weird textures make it all a waste of precious pizza time. Firmly a "D-". There are surely better pizzas available in the supermarket, frozen or otherwise.        

This Week In Pizza: Beast Pizza

 

 

Beast Pizza is a swanky little joint that has operated as a restaurant for quite some time, but only somewhat recently transformed itself into a pizza destination. It has a bit of a Bitondo's vibe as far as being located off the beaten path (that's two straight reviews with a Bitondo's reference, for those keeping score!). Beast is right on the corner of Tecumseth Street and Whitaker Avenue, a quiet residential strip despite being nestled between the busy hoots of West Queen West and King West. With all the unassuming houses along the way, this almost became a difficult place to find: as we were walking my trusted occasional pizza accomplice indeed Googled the exact location... a smart decision considering my usual counter-approach of just wandering around forever until stumbling upon your destination.      

The interior of Beast Pizza is quite quirky, and I rather liked it: not the largest space you'll encounter and it reminds me of some kind of 1930s smoking room with an old fashioned wooden bar right as you walk in. There are plenty of decorations and one of them being a section of wall/pillar with baseball cards behind a frame, which certainly wins over my sensibilities.

 

 

After some deliberation (their beef tongue pie did sound quite intriguing), I went for their meatball offering which you see above. What you don't see above (obscured by clouds of arugula) are the supporting toppings: caramelized onions, fennel jam, and your usual mozzarella and tomato sauce. I also went for a garlic dip, because life is short and garlic dips make everything better.

First off, this is an excellently made pizza. Quite terrific. The crust is pillowy and light, a marvelously and surprisingly soft texture considering its heavy, thick look. Sauce and cheese are likewise both of high quality: vibrant in their tomato sting and butteryness (totally a word) respectively. The foundational components here definitely show that Beast is a place that knows what they're doing, and take the details seriously. Great stuff and fitting of comparison to the better, even the high end, wood-fired pizzas around.

This is a good combination of toppings also: the fennel jam with the caramelized onions do push it on the sweeter side, and yet those two compliment each other quite well... like two rhythm guitars alternating leads. The jam itself definitely stands out as a unique offering, with an instant tangyness that is pleasantly understated within the overall picture.

Alas... despite all of these positives (and I was extremely impressed by most of this)... the biggest and critical weakness of this pie is in the moniker: the meatballs. As noted by my wonderful and occasional pizza accomplice, these meatballs flavour-wise are just kind of ordinary. There's no zing or spice to them, nothing that lingers on the palate beyond an enjoyable meaty texture. That texture is indeed fabulous, a good balance of juiciness and firmness, everything you'd want out of a meatball... but where's the taste? Each bite of it just tasted of meat... a high quality meat sure but it needed seasoning or heat or sweetness or really just anything. 

It's truly a shame because the rest of this pizza is so, so excellent. Each topping working in absolute harmony with one another... the leafy sting of the arugula pairs with that jam and onion sweetness perfectly... but when you're calling this a "Meatball Pizza" and the flavour of your meatballs are missing something, thus being so meh... it's sadly a bit of a letdown.

To end on a positive, though. The garlic dip was indeed exceptional. Definitely leaned more into the garlicy than creamy direction, which I prefer, and that nice sharp sting was there. Highly recommended... not quite at the level of Blondie's black garlic dip but pretty darn close.

Overall! I do suggest giving Beast Pizza a try, should you be in the area. I'd be curious to try their other pies because if they are of similar quality but with more flavour than those sad meatballs, this could indeed be a pizza joint in the "A-" range. For now, I'll give them a strong "B+". Those lacking balls of meat aside, terrific stuff in both toppings and foundation.