Pizza e Pazze, Toronto

Controversy follows claims for the best pizza in Toronto. Everyone has their faves. A very well experienced friend staked his claim on Pizza e Pazze so I was encouraged to try it out.

The nicely arranged bread starter with 3 condiments: mushrooms, caramelized onions and sun dried tomato mix. 

Pizza bianca with rosemary, sea salt and olive oil. Lovely presentation. The dough was very light and had good flavour with a pleasing texture. Despite the fact that the thin crust was not crispy overall, it did not sag in the centre. The wood oven charred crust provided extra flavour. This is very good pizza.

Polpetta de la nonna: meatballs in a very tasty San marzano based tomato sauce. The meatballs were light in texture with good flavour.

 A well presented mixed green salad.

Spaghetti alla carbonara, with creamy egg sauce, grana padano cheese, pancetta and black pepper.  Good, well flavoured pasta, but not up to my gold standard of this dish, experienced at Campangnolo.

Pizza with fresh fior di latte cheese, olive oil, grilled eggplant, zucchini and sweet red peppers with basil and San Marzano based tomato sauce. This delicious pizza had the flavour and texture characteristics of the pizza described above, but the centre was a bit soggy.

The canoli we had for dessert were a bit disappointing, lacking crispiness and possessing a heavy crust. Skip this dessert.

The service here is highly attentive and ingratiating. But, was this the best pizza in Toronto.....well, in my opinion, I prefer Buca and Pizza Libretto and, recently, L'Unita. Maybe it ranks next in line?

Friday Lunch from Longo's

Posted by Jennifer

Cruising through the new Bloor Street East Longo's, we noticed a salad bar and better yet, a pizza oven going full blast. Always eager for new lunchtime possibilities, we were drawn by the idea of freshly baked pizza with an interesting salad on the side.

There was a large gap between eye and palate appeal. Everything thing looked good. Once bitten into, this food quickly lost its charm. Sold by weight, our large salad comprised three selections:  Singapore noodles, traditional Greek, and two small slices of salmon. The acrid burn of commercial curry powder overwhelmed the flaccid noodles, flecks of what might once have been carrot, bits of onion, and a chunk of chicken (we do mean one chunk of chicken). The Greek salad, the best of the lot, was nonetheless waterlogged. Though plentiful, the two varieties of olives tasted the same, neither with any subtlety. The salmon, although it appeared to be peppered and had grill marks, offered only a stronger than expected fishiness and little else. To add insult to injury, it was overcooked.

Atop the thin crusted pizza, the cheese was gilded but very rubbery. Under it, the tomato sauce had the unmistakable acidity of an over-processed commercial product. Though thin, the crust managed to be doughy. Despite the fiery oven, this pie cooled quickly on the short haul back to the store.

A bottle of Santa Cruz lemonade, purchased on special, was a bit sweet but still the most acceptable of our purchases.

This disappointing lunch could best be described as an industrial sheep in artisan clothing.

Price: $18.74 for a large salad, a 10" pizza and a 947 ml bottle of lemonade. 

(Photos by Gina.)

Friday Lunch: Whole Foods

Posted by Jennifer

Along with our every grocery need, Whole Foods offers up a wide range
of takeout foods, hot and cold.

From the brick pizza oven, we try a chicken Alfredo slice.  Topped
with chunks of chicken on a sea of molten cheese, this slice has an
unexpected but welcome spicy zing. Though it might have been crisper,
the thin crust makes a good base.

When imagining panini, images of hot, toasty, and melted., dance in
our minds. Though pressed, this sandwich is none of those things.
Loaded with mozzarella, prosciutto, a hint of greens, and highlighted
with a smear of fig jam, this is one sophisticated sandwich, just not
what we thought it would be.

With all this bread and cheese, we need one of our five to 10 a day
servings of vegetables.  Some people may not like Brussels sprouts; we
love them.  We eat these roasted beauties cold but they would be even
better hot.  Perfectly cooked, still crunchy, they are garnished with
walnuts and onion cooked to sweetness. Yummy!

We finish with  oatmeal raisin and pecan chocolate chip cookies.
Despite not quite enough cinnamon in the oatmeal cookies, and too few
pecans in the chocolate chip cookies, these are satisfyingly
old-fashioned.  They are the sort of slightly doughy treats that
scream out for a glass of milk on the side.

The total cost was $17.20.

Friday Lunch: Pizzaiolo

Posted by Jennifer

In anticipation of the opening of Pizzaiolo on our block,  we have a few slices from the location a few blocks south of us.  We cover all the bases:  meat, vegetarian, and vegan. Like most pizza slices, these do not win prizes for looks -- pizza slices usually sit long enough to look a bit dried out.

Our meat choice, the Soprano, features sopressata (Italian dry-cured sausage) with sundried tomatoes, gorgonzola, and mozzarella. The sopressata tastes much better than the usual cheap pepperoni.

The Casino with black and green olives, roasted red peppers, and mozzarella is also better than expected, and happily less salty due to the cooks not being too heavy-handed with the olives.

Fredo, the vegan pizza, features potato slices with olive oil, fresh oregano and rosemary. Often when potatoes are used on pizza they are undercooked, and either under or over-seasoned.  Pizzaiolo has gotten

it right with sufficiently soft potatoes and enough herbs to enhance without overwhelming the flavour of either the potatoes or crust.

The crust is the star of these slices.  Neither too thick nor too thin, this tasty base supports the toppings without collapsing between plate and mouth.

Our three slices, which could have fed six, along with one San Pellegrino Arancita, came to $15.71.

Photos by Gina