The contents of this blog are matters of opinion formed over one more visits. There has been some artistry applied and metaphors and similes should not necessarily be taken literally.
I don’t normally go for this style of pizza (prefer Neapolitan) but this Ayers Rock ($26 for a family size, 15 inches) is really not bad – purchased for $2 delivered as part of a once off app promotion.
The base is very thin, as can be seen through the cross-section, which means that the topping to bread ratio is actually very good. The flavour, in keeping with a ham, onion, and egg pizza, is predominantly of salt with a hint of tang from the tomato base. They managed, in a rare display of restraint and skill, to avoid the pie being over-salty.
Overall, and deadnaming the landmark aside, it was a pretty good pizza – though not something I’d go out and get.
Pane e Vino Trattoria was actually not the Croydon pizza restaurant I had intended to visit, something I realised only as we drove past Mario’s Pizzeria. In spite of this, and the tail end of a protracted URTI, we had a pretty good meal.
My partner is on a bit of a health kick and requested the insalata di rucola ($17), a plate of mostly rocket drizzled with vinaigrette and with some walnut , parmesan, and a few pear slices mixed in. She enjoyed it, though I could not appreciate it much apart from the vinegar.
The rustica ($26) was a good pizza. Very tasty, well topped, and with a very crispy and chewy crust – a trait that is surely a class characteristic and not unique to this particular topping offering.
The pistaccio pizza ($27) is somewhat of a house specialty, and much more subdued in flavour compared to the rustica. As this pizza relied on subtlety rather than a combination of highly seasoned meats, I had difficulty really appreciating it at the time of consumption, apart from the creamy textures and excellent base. My partner however really enjoyed this pizza, going so far as to not even pick off the prawns. I hope to try it again in a more sinus-clear state.
We pre-ordered online and subsequently picked up in person a cake from local bakery Tamborrino, taking the opportunity to try a few quick snacks whilst we were there.
The REASON FOR VISIT was this ricotta and pear semifreddo (around $40). Semi-freddo as a concept is not something that we’re particularly familiar with, and we were told to keep this out of the fridge for 3 hours prior to serving. Due to poor planning on our part, we consumed this cake after only 90 minutes at room temperature, by which point it had devolved into extremely soft, almost custard like texture. Being non-Italian and not having had any semi or full freddo before, I wasn’t sure if such a degree of softness was intentional, but it certainly did not help with the cake’s overall overpowering sweetness. Though sacrilegious as it may be, I think this would’ve been much better eaten straight out of the freezer, giving it a bit more structure and muting the sweetness just a little bit.
I should admit that I did enjoy the little gold encrusted cereal balls, which were a bit chewy and a bit crunchy. Despite this, this was one of the few occasions where I actually preferred the backup cake from Savoy, the classic taro cake, that is always present at such events.
Though I didn’t love the main event, I did quite enjoy this ricotta mini cannoli ($~4 or less). We had made a separate trip some months ago to Mezzapica in Leichardt to get their allegedly very good cannoli, but I honestly don’t think Tamborrino’s was any worse – possibly even better. We had been lured to Leichardt on the promise that Mezzapica’s cannoli would be extra crispy due to their piping to order, but to be honest Tamborrino’s cabinet cannoli crisped just fine. Unlike the other things we had from Tamborrino, the cannoli was not too sweet.
The other little snack we had was this pistachio mini bomba ($4) – essentially a donut filled with an absolutely huge amount of pistachio filling. This, much like the cake was also quite sweet. But somehow more enjoyable – perhaps due to its small size.
Pasticceria Tamborrino Five Dock 75 Great N Rd, Five Dock NSW 2046
My partner and I visited the number one rated (by averages) Italian restaurant in Wollongong last night, with an average of 4.9 stars across 60 reviews. Despite this, we were the only customers at Dom on Bruelli during our meal, with a staff to customer ratio of 2:1, which was maintained by the arrival of another couple just as we were leaving.
Seated in one corner of the extremely narrow but long restaurant, we had our choice of two pizzas and nothing else.
The salsiccia pizza ($28) was the less enjoyable of the two – a very mildly flavoured white pizza with a topping of sliced potato, confit garlic, parsley, fennel sausage, and a mixture of cheeses – ricotta, fior di latte, and parmesan.
Though I’m usually not one to complain about food being untasty, I’m afraid I have to in this case. In what I would consider an unusual move, the sausage was sliced rather than presented as caseless clumps on the pizza, and though this in itself didn’t distract from their flavour, their sparseness as well as their generally mild taste did mean that the pizza overall was less tasty. The different cheeses also were minimally salted, with the ricotta disappeared into the molten amalgamation, further adding to this problem. The potato slices were semi-crispy and again minimally seasoned. Perhaps the saving grace of this pizza was the restaurant’s housemade chilli oil, which added a bit of flavour and complexity to both the pizza at large as well as its voluminous crust.
I found the diavola pizza ($28) much more enjoyable, with bold flavours from the San Marzano tomatoes, fermented chilli, sopressa, nduja, and the rare appearance of guindillas, which I’ve not had before on a diavola. The presence of these little pickled chillis was key to adding an interesting zest and freshness to the pizza, cutting through the fatty fior di latte and meats, and making this a special pizza overall.
Thoughts on the structure The base of this pizza was thin and floppy, meaning that we found that our slices were best eaten folded. Contrastingly, the crusts were voluminous, comprising a large percentage of the overall surface area of the pizza. Whilst my partner heretically discarded her crusts, I dutifully consumed all of mine with the help of chilli oil. But did there need to be so much?
I also just have no idea how they could possibly make money with 2 customers at a time during our 36 minute snapshot visit. Hopefully it got a bit businer for them as the night went on, but I suspect the huge patronage from the Wollongong Thursday night food market takes away from the local restaurants a bit.
Dom on Burelli 1/63 Burelli St, Wollongong NSW 2500
I found myself having an extra night in Wollongong, and was craving some pizza. Both unwilling and unable to go to Kneading Ruby, having exhausted their pretty delicious menu back in 2021, we decided on Lupa, well recommended on the internet, which had a couple of open tables for walk-ins on a Sunday night.
The first thing I noticed about Lupa was this cute logo of a wolf providing milk to piglets? wolflets? the founders of Rome? on their window. It was cute but weird, kind of chaotic and modern.
My partner decided on the pizza, which was the quattro stagioni ($24), with tomato sauce, fior di latte, ham, salami, mushrooms, a single artichoke, and olives. Being simple folk who don’t know much about pizza lore, we had expected all of these ingredients to come mixed on the pizza, however this is not how it was. This pizza came in discrete sections, with Wikipedia stating that each section represents one Italian season.
It was actually very good, with a nice thin crust but with strong, non-floppy structure. The salami was quite delicious, likely an artisan variety rather than something more pedestrian. The artichoke was tender, marinated in some kind of vinegary substance, and the mushroom and ham definitely not problematic either. This pizza was so good that even before our pasta came I was regretting not just getting two pizzas.
The orchiette with pork sausage and mushroom ($22) was the pasta special for the night. It was quite al dente (probably too much for me), and I must admit that I didn’t love it, though my partner enjoyed it, possibly even more than the pizza itself. There was no sauce, instead being more of an oil-based pasta with a hint of aniseed flavour amongst the mushroom and pork sausage. I do wish that we had just ordered two pizzas, but I’m glad that my partner go to enjoy this pasta, and I’m also glad that I wasn’t in a situation where a number of patrons on a different table each ate their own pasta and didn’t get to try anyone else’s food at at all.
As we were leaving, our waiter said our visit wouldn’t be our last. He’s probably right. Yum.
