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. All meals are independently paid for - the author has no conflicts of interest to disclose.
Pepper Gourmet Pizza was my most recent victim after getting home past midnight after an evening shift in the emergency department.
Pepper’s Truffle Beef Pizza ($17, medium) – described as “Béchamel Base, Wagyu Beef, Wild Mushroom, Caramelised Onions, Mozzarella, Topped With Fresh Basil, Buffalo Mozzarella And Truffle Aioli” – was quite disappointing. The “Wagyu” beef tasted no different to regular strips of beef that had been cooked well done. The wildness of the mushrooms I felt did not add anything to their taste or texture, and a more friendly domesticated mushroom would not have hurt this pizza in any way. The truffle aioli drizzle was oily but was unfortunately necessary to provide an additional flavour to this cheesy greasy mess. Not for me.
Garlic Prawns
The Garlic Prawns Pizza ($18, medium) was also a disappointment. Pepper’s idea of a prawn is obviously a very small, budget style acquatic animal with little meat or flavour. The garlic sauce component of the pizza was also very mild. The fresh lemon slice was a good addition but I could’ve used two. It would’ve been better with more flavourful and robust garlic, and larger and more prawns for the price.
The Mexican Pizza ($17 – medium) doesn’t try too hard at incorporated premium sounding ingredients, but actually does what it sets out to do well. This pizza provides a good mix of flavours from its slightly spicy chorizo to its spicy and tangy jalapenos. This is the only pizza from Pepper’s Gourmet Pizza that I would buy again.
Don’t get the spicy chicken wings (6 for $9.95). That is all.
VERDICT
I would not recommend Pepper Gourmet Pizza for your next primary school pizza party, however it is in my opinion still much better than Maranello’s, also in Maroubra.
It’s hard for you to know this as all of my reviews are pre-written and scheduled, but this is actually the first review I’ve written in over two months. With the COVID-19 Delta outbreak in NSW and the subsequent lockdown there just hasn’t been much occasion or opportunity to go out and eat nice things. A recent government-sanctioned visit to my partner’s workplace accommodation in Wollongong provided a great opportunity to broaden my taste experiences outside of my 5km Western Sydney radius. Kneading Ruby answered the call of duty, not once, but twice.
My first bite of Kneading Ruby’s Pepperoni pizza ($24) with San Marzano tomato, fior di latte, pepperoni, and gremolata set the bar with quite extraordinary expectations for the rest of the meal. Their pizza bases are thin, but still retaining a good degree of crispiness and structural integrity. Their tomato sauce is fragrant and generous but not soggy, and the gremolata – a sauce of parsley, lemon, and garlic – was an excellent out of the ordinary addition to an already good pepperoni pizza. I enjoyed the slight woodfired char on the chewy, glutinous crust, and can find no faults with this pizza.
The Pork and Fennel pizza ($25) with pork and fennel sausage, cavalo nero, mozarella, and confit chilli was another delight. Each slice of pizza was apportioned with a generous amount of tasty sausage, leaving no mouthful sad and unmeated. The cavalo nero, a kale-like brassica, was a reasonable consolation prize for my partner who wanted to order some vegetables instead. The chilli sauce was good.
This DIY Garlic Bread ($10.50), presented as a cut up cobb loaf with a pot of garlic butter, was only OK. It could’ve used more garlic in the garlic butter, and more butter overall.
SECOND ORDER
Unlike my girlfriend, I’m not usually a fan of potato on pizza. The first time I had potato on pizza was at Lilly’s Cafe in Rhodes, an experience which put a sense of starchy fear in my mind that has lingered to this day. Kneading Ruby’s Pancetta pizza ($25) with pancetta, smoked buffalo mozarella, scamorza, potato, rosemary, and pepper made short work of these negative connotations. The pancetta was again quite plentiful, and the flavours of the meat, cheese, and rosemary synergised well with that of the potato. Though the potato didn’t have a lot of flavour on its own, it was most importantly cut thinly and did not have too starchy a feel. It was more crispy (though not crunchy) than starchy, giving it the feeling of a topping rather than yet another layer of base. Really well done.
I was a bit hesitant to order two white pizzas on our second time having Kneading Ruby, fearing that the Truffle Salami pizza ($24) might be too similar to the Pancetta pizza. My fears were allayed however, by the sheer difference in flavour between the two pizzas. The truffle salami pizza had a mild but solid blue gorgonzola flavour, which I think was far more dominant than any truffle flavour that may or may not have been in it. The crust of this pizza was a little more burnt that I would’ve liked, though you can see from my sample size of 4 that this is more an anomality rather than the norm.
THIRD ORDER
Keeping up a recent tradition for the third fortnight in a row, we again ordered two pizzas that we had yet to try from Kneading Ruby. Unfortuately as it were we had already tried the most promising looking menu items, and were therefore left with the Marinara pizza ($22) and the Gamberi pizza. Neither of these pizzas really lived up to the lofty expectations set by our previous orders. The Marinara pizza is a vegetarian pizza topped with san marzano tomatoes, other roast tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, garlic, and oregano. The three different types of tomatoes on this pizza, while adding varied tastes and textures, did not do wonders for the structural integrity of the pie, which was somewhat soggy and floppy. Each slice of pizza was adorned by a full clove of garlic, which had been roasted to a pretty nice mild mashiness. This is not the pizza I would’ve chosen to begin with, but a reasonable option for someone with tick-bite induced meat allergy.
The Gamberi ($26) was really not that great either. I had expected a red pizza with some kind of sugo and a scattering of prawns. This is what was pictured on Deliveroo. What I got instead, pictured on the left, was a white pizza with a surprising dominane of zucchini, a small amount of scamorza and the occasional sundried tomato and green chilli. The flavours were mild, with the strongest component the slightly salted cheese flavour. I wished there could’ve been more prawn, but really I wish I could’ve just had what was pictured.
For reference, the right photo was the provided photo for the Gamberi in the Deliveroo menu. Much more appealing, but not at all what I got. (To be fair, incongruous with the written description).
The Cavatelli pasta with broccoli, lemon, pangritata and parmesan ($25) was alright. I liked the crispiness added by the pangritata, and thought that the sauce to pasta ratio was actually quite good for a delivered bowl. I’m just more of a meat guy myself.
VERDICT I’m so pleased to have found such a nice gourmet pizza restaurant in Wollongong. The quality of their pizza challenges even some of my favourites in the big smoke. Definitely worth a visit.
My first experience with Mapo’s gelato was during my first visit to Kurumac in early 2020, a Japanese cafe which offers a hojicha milkshake as well as a seasonal milkshake made from Mapo’s gelato. I’ve subsequently taken every available opportunity to get gelato from Mapo and have thoroughly enjoyed their selection.
My picks of the litter would be
Hojicha (roasted tea)
Fior di latte – a really creamy, milky flavour
Black sesame – basically any time I have black sesame it’s a blast to the past, evoking memories of that sweet black sesame slurry as well as black sesame filled tang yuang
Other flavours I’ve had are
Pistachio – Vegan, honestly pretty good for vegan ice cream, quite creamy
Kiwifruit (as milkshake at Kurumac) – Not bad
VERDICT
I would really recommend giving Mapo a try. They have somehow really mastered the art of turning Asian inspired flavours into ice cream, whilst maintaining a strong menu of more traditional flavours.
I’ve had Westwood Pizza in my Google Maps bookmarks ever since it opened, but with the fear of parking in Newtown in the evening and the stories of people lining up for two hours for a pizza I delayed and delayed and delayed my visit until I could no longer bear it.
Westwood is tiny, with one pizza oven and a dining room that seats barely ten at a time. It’s no surprise, then, that they’re set up more for take-away than for dining in, with even dine in pizza served in their cardboard boxes. My partner and I were lucky enough to snag a couple of seats without a wait at the start of the night, but the vast majority of patrons were pickups with orders made ahead of time via phone. Westwood needs no help from high-cut delivery services to sell their nightly run of highly sought-after gourmet pizzas.
The Garlic and Honey Pizza ($20) was very special. Fusing together the sweetness of honey with the garlickyness of garlic (is there a better description), the spice of pepper, and the slight saltiness of the fior di latte and pecorino cheese, this pizza brings to the tongue truly novel flaviours. An original and inventive pizza, each bite of each slice of Westwood’s signature pizza excites and amuses. This pizza changed my view on what pizzas can be. The only excuses you could possibly have to miss this pizza is if you’re allergic to honey or you’re a cat who can’t have garlic.
The ‘Nduja, ricotta, and thyme pizza ($24) was our second and second favourite pizza of the night. It was a bit on the extra-flavoured side, with surprisingly spicy ‘nduja, especially given the not-so-spicy XO sauce that Westwood also sells (see below). The vanilla buffalo ricotta acted as a good milder foil for the stronger flavours of the pizza, providing a sense of balance with some bites that were not present in others. Though better than almost every other pizza out there, my partner remarked that if we had only had this pizza she would’ve had a much less rosy view of the restaurant in general.
Shifting slightly to the construction of these pizzas, I’m told that each pizza base is formed from a single-heritage wheat flour from Gunnedah, NSW. To be honest neither the geographic origin nor the pedigree of the plants that gave their lives for this pizza mean anything to me. What does matter to me and impress me are Westwood’s incredibly thin and crispy bases, that both have great mouthfeel and structural integrity. Even the crusts are delicious, especially when dipped in their Chilli XO ($4), a mild and not very spicy oil-based sauce.
OTHER COMMENTS I’m sad that in my procrastination I missed out on Westwood’s smoked eel pizza, as that was one that I had been really looking forward to. Despite this, the offerings that we sampled were strong, and I’m happy to list Westwood as one of my top pizzerias in Sydney.
It’s not often that I have a meal as bad and as expensive as the one I had at CicciaBella.
Zia Romildo’s Garage Pizza, shown here in the Pino’s Pepperoni variant ($14) really does taste and feel like it came out of some guy’s dim and cobwebbed garage. Saucing was minimal, cheesing was minimal with terrible coverage, and pepperoni was delivered as it were a wartime allotment. All that was generous was the boring, dry, and bready pizza base, so bereft of any joy that a lunchable would’ve offered a more preferable topping to base ratio.
Sonoma Bread ($5), expertly removed from its packaging and placed in a basket. No faults.
It’s come to my attention in the past three days that you can get burrata from the local supermarket for $5. That makes paying $14 for this burrata a total outsider move. Very standard, though that’s probably a compliment at CicciaBella.
This rigatoni in ossobuco ragu ($28) was actually pretty good. The flavours were standard ragu, and the pasta, though quite al dente, was quite palatable. The portion size, in keeping in CicciaBella’s apparent theme and philosophy, was unfortunately small for the price paid. In my opinion this is one of the few things worth getting here.
The market fish with lemon and sorrel ($35) was a sorry excuse for cooking. It was a cachectic baby snapper, cooked with as much skill as you would expect from a small child. Less than the bare minimum attempt had been made to even descale this fish, with each mouthful another journey into what can go wrong. I’ve never asked for money back on a bad dish or meal but I’m starting to wish that I had.
VERDICT I wouldn’t spend time or money here again.
