Tag: Pizza

Categories
Italian

Maybe Frank – Randwick NSW Restaurant Review

I don’t know why you follow this blog, but I’m guessing it’s not to look at blurry, low light pictures of pizza atop an increasingly large pile of uneaten pizza crusts. Unfortuantely for you, that’s exactly what you’re about to get in my brief and undetailed review of Maybe Frank’s all you can eat Pizza Wednesday.

Back when I was a small child one of my friends had a birthday party at Pizza Hut. Whilst I was not invited, I understand that it was quite a middling all you can eat affair, and not a cheap one at that – perhaps $30 a head. Maybe Frank provides what I imagine may be a much better experience. For just $20 with the purchase of any drink ($10 negronis and aperol spritzs are on offer all night), diners are able to enjoy a selection of eleven different pizzas to their hearts delight. We went with a crew of 9 (essentially the Randwick ICU contingent with a Kogarah ICU +1), and I definitely recommend going with a larger group to experience all that Maybe Frank has to offer.

Mixed salad. Not much to say, but look at that artichoke.

Tartufo (White base, mozzarella, porcini mushrooms, truffle oil, grana). A nice, truffly pizza that was widely enjoyed.

Diavola (Tomato sauce, mozzarella, hot salami, olive). Pretty good, one of the best pizzas of the night, in fact, but not the best I’ve had. I actually recommended to my Eastern Suburbs colleague sitting next to me to try out Da Mario‘s.

Margherita (Tomato sauce, mozzarella, basil). Pretty standard.

Don’t know what this is.

Norma (Tomato sauce, mozzarella, eggplant, ricotta, basil). Really quite good. Loved the ricotta.

Napoletana (Tomato sauce, mozzarella, capers, anchovies, olives, oregano). As you may be aware, I’m still trying to train my palate to like anchovies. This was ok, owing to the fact that it was quite light on anchovies (and therefore saltiness).

Patate (White base, potatoes, italian sausage, rosemary). They asked if we had any more pizzas we wanted to order, and everyone said no except for my girlfriend, who said yes. She’s rarely ever said no to potato. Not bad.

The Nutella Slider was more of a donut ball with Nutella atop it. One of my colleagues had two, then cleaned off the Nutella on the plate. I was too destroyed by the seven slices of pizza before this to really enjoy it.

VERDICT
$30 for a cocktail and unlimited pretty gourmet woodfied pizzas with nice thin crusts. Great value.

4.5/5

Maybe Frank Randwick
69 Perouse Rd, Randwick NSW 2031
(02) 9398 8061

Categories
Italian

Elias Gourmet Pizza – Maroubra NSW Restaurant Review

Elias Gourmet Pizza is not as gourmet as I’d like it to be.

This meal was ordered via the Deliveroo app. The headline photo showed woodfired style pizza, however what I got was vastly different to the photo.

Gourmet Meat Large Half and Half Pizza – Brabyn St Special, Kalymnos

One of the positive attributes about Elias Gourmet Pizza is that there is no significant surcharge for half and half. I had the Gourmet Meat Large Half and Half Pizza with Brabyn St Special and Kalymnos ($26).

The Brabyn St Special consists of “Beef, pepperoni, roasted capsicum, onion, tomato, jalapenos, double chilli with a side of sour cream”. It is actually quite good, nice and spicy. It would my pick of the two halves.

The Kalymnos consisting of “char grilled meat balls, bacon, fresh tomato, onion & roasted capsicum” wasn’t so good. I thought that the meat balls were dry and a bit tasteless, and too sparse to really make the pizza feel like a meatball pizza – it was rather a pizza with occasional meatballs. I wouldn’t recommend this at all.

The American Smoked Pork Ribs ($28) was actually pretty decent, both in quality and price. I would normally expect to pay $35-40 for this quantity of ribs, so $28 from a delivery app is extremely reasonable. The pork was tender and well sauced but not oversauced, which was a plus. Surprisingly much better than the pizza – perhaps Elias should rename itself to Elias Gourmet Ribs instead.

VERDICT
Not really special, wouldn’t recommend their pizza but if you have a hankering for ribs and live within the delivery radius it’s worth a go.

Elias Gourmet Pizza
55 McKeon St, Maroubra NSW 2035
(02) 9315 5575

Categories
Italian

Pepper Gourmet Pizza – Maroubra NSW Restaurant Review

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.

Three stars

Pepper Gourmet Pizza Maroubra
Shop 2/183 Maroubra Rd, Maroubra NSW 2035
(02) 8041 0511

Categories
Italian

Westwood Pizza – Newtown NSW Restaurant Review

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.

Westwood Pizza
245 Australia St, Newtown NSW 2042
0466 181 266

Categories
Italian

CicciaBella Trattoria & Bar – Parramatta NSW Restaurant Review

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.

CicciaBella Trattoria & Bar Parramatta
T3/01 153 Macquarie St, Parramatta NSW 2150
(02) 8090 6979