Week two of the adventure - World vegan pizza day and Pizza wives.

It has been a pretty eventful week but I was still able to fit in two pizza dinners.  The first was at Perdincibacco on via delle fornaci and was a welcome treat after Italian lessons on Tuesday night with good friends who suggested it and I was not going to argue.  As you can tell from the photo I was skeptical of my usual camerawomen/pizza wife as this was not a quattro formaggi as is my favourite.  Despite being only a couple hundred metres away from St. Peters square, this place was actually really good.  It also had good suppli (fried rice, cheese and tomato sauce)  that was actually vegetarian as opposed to "ya its vegetarian, ham/bacon/fish/chicken/beef is vegetarian and there is barely any in there anyways" so there were no unwanted surprises this time.  The pizza involved mushrooms, mozzarella, walnuts and radicchio with is sorta like red cabbage.  The combination worked really well despite the lack of gorgonzola.  Overall a very good find especially if you are near St. Peter's and need a quick breakfast/lunch/dinner/elevenses/second breakfast or afternoon tea.

Price $9 (8/10)

Service 7

Taste 7.5

Overall 7.5

Things were getting desperate as on Thursday my pizza wife had pizza without me and thus I knew my chances of convincing her to have more pizza on the weekend were very slim.  Fortunately I was able to hijack Friday night party plans to go to Bir and Fud (in Trastevere) as they have lots of beer, but more importantly they have pizza and I hadn't been there yet.  Luckily this worked and there was even lots of space and pretty quick service for our pizza.  I have heard mixed reviews of Bir and Fud, with some saying amazing and others saying terrible.  Maybe the quality varies but I was very happy to catch them on a very "on" night.  I had what I think was called a Trifolata pizza (or something similar) which again was excellent.  It was a very naples styled pizza with thick crust, basil, shredded very fresh buffalo mozzarella and (too much) eggplant.  It is currently in my top 5 pizzas in Rome category.  The flavours were great, it wasn't too salty, everything tasted fresh.  Only complaint was that there was a little too much eggplant.  Eggplant isn't one of my favourites as it can be very "googly" - too mushy with googly bits.  Zucchini can have that problem as well.  It could have been helped by having smaller chunks but otherwise it was excellent.  I highly recommend it.

Price: 12 (6/10)

Service 7

Taste 8.5

Overall 8

Worth checking out, especially if you like a variety of beers.  

Photo credit: Benjamin from Switzerland

So in an effort to catch up with the backlog of pizza places which aren't properly commented on here in the blog, I'm going to try to do an extra one each week.  This pizza is from Monte Carlo near the Pantheon and is of course a 4 cheese pizza.  It was my first night in Rome so I was understandably excited.  It was a good pizza but not very special and I've been back once since.  Its OK but there are definitely better ones.  Still a great first night however and worthwhile in a pinch as its quick and has a great location.

Price ~10 7/10

Service 7

Taste 7

Overall 7

So my pizza wife and I signed up for a vegan cooking course on Saturday.  It was a very free flowing class that lasted 4 hours and although we didn't learn how to cook anything specific, we did come away with some good tips and some energy towards trying to eat healthier (I took that to mean more pizza) and try some new things.  They asked us to bring an ingredient that we would like to try to cook with but apparently "pizza" doesn't qualify as an ingredient.  Which is especially unfair as it was world vegan pizza day on Saturday.  So below is my plate from the dinner which was delicious though lacking in pizza ingredient, but does show that I do occasionally eat things other than pizza.

In light of the scare I had worrying about not getting pizza this week I have decided to open applications for pizza wives.  My current pizza wife has an upper limit of one pizza a week and that unfortunately does not meet my requirements.   Pizza wives would be expected to have dinner periodically to make up for the lack of pizza that I am getting at home.  The current uniform is shown below.

A delicious uniform

The quest begins!

After some encouragement and realizing that Facebook doesn't provide me with the medium that I need to fully express my love of pizza and to properly evaluate each and every sacred pizza that I eat, I have decided to create a blog of my pizza adventures around Italy and beyond.

This weeks adventures involve leaving Rome and traveling to Tivoli where emperors and popes/cardinals had their villas.  After exploring Villa D'Este which is a world heritage site and very much worth the trip (with incredible fountains and gardens) we went down the street to a little pizzeria called Bar di something.

The pizza was pretty good.  There were 8 of us and we were in a small nice room in the back of the restaurant.  The service was pretty normal.  Price was 8 Euros.  It was a 4 cheese pizza.  It was a little salty and there was the usual lack of huge amounts of gorgonzola but overall I was very happy for a touristy place.  The cheeses had distinct flavours and some of them were very firm so it gave different textures and flavours for every bite.  The crust was also not burnt and was thin without being papery.

Price 8/10

Service 7/10

Pizza 7/10

Overall 7.5/10.  Worth going back if I'm in the area although the pizza selection was quite minimal.

The second of this week's entries is from Dar Poeta.  I decided to give this place another chance due to its popularity.  Although it was good last time, it wasn't amazing and the hour and a half wait wasn't worth it.  However this time we went early and walked right in.  I decided to get the Super buffalo pizza which had artichoke, Buffalo mozzarella, tomato sauce, olives and pecorino cheese.  It was definitely better than the last pizza and worth coming back for.  There is a huge list of options so if there is no line or you get take out then I highly recommend it.

Cost 8/10

Service 7/10

Pizza 8/10

Overall 8/10

It loses points for being a little salty and the artichokes were too strong as they were very big chunks.  If they were a little smaller and spread out then you would be able to taste the flavours of the other parts.  Olives also didn't taste the freshest.  However it's currently in the top 10 pizza list so far.  Great location in Trastevere with a fun ambiance outside.  Great company as well.

I've been averaging 2 pizzas a week which I am hoping to continue with the help of friends and pizza wives to accompany me so I hope to continue the blog regularly.  I'll update the pizza reviews from the past 2 months when I have the chance.