Why Can't Restaurants here Make Really Good PIZZA?

Boston Pizza is, of course, a Canadian franshise company and only sparingly found in the USA. There is no such thing as "American" pizza. Every region of the country makes it differently. Of course I'm not including franshises such as Pizza Hut out of that statement. BTW, the Japanese like things like squid and salmon roe on their pizza!

We made a really good Pizza at our restaurants in Canada. When we opened up our Restaurant Bar in Bucerias we also made pizza there. It went over very good with the Expat community. We only had 4 flavors, double pepperoni, Hawaiin, meat lovers and veggy lovers all with a medium crust.

Might have to start making some in my spare time.

Started making sausage in my spare time too. LOL

[quote="sparks
Ketchup on pizza ..... OMG ... and I suppose hotdogs rather than sausage. Gross !!

Must have been joking[/quote]

¿When did they stop using "Sweet Ketchup" as the tomato base on pizza in Melaque?

I have been eating Boston Pizza since the early 70's when they only had 2 locations, in Edmonton. Still one of my faves, but getting quite costly.

arbon wrote:[quote="sparks
Ketchup on pizza ..... OMG ... and I suppose hotdogs rather than sausage. Gross !!

Must have been joking

¿When did they stop using "Sweet Ketchup" as the tomato base on pizza in Melaque?

[/quote]

Ketchp on Pizza? No one in their right mind would destroy a pizza by putting ketchup on it. Ketchup isn't pizza sauce just because it's red.

and pizza in Italy (WAS) only for using leftovers.

arbon wrote:and pizza in Italy (WAS) only for using leftovers.

And the pizza I had in Italy was thick crust.

johninajijic wrote:

arbon wrote:and pizza in Italy (WAS) only for using leftovers.

And the pizza I had in Italy was thick crust.

Where were you??? I never saw anything but thin crust with usually cheese, sauce, and
maybe pepperoni. Mostly Milan and Rome.

Z

HelperGuy wrote:I like eastern-Canadian-style pizza. That doesn't mean bacon or anything like that (although bacon is great on anything). It's just a whole lot different from American-style pizza. During the 80s, we suffered a crush of lousy pizzas in the form of 2-for-1 places, who merely divvied up the ingredients and used lesser quality stuff... notably American chains.

This doesn't mean American pizza is bad; it's just different from the way I like it. Just like Canadian subs vs. American subs. ONE PLACE that got it right was Pizza Hut: when they arrived in Canada, they did a huge turnaround to discover what Canadian palletes wanted in a pizza, and they became quite successful. (Unlike, say, Arby's, who came in with their smoked-meat sandwiches and decided they could cut way back on ingredients, and died a miserable death a few years later.)

Any Canadians know what I mean?

So, around here, I haven't had anything better than Foccacia's, followed by Toscana (although it's a completely different style, and not nearly my idea of what a great pizza should be). I have not tried The Score's or Pepe/Auroras yet.

This is a fave topic of mine, so sorry if I've bored anybody. When I make my own, I add tomato sauce, which most restaurants here don't (And the only brand available here is pretty poor...).

HG

Ever have Greco or Pizza Delight? Cannot get the same here in Ottawa. Or a really fine Donair.

Zedinmexico wrote:

johninajijic wrote:

arbon wrote:and pizza in Italy (WAS) only for using leftovers.

And the pizza I had in Italy was thick crust.

Where were you??? I never saw anything but thin crust with usually cheese, sauce, and
maybe pepperoni. Mostly Milan and Rome.

Z

Rome, many years ago.

[quote="Zedinmexico"]

johninajijic wrote:

arbon wrote:and pizza in Italy (WAS) only for using leftovers.

And the pizza I had in Italy was thick crust.

Where were you??? I never saw anything but thin crust with usually cheese, sauce, and
maybe pepperoni. Mostly Milan and Rome.
Z[/quote]

I have lived in and traveled throughout Western Europe for some time and on numerous occasions over almost 50 years first as a backpacker living in flea bag hotels and later as a bourgeous rental car driver staying with family and I have eaten many a pizza in my travels. The typical and best pizzas I have ordered whether in places like the Atlantic Coast or Marseilles in France or many parts of Italy from the Mediterranean border with France to Naples are thin crust pizzas normally only with with tomato sauce and cheese or, at most, a modest amount of other toppings. The pizzas I have seen in Europe woild be a poor way to dispose of leftovers unless one has a lot of leftover tomato sauce.

I tend to agree with John´s initial observation that there is no particularly good much less exceptional pizza at Lakeside or at least any pizza that I have found as of yet. Interestingly, the restaurant pizza in San Cristóbal de Las Casas is, generally speaking, far superior to the pizza one finds at Lakeside. Perhaps that is because there is a large Italian expat colony in San Cristóbal, many of whom constitute an entrepreneurial working class, along with other European expat colonies. The pizza crusts down there are invariably very thin and I´ve never seen a thick crust pizza anywhere in Chiapas. There are also several pizza joints in San Cristóbal that use wood-fired ovens including the one near our house on the Plaza in our El Cerrillo Barrio. The wood- fired oven adds a favorful dimension to the good thin crust pizzas we buy there.

Local kids in Ajijic that we have had as our guests at our home here for swimming/pizza parties on numerous occasions prefer Dominoes pizzas upon which they pour copious amounts of ketchup. They also prefer nothing but ketchup and mayonnaise on their hot dogs if we have hot dogs at those parties. This fondess for ketchup among local kids here seems almost universal in our experience. Actually, steamed hot dogs with ketchup and mayonnaisr is not so bad if one adds chopped while onions.

Canuck wrote:
HG

Ever have Greco or Pizza Delight? Cannot get the same here in Ottawa. Or a really fine Donair.

No, are they chains? I was in Ottawa a couple of weeks ago and didn't have time to get to the Colonnade, which is a super shame. I see now tons of Donair and similar places in Ottawa and area. Not cheap, either.

Many moons ago, I was told by an Italian family (ex brother-in-law) that the pizza crust is what divides northern Italy from southern Italy. Northern Italy...thin...Southern Italy and Sicilian...thick....or maybe it's a$$ backwards.
Anybody actually experienced this in their travels? I happen to like both styles of crust.

I travelled from south to north... I didn't see any pizza crust divider. You mean like the Great Wall, right?

Funny Mike!
I mean that in the north of Italy the crusts on pizza tend to be thinner and in the south of Italy the crusts on pizza tend to be thicker. (or vice versa, the info was from a long time ago).
Did you notice a difference?

Actually, I never went there at all. Just going for the cheap laugh today...

hound dog - I saw this myself, the ketchup thing when we arriv4d here 10 years ago while we were eating at a Pizza Hut in Tlaquepaque.

I guess mexicans have no taste buds if they ruin a perfectly good pizza sauce by adding ketchup. One of the adults in their family needs to teach them the difference between pizza sauce and ketchup. I'll never forget the time we were at Toscana. Apparently he ran out of pizza sauce, being too lazy to open a can or going to get some at a local market, so he put tomato paste on the pizza instead. You know how acid and uncooked that is. NEVER went back to Toscana again.

Now we make our own pizzas, better than ANY in Ajijic.

HelperGuy wrote:Actually, I never went there at all. Just going for the cheap laugh today...

I did laugh!...well, snorted and giggled would be a better description.
Doesn't Johninajijic boast an Italian heritage? Wouldn't he have an idea?
I'm going googling.

Ferret:

Be careful to check John's "feet on the ground credentials". On his last cruise to Italy, they only ate aboard the ship by his own admission.

I give up...can't find anything about regional differences in pizza dough thickness.

Pizza Nova in the GTA makes the BEST pizza for my taste. But we can not get any good pizza in Tyendinaga except for my wifes homemade.
We are coming down in a couple of weeks, and finding a decent pizza is high on my list of things to accomplish.....Although they do say it's about the journey, not the destination.

ferret wrote:I give up...can't find anything about regional differences in pizza dough thickness.

Maybe it's just that some people like thin crust and some like the thick crust, more bready pizza. We ate both in the US, thin crust Pizzeria Regina and pan pizza at Pizza Hut. Both good in their own way.

zenwoodle wrote:Pizza Nova in the GTA makes the BEST pizza for my taste. But we can not get any good pizza in Tyendinaga except for my wifes homemade.
We are coming down in a couple of weeks, and finding a decent pizza is high on my list of things to accomplish.....Although they do say it's about the journey, not the destination.

Good pizza at Lakeside! Good luck. Be sure to report in Food & Drink your experiences.

Ferret:

A couple of articles that do provide some info on dough:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2004-05-26-pizza-rules_x.htm
http://www.lifeinitaly.com/food/pizza-history.asp

Pizza at The Score is thick crust and my favorite in the area. The draft beer is good too!

Hey, back home some people are so into the crust that there are places that put a big cooked doughball in the centre to keep the lid of the box from touching the cheese.

A good, tasty dough means thick or thin will meet my needs, although I prefer it more as a delivery mechanism than an intrinsic part... some will know this about me already, lol.