pizza Archives - Curiously Carmen

Rocky Mountain Flatbread Co.

August 26, 2015

Sometimes, the boyfriend and I are in the sudden mood to try out a new restaurant. More often than not, we will already have a list of restaurants we want to try together so it is a matter of deciding which one. It is a task that might not be as easy as you think! On one particular warm sunny evening in June, it was Rocky Mountain Flatbread that we decided to finally check off our dining list.

There are two locations in Vancouver, we went to the one on Main Street. I should make it a goal to try all, if not most, of the restaurants here!

Walking in, the atmosphere was fantastic and really set the mood for the rest of our visit. The patio was open, with the sunlight graciously pouring throughout the mid-sized restaurant. There was also a live band playing in the corner of the restaurant, featuring an amazing acoustic singer. The ambiance here was very warm, as well as the friendly service.

To start, we ordered the homemade iced tea and lemonade. Both were not very sweet. I would have preferred my lemonade to be sweetened a bit more because it tasted like concentrated lemon water (which I know is essentially what lemonade is… but more sugar would be nice). It was definitely a drink where you take occasional slow slips because of how sour it was.

I ordered the ‘parma’, which came with organic tomato sauce, mozzarella, Parmesan, cured ham, arugula, mushrooms, and mango. Perhaps the most interesting topping on this was the mango, but I was very intrigued and had a good feeling that all the flavours would go well together. Was I correct?

A million times yes!! Everything was really fresh, and the mango gave it a bit of a ‘spark’ to an already awesome flatbread. The sweetness of the mango enhanced all the other flavours, this dish was just brilliant. 12/10 would order again.

The boyfriend ordered the Italian sausage, which came with pesto, mozarella, Italian sausage bits, and spinach. Again, this dish was executed very well and we enjoyed it. The ingredients for both flatbreads were very fresh, while the dough was soft and chewy but crispy on the outside.

I am really glad that we finally tried this place out, and I feel like we would come back here again. From the ambiance, to the service, and the food, everything was simply wonderful and we had a great time. I would recommend coming here with a group of people, so that you’re able to try more of the flatbread varieties they offer.

Pacifico Pizzeria Ristorante

October 14, 2014

After a failed attempt and bad beginning at Kamei Baru, Cinnamon, Sangria and I all agreed that we didn’t want to stay, and decided to see what else was around the neighbourhood. As we took our first steps out the restaurant and recovered from the awkwardness of telling the waitress there, an Italian place by the name of Pacifico Pizzeria Ristorante right next door caught our eyes.

We quickly scanned the menu outside, which looked appetizing enough so we decided to try this place on a whim. Walking in, it was very quiet and only one other customer at 2pm.
The sole hostess/server was very friendly, and also gave us the option to sit upstairs. We were going to take the offer, but Cinnamon pointed out that it would be harder for us to get service. Instead, we sat at a booth on the main level. Judging from the way Pacifico was set up, seemed like they specialize in romantic date nights (Although from what Meaghan aka ElephantHeartBlog wrote, her date night failed because the food was horrendous sad face). Tables for two, wine glasses set up, candles on the tables…yup, the hopeless romantic in me approves. But how about the food?

Right after we sat down, we were disappointed and considered leaving. Again. I swear this never happens, I’m not a picky eater, we were just having bad luck that afternoon.

But after much hushed conversation and awkwardly glancing up to see if the waitress had overheard us, we decided to just suck it up and eat here because we were in a bit of a rush.

Turns out they don’t have the lunch time menu on weekends. So why put that outside if it’s false? We all wanted their paninis and sandwiches, and none of us were in the mood for heavy pasta.
But since we didn’t want to get up and leave another restaurant AGAIN, Sangria and I decided to split the pollo rustica pizza. We figured that this would curb our hunger for the next hour or so. It also helped that the pizza was $3 cheaper, I think it was the lunch special.

I’m not saying that the pizza was expensive, because it was decently priced for the atmosphere and location, but we just weren’t really in the mood for pizza and didn’t want to pay for something we didn’t really want.

Turned out, the pizza itself was fairly decent. There was a good amount of chicken breast, which was juicy and flavourful. There was a great amount of gouda and mozzarella cheese as well, which became very stringy as I bit into it. I wasn’t a fan of the artichokes so my friend happily had all of it. The freshly chopped onions added more flavour to what would otherwise have been a very bland dish. The crust and pizza dough itself wasn’t as thin as I thought it would be, and I actually enjoyed the texture of it very much.

Cinnamon ordered the appetizer size of the pizzetta margherita ($8). Unfortunately, she did not enjoy hers as much as we did. She wasn’t expecting that much cheese on her dish, and wanted to see if they could remake it.

It took quite awhile for her to finally wave somebody down, I remember I had already finished 3 slices by the time someone came. The lady that came didn’t look like she was a server, someone who worked in the back from the way she was dressed.

Anyways, Cinnamon explained to her that she didn’t expect this much cheese and I thought she was kind of rude about it. That or maybe she was very confused. She came back with a second one with lighter cheese. She ended up only eating half of it and wished that there was more basil or that it came shredded all over the pizza.

All in all, our visit was pretty brief and it was an average experience. Our server was nice in the beginning but she disappeared near the end, and it was hard for us to find service. If I was going to be very picky, it would also have been nice for them to bring us some pepper and chili flakes with our pizza, instead of us having to wave them down to ask for it. Pepper and chili flakes are pretty standard with pizza, no?

Unless this place is too fancy for that. Even though my friend didn’t enjoy her pizza, I thought mine wasn’t bad but I’m not dying to come here again, nor would I make my way downtown just for this restaurant.

-Carmen

Famoso Neapolitan Pizzeria

August 2, 2014

One of my friends and fellow food blogger raved to me about Famoso, after asking her where I should go for dinner. After going on Urbanspoon and reading the great reviews for this place, I was very excited to try it out.

It took us 15 minutes to find parking in the Commercial Drive area, and we ended up going to a pay parking lot because finding a free spot was impossible.

Anyways, I tried to make a reservation for four at Famoso but unfortunately, they only accept reservations with parties of six and up. Fair enough, they told me that it shouldn’t be a problem to walk in past 7:30 on a Saturday night, so off we went!

We waited around 5 minutes for a table for four. I immediately liked the lively atmosphere, and the hostess was very friendly from the beginning. We were seated in the back, where we were able to see all of the restaurant. A server came promptly, and asked us if it was our first time here as their ordering system is a bit unique from other places.
Basically, they have menus, order sheets, and pencils on each table. To order, you write down what you want on the notepad (if you want), and then walk down to the pizza counter, where they place your order for you. From there, a server will bring the pizza to your table and they take care of your needs from then on. You pay for the pizza at the end of the meal, with your server.

After settling on our pizzas, my friend went down to the counter to place our order. Customers are able to see the pizzas being prepared, but there is a semi-wall between the ordering/prep station and the tables, which is good because it gives both parties some privacy.

Funghi pizza (14.75). This was one of their specialty pizzas and came with parmesan crema, roasted white mushrooms, oyster mushrooms, caramelized onions, and more! Cream and mushroom lovers would absolutely bask over this pizza! It was very creamy, and there were a lot of mushrooms on it.
Italian ham and crushed pineapple ($13.75). I thought this pizza was average, nothing really stood out to me. I wished that the ham would be spread out more, or that there was more quantity of it. The pizzas themselves were very thin, which is what Neopolitan pizza is supposed to be like, so I expected it. Since they are thin, they aren’t super filling.
Since the pizzas weren’t that filling, we decided to order some dessert to share. The affogato was $1 off and I have been wanting affogato for so long! After making a trip to the gelato counter, we decided on getting the mint stracciatella and another flavour below ($4 each after $1 off special).

Ordering dessert follows the same process as the food, servers will bring you your dessert after ordering it at the counter. I fell in love with the mint stracciatella at first bite. Mixed with the espresso, it was super creamy, heavenly, and delicious. The mint chips from the gelato became melted from the espresso, which made it taste even better!
The other affocato that we got was with the coconut gelato. This one was delicious as well, and we savoured every little bite down to the last drop of espresso. The quality of the espresso itself was very rich and dark. So good!

-Carmen

Brewhouse (Whistler)

July 24, 2014

Another Whistler post! After settling down in our hotels and hitting up the pool (such a great time, by the way), we decided to finally grab some late dinner. After spending a long time in our hotel room browsing Urbanspoon and debating, we decided to try a small Italian restaurant that had great ratings.

It took us awhile to find it and when we finally did, it was packed and the wait was too long. We ended walking around the village a bit more, stopping here and there looking at menus, how full each place was, etc.

Eventually, we stopped at Brewhouse which looked decent from the outside. At this point, we were all pretty hungry and the hostess told us that there was no wait if we sat inside the restaurant, which was a relief! But if we knew what was in store, we would not have stopped here… *cue horror music* (Joking. Kind of.)
Turns out, there was a reason why it was so quiet inside the restaurant…It was so hot and stuffy inside the restaurant. There was no a/c, I’m not even sure if there were fans because it was that stuffy.

The patio doors were open, but it did not help. They had an open concept kitchen, with a big wood oven for pizzas, which explained why it was so warm in there.

I felt bad for the cooks because they were right beside the stoves and ovens, in full cooking, long sleeve and hat attire. We asked to sit near the patio doors, but for some reason, the hostess declined us and led us to a table inside the restaurant…
The beginning of our restaurant experience was not pleasant. It was super hot, and our server did not show up until twenty minutes later. At that point, we were getting hungry and really wanted ice water to cool down, but no one helped us. We tried to wave servers down but were ignored.

Thankfully, we finally got a pitcher of water so that we didn’t have to go through the challenge of finding servers to refill our glasses as often. One cool and trivial thing about the restaurant was that they had a train set that went around the whole restaurant. The trains advertised different companies in Whistler. It was pretty cool, but I could see it getting annoying as every 10 minutes you would hear this chugging train noise :).

Now, moving on to the food, was it delicious enough to make up for the lack of service and uncomfortable heat in the restaurant?
Nothing on the menu looked too appealing to me, and took me longer than usual to decide what I wanted. I decided to order their valley chicken pizza ($18). It came with free range chicken, prosciutto, apples, and sage. I actually enjoyed the pizza a lot, the crust wasn’t too oily and was very doughy.

There was a generous amount of chicken and prosciutto on it, while the apple slices enhanced the flavour. I didn’t end up tasting any of the sage though, but everything else tasted great together.
Macaroni ordered the wild mushroom fettuccine ($19). She despises peas and asked the server to exclude it, but they ended up including it as you can see in the picture.

She ended up just eating around all the peas because we didn’t want to go through the hassle again of waving down our server. I had a bite of the fettuccine, and it was pretty creamy and cheesy. If only they took out the peas for my friend, she would have enjoyed the dish a lot more.
Cheese and Cash both ordered the Thai chicken salad ($17). It came with marinated chicken, snap peas, mushrooms, cashews, green peppers, crispy onions, spring roll chips, and a peanut/sriracha dressing. They both enjoyed their salads, but noted that they didn’t taste the srircha in the sauce.
The boyfriend ordered the beef burger ($16) with poutine for an extra $3. He was very disappointed with the taste of the burger. It lacked flavour and put simply, it was just not good. He loves his burgers whenever we go out to eat, and this was probably the first time I have heard him say that he did not like his burger.

Overall, I didn’t really enjoy my visit to Brewhouse. The food was decent, but the service and atmosphere needed improvement. The food was a bit overpriced, but that’s to be expected when in a resort town.

You would think that a tourist pub like Brewhouse would have better service, but it was very sporadic and the server was not that friendly either.

Also adding to the fact that it was super warm in the restaurant without a/c or a strong fan, it was just not a comfortable experience. I hope that this review did not sound too bitter, but I can not have perfect dining experiences every single time, and this just happened to be one of them :(.

-Carmen

Fiesta Fridays- Nesters Market Deli Review

June 11, 2014

Hello Fiesta Friday-ers! I forgot to mention that EatMunchLove invited me to the first party, so thank you for introducing me! After my pleasant visit to Urban Fare, I was craving deli eats again. This time, my mind wandered to Nesters because I was at school, and there was a location on the mountain. I also didn’t want to deal with a rush of students in the main cafeteria, so decided that the walk there would be worth it. Fortunately, my friend agreed so we went in between our classes.
Nesters deli was pretty standard. There were many delicious looking items to choose from that day. I wasn’t super hungry, and felt a slight tickle in my throat so settled on getting a small soup and slice of pizza ($4.50). There were 3 types of soup that day, I got the chicken potato soup with chorizo sausage. It was very flavourful and had a generous amount of veggies. There wasn’t much chicken in it and the chorizo was very soggy, I don’t think I want chorizo sausage in my soup again. Usually, after having Western style soup, I am left parched but I did not find myself needing a massive amount of water, which is good.
The pizza was warmed in the oven. A there was only one type to pick from. The dough was very thick, soft, and chewy- I loved it! There was also a lot of deli meat topping and veggies on it. My friend got the soup and sandwich combo and a samosa, which I forgot to take a picture of. He said the samosa was a bit dry but enjoyed his ham sandwich. If I had time to spare on campus and wanted a quiet spot to eat, I would come here again.

I hope you enjoyed the post! Happy Fiesta Friday, I look forward to reading everyone’s posts! 🙂

-Carmen