Pizza to go

When I lived in Richmond every fortnight I had a tradition. Since my housemate had guests over that were allergic to our cat I'd lock the cat in my bedroom, order a pizza, select a DVD and snuggle up with cat and pizza to watch something. It was great. And I would always go to the same pizza place - Crust. Their pesto pizza was truly awesome. It was all about the crust in my opinion. Sure, their toppings were gourmet and tasty, but without their fantastic base, the toppings weren't being done justice.

While eating gluten I was delighted to see that they had a new store (they're a very small chain) in my area. Immediately we organised people to come and eat pizza with us. First disapointment - no more pesto pizza :( Second disapointment? the crust, while still very good, was not as awesome as I recalled. BUT I did see a very exciting note in very small print at the bottom of their menu - GLUTEN FREE ON REQUEST.

Last night I ordered home delivered gluten free food. Gluten Free Pizza. I waited impatiently at the door, I had the couch and the tv show all ready, I pounced on the delivery guy demanding to make sure my pizzas were gluten free. The Philosopher and I sat down, took a deep breath and opened the box. Vague disapointment ensued. Where was the crust? It looked messy and just not that great. But, pizza often gets a little tossed around on its way so we still dove in happily.
Pizza 1 - Italian meatball
Pizza 2 - prosciutto, roasted capsicum and baked feta

Conclusion = they make their gluten free crusts from bean flour. They taste... okay. If I was stuck with people and they wanted pizza I could tolerate it, especially if the topping was strong, like the feta, and I got extra of that to drown out the crust taste a bit. The meatball taste was lost amongst the bean. The prosciutto one fared a little better because of the strong feta flavours, but I would have happily doubled the amount of feta.

Decision? Get The Philosophers father, now he's sold his pizza restaurant (woe!) to take his truly awesome pizza base to the masses! While it's not exactly the same as commercial western style pizza, it's closer to what i recall pizza being like in Italy. A little more crunch, a little thinner.