Saturday, January 30, 2010

CA trip - Pizzeria Mozza (West Hollywood)

These next series of posts that I will be making are back blogs from my trip to Southern California for Blizzcon 2009. I hope you enjoy reviews and hopefully they inspire you to go out and try some of these wonderful eateries yourself (if you are in the area that is)!

Our first evening out and about California, we journeyed to Beverly Hills for food. Just like any normal fooding adventure at home in Florida, it was quite a drive from Anaheim to our destination. By the time we had reached Mozza, we were collectively famished.

I had read so much about Pizzeria Mozza from the many food bloggers in LA that I just had to try it out. A month prior to our arrival, I made reservations for 7 (the maximum number allowed for a reservation). It’s a good thing that I did, because the place was packed ALL night long. Every table, seat, and barstool was completely filled for the entire evening. I heard the hostess telling walk in after walk in that without a reservation, they could only sit at the pizza bar that night and even that might have taken an hour to be seated. Not that sitting at the pizza bar is a bad thing, since you can watch their awesome pizza making skills hard at work, just that you can’t really get seats for more than one or two people.

We arrived 30 minutes early for our reservation, so we just milled about the front and stared at the menu conveniently placed outside the establishment. Being a foodie, I was in heaven staring at the menu: speck, squash blossoms, burrata, and many other exotic ingredients (at least to me, I mean…it’s rough finding true “high end” eateries in Florida) adorned the menu. To my friends…well, they were less than thrilled at first and slightly scared of the vast number of unidentifiable meats, cheeses, and veggies.

As if on cue, right at the time for our reservation, our table was called. For the most part, Mozza is compromised of a small main dining room, the kitchen, the pizza oven area (visible from the bar), and a party/private dining room. The main dining room is dimly lit, making it a bit hard to read the menu. My main gripe about the ambience was the sonorous hum of everyone talking and the loud music being player over their sound system. It was really hard to talk to the person beside you or even hear your own thoughts. Actually the ambiance is the only fault I could find about Mozza the entire evening, but I’m more than willing to forgive the ambiance because the food more than makes up for it.


We arrived at our table and eagerly sat down. The table was simply adorned with a brown paper envelope bearing Mozza’s emblem which helds your utensils on top of your plate. Well, at least I thought it was cute!


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The breadsticks that were first presented to us were quickly devoured. They weren’t anything special, just your average breadsticks, but I really can’t emphasize how famished we were at this point. The breadsticks just made me hungrier… *pouty face*

I had planned my meal 3 months ago, when I first made the reservations to come here. I knew EXACTLY what I wanted to order: fried squash blossoms, oven fired bone marrow, and the pizza with Ipswich clams. Between the rest of the orders from the table we tried out: two other pizzas (1 – egg & guanciale, 2 – bacon, salami, fennel sausage), speck, and bufala mozzarella with prosciutto di parma.

First up, the fried squash blossoms with ricotta!

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For $12, I thought we might receive a few more squash blossoms. Never the less the dish was quite successful. What does a squash blossom taste like? To be honest it tastes just like squash, but the fried blossom added a nice textural contrast to the creamy ricotta.

The bufala mozzarella with prosciutto di parma came out at the same time as the squash blossoms.

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Clearly, I wasn’t fast enough with the camera because my friends were in “devour” mode when this picture was taken. It’s lucky that I even got a picture of it at all! There are no words to adequately describe how great the fresh mozzarella was, but I’m going to try! It was light, melted in your mouth, creamy, and…just go and try it ok? I promise you, it’s like nothing else you have ever put in your mouth ever. Your palette will thank you.

Next came a serving of speck:

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My boyfriend ordered this, not knowing what it was. We just knew it was “some kind of ham.” He whipped out his phone and hopped onto the internet to find out that it was a juniper berry cured ham. I know juniper smells good, bath and body works has well acquainted me with the smell, but I had no idea what juniper would taste like. Let me tell you now, speck is definitely “oishii noms.” I can’t really explain what the juniper tasted like exactly, but it’s a light flavor that accents the ham beautifully.

I love bone marrow and was ecstatic when the bone marrow al forno arrive at the table. Though my companions did look at me strangely for wanting to eat bone marrow…

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The marrow was buttery, creamy, and pleasantly rich. The marrow spread upon the bread with a bit of sea salt, fresh greens, and the roasted garlic was sublime and perfectly complimented one another.

Finally it was time for our pizzas to arrive! The pizzas here are extraordinary and are the best pizza my friends and I have ever tasted, bar none. The crust is thin and crispy through out the entirety of the pizza, instead of being crispy on the crust and soggy in the middle. Also the crust itself tasted phenomenal, it could stand alone even with the sauce, cheese, and various toppings.

First up was the bacon, salami, fennel sausage, guanciale, tomato and mozzarella pizza. Basically (and for simplicity’s sake), it’s a meat pizza. =)

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Sadly this wasn’t my pizza or my boyfriend’s, so I didn’t actually get to try it. We ordered 4 of these pizzas, but with everyone so hungry they quickly ate up their own portions. However my friend did tell me that it was the best bacon he had ever had and that he has had a LOT of bacon. I’m guessing it’s a pretty valid statement coming from someone who lives in the Northwest, where they tend to cook meat a lot more frequently than in Florida (seafood, woot!).

My boyfriend ordered what we would hence forth call, breakfast pizza. It was an egg, bacon, Yukon gold potato, and Bermuda onions pizza.

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It really did have all the ingredients to make a decent breakfast meal. ^_^ I think the egg is what really made us all consider it a “breakfast pizza” in the end.

I’m such a seafood mark, so my pizza was adorned with Ipswich clams, garlic, oregano, pecorino, and parmigiano.

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Usually clams are way too chewy, but these clams just cooked just right. They were a bit heavy handed on the garlic, but that really wasn’t an issue since I love garlic. Overall, it was a very light pizza and the most successful “seafood” themed pizza I’ve ever had.

The damage for the evening (a.k.a. the bill) was pretty ridiculous, around $250, so it wasn’t your average evening out. However, for the quality of the food received the price was right and I would definitely come back again and again if I lived in the area. Mozza has the best pizza I’ve ever eaten and some of the best quality ingredients I’ve ever come across. If I find a better pizza, I’ll let you know, but Mozza is going to be really rough competition!

Pizzeria Mozza
641 N. Highland Ave.
West Hollywood, CA
(323) 297-0101
Pizzeria Mozza on Urbanspoon

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