Tag: sourdough

#75 Pizza Hacker

March 16, 2019

San Fransisco, CA

I love it when I can tie a work trip into a pizza adventure. Since we last visited San Fransisco in September 2016, there have been three new additions to the lists. I was finally making it back out to the west coast for a work visit at UCSF, which seemed like the perfect opportunity to make all of my friends in San Fran eat more pizza with me.

I landed on Saturday around noon, met up with some good friends from grad school who were kindly letting me stay at their apartment for a few days, and then dragged them out to dinner at Pizza Hacker.

Like several other well-known pizza places, Pizza Hacker started out as a mobile enterprise before settling down into a permanent location in Bernal Heights in 2014. We liked the picnic-table vibe with colorful metal chairs and plenty of seating.

The three of us split two pizzas here, the Margherita and the Yo Vinny, which was topped with marinated onions, hot Italian sausage, pickled peppers, and mozzarella. We probably could have had another pizza but we thought that we should probably pace ourselves for the weekend.

It must be really hard to start a new pizzeria in San Fransisco. As I’d confirm later in the weekend, San Fransisco arguably has the best crusted pizzas anywhere in the country (and I’m not just talking about the sourdough). In a city known for its breadmaking, making a pizza stand out is even more difficult. Pizza Hacker makes a good pizza, but there are definitely better pies in the area.

That being said, the crust on these was good. Both pies were nicely charred, but still airy, and the sauce was incredible. It was really the perfect pizza after a long flight and it was a great way to kick off the week in San Fran.

To visit: 

Pizza Hacker
3299 Mission St
San Francisco, CA 94110

BarbaraLeave a comment

#94 Lovely’s Fifty fifty

February 2nd, 2019

Portland, Oregon

For our second night in Portland, we stopped for dinner at Lovely’s Fifty Fifty, which was another pizza place that made the 2016 list. We were supposed to come here with our friends, but they ended up deciding that they didn’t feel like pizza again (we made them get Apizza Scholls the night before). This ended out working beautifully because Lovely’s is a small restaurant and we snagged one of the last tables for two (or three, if you count James).

We ordered two pies here. One was just a plain with mozzarella, and this one had sundried tomatoes, kale, and calabrian chilis. These pizzas are wood-fired, the dough is naturally levened using Oregon-grown whole grains, and most of their ingredients come straight from local farms.

It’s not your traditional Neapolitan pizza, and it isn’t like a NYC sourdough either. This is a Portland pizza, entirely it’s own. We loved them. The crust is amazing, and we would have ranked it higher than Nostrana, and also made sure that it had a spot on the more recent lists. We even let James nibble on the crust.

Just see how he is eyeing these pizzas! We’re going to have a hard time keeping him away from our pies for much longer.

If you make your way here, you should probably just focus on the specialty seasonal pies, and skip the traditional cheese. And make sure to save room for ice cream, which we didn’t (because we had birthday cake back at our AirBnb). Looking back on it and reading reviews of the ice cream makes us regret our decision to skip dessert.

To visit:
Lovely's Fifty Fifty
4039 N Mississippi Ave
Portland, OR 97217

BarbaraLeave a comment