Day: December 29, 2005

  • Pier 49 Pizza


    Here’s another half-review.

    I was taken to lunch the other day to Pier 49 Pizza, a new restaurant, somewhere in the Phoenix/Tempe borderland.

    I didn’t get a menu, and didn’t notice the prices, so I don’t have price/quantity information, but as for the pizza, here goes…

    I gotta say, I completely agree with Alton Brown that the crust of a pizza is the essential foundation of a pizza and the toppings are just a covering, sometimes disguising the underlying problems with the crust.

    That said, I love bread, any kind of bread, but not every kind of bread should be made into pizza dough.

    The list of inappropriate bread doughs is probably endless, but for the purposes of this review, let’s start with this one: Sourdough is not pizza dough.

    The flavor and the texture are just wrong, and so Pier 49’s pizza gets off on the wrong foot.

    As for the toppings, both the cheese and the pepperoni were unremarkable. In fact, the pepperoni tasted like the pre-sliced Hormel pepperoni you can buy at the supermarket.

    The sauce was tasty, and I quite liked it, but the pedestrian toppings and light, airy, odd-flavored crust just made for a passable, but easily forgettable pizza experience.

    I can’t recommend the place.


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  • Dr. Milker


    This was just too priceless not to take a picture of.

    Incidentally, despite the awful name, Dr. Milker is the most normal tasting milk I found in Taiwan.

    I’m not an expert on pasteurization, but I couldn’t help noticing that the description of the process on Taiwanese milk usually involved phrases like, “Ultra high temperature flash pasteurization.”

    Consistent with that, most of the milk tasted scalded. We couldn’t get Michelle to drink the milk in Taiwan, it tasted so bad.


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  • Leftovers


    We’ve been awfully busy/sick lately and just haven’t had much time to post… besides, when you’re sick/busy, there’s nothing much really to tell.

    I offloaded my cellphone photos tonight and discovered I had a few leftovers from Taiwan.

    This was one of my favorites. As we were waiting in the airport terminal, in the food court, getting ready to leave, I chanced to go to the urinal.

    In some of the toilets in the airport, they have airplane identification guides pasted over the urinals so you can learn about some of the fascinating jets that ply the skies of Taiwan. (I have to wonder if providing reading material doesn’t increase the puddle on the floor, though.)

    However, in the food court restroom, they have signs like these.

    Certainly, while visiting the restrooms in the food court, while taking a leak, in the airport terminal after you’ve already entered the country and passed though immigrations and customs, is just the right time to remind you not to bring scorpions and cockroaches into the country, right?


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