bazaar goes dining
BUILD YOUR PIZZA AND EAT IT! An artisanal pizza experience at fast-food prices By bazaar staff
I am definitely Team Pizza’s captain. It is the perfect meal: Different textures from a crispy crust, crunchy toppings and beautiful melted cheese. Change the toppings and cheese and suddenly the flavors make for a completely different experience. A good pizza teases your senses. It should be pretty to look at with the toppings offering pops of different colors. You should be able to smell all of the different aromas. When the crust is well cooked, you can hear the crunchiness. And it has to taste just right! Which is why Blaze Fast-Fire’d Pizza at The Avenues lets you build your own pizza. Blaze pizza is fast-casual dining, at the intersection between affordable fast-food and high-end dining. You get artisanal pizza made with high-quality ingredients at a fraction of the cost. You can also get that feel from the decor. Industrial with a lot of stainless-steel juxtaposed against chairs and tables that are made of beautiful heavy wood. There is a lot of grays and blacks against some fiery reds and oranges making it feel rich but still very down-to-earth. The dough has already been made in-house and has been proofing for the last 24 hours. Everything is precise. The dough press has been programmed to create the perfect base. And that is only the first step. My friend and I stood at the assembly line and it was my turn to pick and choose what I wanted on my pie. At Blaze Pizza, you can choose from the six signature pizzas, tweak them, or even build your own from scratch. Brad Kent, the executive chef and “pizza whisperer” walked us through the process that day. My friend, a vegetarian, chose the Red Vine. Classic red sauce, ovalini mozzarella, cherry tomatoes, parmesan and extra virgin olive oil drizzle to top it off. The quality of the Italian ovalini mozzarella is apparent as Brad squeezed the whey out of it. When he broke it into chunks, he showed us the strands in the cheese. These strands are a marked sign that you will be getting that elusive perfect melt. While choices can be scary or liberating, I find them to be a mixture of both. So, I decided to go ahead and build my own, because, you only live once! Brad suggested that we try the garlic pesto sauce. Next step was the cheese. I love mozzarella on my pizza, so that was an easy choice. Some ricotta because sometimes it is healthy to break the rules. Blue-cheese, feta, goat, shredded mozzarella, parmesan and even a vegan shred option were available, but Brad told us to keep it simple. Overloading on toppings overcomplicates the pizza. If you are a vegan or vegetarian, skip this 110