Monday, September 26, 2011

Dough

I’ve decided to be a little more diligent about restaurant reviews. I used to write some up all the time, for my website especially, but now that’s fallen by the wayside. But last night, the Engineer and I had dinner at Dough, a pizzeria serving authentic pizza napoletana that’s gotten rave reviews. We were both really impressed! The place was pretty full and very busy (we counted at least 17 employees), so we sat at the bar, but I think it was the best place to be, because we could watch the chefs throw dough around in the kitchen and put pizzas in the wood-burning oven. Did you know that true Neapolitan pizza is baked only 90 seconds, but at 800 °F? They all looked like they were taking the heat pretty well, though! The bar seats were actually pretty comfortable because they are wide, albeit backless. The décor is what I’d call bistro-type. And I love the fact that so many products are actually made from scratch in the restaurant (like their mozzarella, bread, gelatos, and dough of course!). They also have their own herb garden.

We started with the bruschetta, which was a few thin slices of bread served with hot multicoloured cherry tomatoes, roasted garlic, herbs, olive oil and what I think was parmesan – I really liked it, even though the format was not what I was expecting. We also had sodas: an Italian raspberry soda for me, and a cherry cream soda for the Engineer. Even though the place serves a dairy-free pizza, I decided to take some Lactaid and go with the Pork Love (tomato sauce, house-made fior di latte, salami, sausage, pancetta and speck), while the Engineer had a margherita to which he added olives and sausage. I found the sausage a little too spicy, but I really loved the pizza; I especially like that the tomato sauce is more fresh tomatoes than tomato paste. Next time, I’ll try the Fontina (fontina, oak-roasted mushrooms, caramelized onions and parmesan). We opted not to have dessert, because we had some at home and we didn’t want to overindulge, but after looking at their menu, I’m sure the Engineer and I could have been easily convinced to try the polenta cake and Nutella Panini, respectively. Plus, house-made sorbetto sounds good to me anytime of the day...

Dough is somewhat on the expensive side, but we really liked our dinner and we hope to go there again eventually.

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