Strawberry Cones Pizza & Pasta at Aberdeen

When I got word of a second “first in Canada, straight from Japan” restaurant opening up at Aberdeen food court that serves Japanese fusion pizza, I was hoping to find a fun and tasty venture of Beard Papa or Japadog caliber. Their online menu is absolutely gorgeous, and they seem to have done well for themselves back east judging from the byline. Kudos to their marketing team back in Japan.
Though I too wondered what the name “Strawberry Cones” has to do with pizza. According to an interview with their spokesperson, strawberry=customers, cones=success. Well, its their name, and who am I to argue.

Our lunch group of 4 arrived just after their opening, and after a few minutes of staring at their dancing mochi commercial on TV and careful consideration of how much room we should leave for chicken wings at Wo Fung, we ordered two of their small pizzas and a curry croquette.
They were done after about 20 minutes and came in colorful packaging characteristic of Japanese products. The amount of witty Engrish banter on the box and the bright colors makes me wonder if their target market segment is young families with small kids or adolescent preteens with a hefty sized lunch money.

Upon opening the box, we found the beautifully garnished pizzas in their ads were delivered to us naked. Herb seasoning, hot sauce, and seaweed for the Terimochi pizza came in separate packaging, possibly meant to add customizability for the diner as well as efficiency for the preparation process. The way the seaweed is packaged reminds me of a popular local herb. Here it is the small sized Terimochi after a sprinkle of seaweed. What looks like scallops standing on the crust is mochi, and the instead of pasta sauce, this one is brushed with teriyaki sauce.

Here is the Ultimate Seafood Mix.

I didn’t take a picture of the curry croquette because (I was told) they’re out of any type of sauces besides ketchup and mayo, leaving the croquettes looking like hashbrowns. The staff looked highly inexperienced, so these pizzas probably don’t look like what the franchise intended.

The taste of both pizzas were rather dull, as if something was missing, and personally I’d rather have cheese in the crust than mochi. As is, I don’t think the pizza can compare even to chained pizza establishments. For about $10 each the price is not right, but given that the prices for these back in Japan are actually higher, it almost seems like a good deal. Almost.

I will give Cones another go in a few weeks(and that is my recommendation to others) when they’ve got their act together at this location (or possibly another if this pilot store goes well for them, like Beard Papa’s) before dismissing them as junk however.

NYC: Numero 28 – Pizza with Attitude in The Village

My 1st NYC breakfast may have been cheap, but it didn’t exactly fill me up. After walking down Broadway and exploring Greenwich Village (extremely cool and pronounced “greh-nich” btw), I was beginning to get hungry again.

Hmm, what to eat? What do we have on this Greenwich Village street? A spaghetti restaurant, a noodle bar, and a pizzeria: melting pot indeed. I chose the Numero 28 pizzeria (the one with the yellow sign) as it seemed the most New York-y to me at the time.

Stepping inside, the first thing I saw was a real wood-burning pizza oven. Good start. The waiter seated us at a table and I took a look at the menu. I wanted a simple and authentic thin-crust pizza with some veggies and a little meat. The prosciutto caught my eye.

There were 2 items featuring it:
S. Daniele – Prosciutto S. Daniele, rucola, mozarella
Piadina – Stuffed prosciutto, rucola, parmiagino

I wasn’t sure what the Piadina was so I asked what the “Stuffed” referred to. The waiter told me, in a rude tone as if I should’ve been born with this knowledge, that it was a stuffed pizza similar to a gyro. I wanted a real pizza so I went with the S. Daniele ($15 for the 14″). Before the waiter was able to escape, I asked him what “rucola” was. He gave me a disgusted look, told me that it referred to arugula, and walked away. Ouch! And here I thought I was ahead of the curve for already knowing what prosciutto and parmigiano were.

I was a bit annoyed at the waiter’s incredible rudeness, but then I remembered that I was in New York City. When he brought out the delicious pizza, all was forgiven.

I haven’t had such a tasty thin-crust since visiting Europe a few years back. The crust was crispy, the “rucola” was so fresh it was as if it grew out of the crust, the cheese was nice and light, and the cured prosciutto was salty as hell.

Sure beats the Panago we always order at the office.
Fantastic lunch, despite the NYC attitude.