Mustard Vegan Pizza

Newtown. I love Newtown. There’s always something happening.

Though I’m not quite sure what tonight’s something is. It’s a Christian talk held at Moore College… not sure what the topic is though. The Husband has a great radar for finding interesting speakers so I suppose that’s why I never bothered to ask.

I ask.

“It’s about whether we can reconcile the existence of evil and suffering with the existence of a loving God.”

Sounds like something happening!

But first, to find some dinner to get my stomach through the night. Another awesome thing about Newtown: many dining options for those who want to reduce suffering in the world by avoiding animal products!

Vegan pizza it is! I’m not ready to go vegan and have no plans to, but nobody says you have to eat an animal product at every meal.

One look at the menu… regular-sounding vegetarian pizzas with vegan cheese… but oh-ho, a pizza with dijon mustard as the base? That’s unusual!

The waitress walks off with the order. If I look towards the front window I can see the reflection of our chef putting the pizza together.

It comes. We ordered a large, but I wouldn’t say it’s very big. Along with the mustard and not-cheese the toppings are a bit thin on the ground. There is sun-dried tomato, olives, artichoke and roasted capsicum… but sparsely.

Ought to taste before judging though!

The base is very crisp. The pizza triangle juts stiffly in my hand. Turn it around, biting the crust. It’s good, crunchy but not hard.

Now for a bit with topping.

Aww… you can kind of taste the mustard but not much. They’ve been a bit timid with it. Come on, if I order a mustard pizza clearly I’m into mustard! There’s no bite, no tang… without those things, why bother?

Vegan cheese does not stretch like mozzarella but I already knew that. When I make cheese replacements at home it’s basically a flavoured white sauce made with flour… same here it seems. At least, it appears like a burnt yellow paste. The texture is thick and it seems to taste a bit floury too. I don’t think you can ever make vegan cheese taste like cheese, you’re just going for a savoury addition that makes the lack of real cheese less jarring and I guess it kind of works…

My suspicions about the toppings being lacking are correct. If you’re going light on the mustard and your ‘cheese’ is a paste, you need the fillings to be in every mouthful but on this pizza there is a lot of topping-free bites.

But it still tastes nice, overall. Not as exciting as I was expecting, just a normal unremarkable pizza.

No grease though, which is a great change from 99% of pizzas. I feel like I’m eating healthy, there’s no oil on my fingers or on my tongue.

I wouldn’t order it again, but I wonder if I could make a more mustard-y version at home… Also I would make more. This healthy pizza is not very filling.

The concept is good! It just needs further development.

Rating:

Specifics: ‘Sheree and Neridah’ pizza from Basil Pizza & Pasta, Newtown