Piva

New West

Having missed my bus by 8 minutes and with the prospect of waiting 52 minutes for the next one I find myself at New West Station very hungry after a very long day of work and work related events.

I began to ponder the food options around. And there are many in this part of New West.

A&W? No thanks.

Pizza Garden? Yuk!

Ki Sushi? Good but not going to be filling enough.

Kelly O’Brien’s? Not a bloody chance in hell.

Pizza Ludica? Excellent but a touch far away to make it back in time for the next bus.

Sandwich at Safeway? Nah. I work there and have had too many of them.

Oh look there’s the Old Spaghetti factory. In my younger days sure. I’ve since grown taste buds.

And right across the street is Piva. Now this is a restaurant I should be attracted to. Me being a total food snob and all.

I’ve been to Piva twice before. My first visit yielded a somewhat positive experience with the Wild Boar pasta. Read that review here

My second visit was not as good. They serve their Eggs Benedict on focaccia bread. Very disappointing meal. See that review here

Tonight I’m in the mood for pizza.

But let’s start with a cocktail.

This is a Tropical Sour. I love a good whiskey sour, so I should enjoy this.

I really enjoyed it. Mango and pineapple juices shaken hard with a traditional egg white, which makes that gorgeous foam on the top, made for a very pleasant drink. A little sweet for a sour perhaps, but excellent nonetheless.

They also bring you bread to get you started.

Now normally I wouldn’t include this in a review but tonight I am. As it’s excellent. Big coarse crumb structure, soft and chewy. Dipped in EVOO and some balsamic and it’s as good as any focaccia I have had, including the one I make myself.

Just don’t put it in a Benny please!

And now to my pizza.

This is a duck and fig pizza.

Again this should be right up my foodie alley.

However, it did not live up to my expectations.

The component parts were good in themselves, but when combined together something was missing.

Good undercarriage. Looks like a traditional hand stretched crust. The smoked duck, the little of it there was, was excellent. Fig jam was sweet but lacked a balancing acid, the crispy pancetta, perhaps not my favorite pizza topping ever, wasn’t bad. The arugula was fresh and tasty with perhaps just a bit too much of it. Somewhere in there was asiago which I love. And the apples we’re there but their taste was pretty much non-existent.

Nothing in all those ingredients were bad. It was the combination and proportions that ruined it for me.

I asked three others to taste and rate this pizza. One was “yuck” after one bite. One was “good but not great”. The other was “what the hell did you just give me?”

This is three visits to Piva now. I think I have been more than fair in trying different menu options. In my opinion it’s highly overrated. The pizza, cocktail and tip came to just over $52. Way too much for a meal I really didn’t care for.

I will say that the service at Piva has been excellent every time. And the restaurant has a lovely atmosphere. It’s a very nice place to sit and have a cocktail. I think I’ll just skip the food from now on.

One Bite Pizza review1/10

4.7/10