Wednesday 2 April 2008

CASALUNA PIZZA, Ottawa

Taking in one of the first days that if really felt like spring was out, I stumbled across a little pizzeria tucked into the Westboro neighborhood LJ lives in. It was after lunch and I hadn't had anything to eat, and I thought, maybe this place will be a goldmine for the future of take-out.
From the outside, it didn't look like anything special. Inside looked even worse. The 'seating' area was an old office chair, an old wooden chair from a kitchen set, and a chair from a restaurant from the 80's. There was no menu board, just a take-away menu. I decided on a small cheese pizza, and of course, the wings.


The man behind the counter was an older Lebanese gentleman. He didn't speak much, and he didn't have much in the way of any emotion, but I felt like I was in a place where the food was important. When I ordered the wings, he asked what kind of sauce I wanted. I knew already, but to fish out some more info for this review (because the flyer didn't list them), I asked what kind of sauces they had. "We have, the sauces. You know, I can put on sauces like mild, or hot, bbq, and ah, honey garlic". I suspect there might be more, but really, I was only interested in hot.







I sat and waited, and another worker (family member I think) came in, then a little while ago another guy with his kid went in. It felt like a nice family business. Then another guy came up to the counter and was like "Hey, what's going on here!?!" I was a little shocked until I realized he was a regular just joshing the staff. I waited for my food, chatting with one of the guys about the gorgeous weather, then headed back to eat in the comfort of the apartment.


On the way home, I noticed a smell. It wasn't agreeable, and it was coming from the food. "Oh no" I thought, "The food isn't cooked right or the wings are going to be terrible. Or the pizza." I couldn't figure out which it was going to be, but I was pretty sure the food was going to suck.



I opened up the pizza box . . . it was a mighty good looking cheese pizza. I love a meat pizza, you know, pepperoni, ham, sausage etc. but every once and a while just plain cheese is the way to go. I took a bite, good. The sauce was a little generic, but the cheese was good.


Ok so it wasn't the pizza that I thought was going to be bad, it must be, sadly, the wings. I took the styrofoam container, and took a whiff . . . the wings smelled. . . good. They looked good and they looked big . . . but what would the taste be?


2008 THE SCORE 3.0: Casaluna Pizza - Ottawa

STYLE:

Deep fried take-out pizza wings

PRICE:

$7.75 for 12
$13.25 for 24
$16.00 for 36

SAUCES:

  • Medium
  • Hot
  • BBQ
  • Honey Garlic
    *(may be more sauces)

0/1

HEAT:

Tingle

SIZE:

Large, especially for take-out

2/3

WETNAP FACTOR:

Wet – could use more sauce, but with little prevented sogg from setting in

2/3

CRISPINESS:

Crisp – despite the walk it stayed crisp

2/3

FLAVOUR:

Nothing special – Frank’s and butter

1.5/3

SIDES:

n/a [Can be upgraded to a platter (fries & coleslaw) $9.70]

*

CLEAN UP:

n/a

*

WING NIGHT:

n/a

*

OTHER:

Decent pizza, free delivery

TOTAL:

Good pizza, good wings

7.5/13



I couldn't believe how big they were for a pizza place. They were the size that the average restaurant should serve. And crispy and just looked the way a simple wing should - deep fried not too long or not long enough. They weren't particularly meaty inside, but it was a good piece of chicken.




The sauce was pretty simple. No heat to the hot, and nothing special in the sauce - another bottled hot sauce tossed on. It was just like a hundred other places, but I could have used more. Again, its good that there isn't too much because they would get soggy with sauce, but still, more sauce would have been nice.


FINAL SCORE: The food didn't suck like I was afraid. A small cheese pizza was pretty big, cheesy and tasty. The chicken was also a surprise with its generous size for a pizza place, well deep fried and sauced wing. I would probably walk to this place again . . . if the weather keeps up. 7.5/13


Casaluna Pizza
173 Hinchey Ave, Ottawa
613-729-4405


Check out the Menu HERE

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

u have really good food

Lord of the Wings said...

@Anonymous - I`m assuming you mean Casaluna when you say u have good food. Unless you mean me (when you say u) eating some good food, then yes I do. Thank u.