Dumbo Pizza Factory

Rating: Not great
Meal: Dinner for 2
Price: 3000 yen
Payment: Credit cards accepted
Dishes: A pizza, some meat
English Menu: Yes
Smoking: Non smoking section available

My wife and I were, wonder of wonders, in Yokohama on Friday night.  We've talked forever about how we ought to have a regular date night there, but somehow on a Friday after the week is done, neither of us ever wants to go out again.  This time, however, she had been in Tokyo helping a friend with moving and we met in Yokohama as she was on her way home.  First we had a couple of beers at our favorite spot Thrash Zone, near Yokohama Station.  Then we set out to find some food.

My wife got to pick and she had heard about this Dumbo Pizza Factory joint from a magazine source at some point in the past so we gave it a shot.  It's a pretty popular spot on a Friday evening, with many large groups of people, probably having a work drinking party, the sort of "mandatory fun" I get out of due to my job on base.

The menu looked really good, and my wife ordered a pizza, while I ordered some meat (still trying to stay lowish carb).  My wife's pizza was just ok in my opinion.  It was Napoli style, wood fired.  I didn't think it had much flavor, but I don't care for that style.  My meat turned to be a very thin slice of pork with a little bit of balsamic reduction on top.  The reduction wasn't very flavorful and the meat wasn't all that great.  And it was tiny.

So, probably not a place I'd come back to again.

Spontini

Rating: Not great
Meal: Dinner
Price: 680 yen
Payment: Credit cards accepted
Dishes: Slice of pizza with a sausage
English Menu:Yes
Smoking:No

Feeling a bit peckish still after having some ramen nearby, I spotted a pizza place called Spontini in the underground Isetan food court at the southern end of Yokohama station.

I just wanted a small taste so got the smallest slice of pizza with a sausage.

It was definitely not great, with the pizza being the big fluffy kind with an almost deep fried crust, flavorless tomato and cheese topping.  And the sausage was super chewy and completely tasteless.  I wouldn't try that again most likely.

Devilcraft

Rating: OK
Meal: Lunch for 2
Price: 8300 yen
Payment: Credit cards accepted
Dishes: Greek pizza, thai pizza, "the works" pizza (Chicago style), all small size.  4 half pints and one full pint of beer
English Menu: Yes
Smoking: No

Well...this was disappointing.  For years, ever since we arrived in Japan, we've heard legends of Devilcraft, a pizza joint that brews their own beer.  They have 3 locations in town and we've never had the opportunity to go (the conditions must be perfect...) until today.  For her birthday/our anniversary my wife really wanted to go, so we made plans to eat at 3pm at the Gotanda location.

We decided to be liberal in our ordering so we could really get a feel for the beer and pizza.  As such we ended up ordering a total of 4 half pints of their locally brewed beer and finished it off with one full pint of Stone Ruination IPA (to cleans the palette perhaps?).  As for pizza, we started off with the two specials, a greek themed and a thai themed pizza.   The greek pizza had tzatziki on it...that's mostly all I recall.  The thai pizza was based on the Gapao classic dish, and we even ordered extra cilantro and an egg to go on it (for more money natch).  We were concerned that we wouldn't be able to finish them all, so made *sure* we could take any leftovers home with us before ordering the two smalls.  We were slightly taken aback once they arrived (it took forever to make them)...they were tiny...miniscule...microscopic even!  And with the big doughy crust there were hardly any toppings to speak of...plus I didn't care for the crust and gave it all to my wife.  We also realized neither of them were Chicago style, which is their claim to fame...so we went ahead and ordered a "the works" chicago style pizza and waited even longer to try it out.  It was much better than the other pizzas, with a high wall, slightly crisper crust that allowed the filling to properly fill out the pizza and feel like you were actually eating something more than crackers with toppings.  Nonetheless, it was also a bit underwhelming.

The beers were sad too...the one we liked best was their Co-Conspirator IPA, a coconut IPA that really worked quite well.  The others were just lackluster, especially compared with the amazing Portland beers we had just finished at PDX Taproom.  So we ordered a consolation pint of Ruination IPA and shared it between us.

Greek pizza

Overall, we were quite disappointed that Devilcraft did not live up to its legend, and it ended up being incredibly expensive for what you got.  So far, Pizzakaya remains the best pizza we've had in Japan, and they had much better beer too.

Thai pizza

"the works" chicago style

Pizza Hut

Rating: OK
Meal: Lunch for 2
Price: 2700 yen
Payment: Credit cards accepted (I think)
Dishes: Bulgogi pizza, everything pizza
English Menu: Yes
Smoking:  No

Lunch menu

My wife and I desired to eat Ramen recently so we went to an area with a couple of decent noodle shops but were disappointed to find them both closed, so we proceeded to walk down a bit to a Chinese restaurant I knew of, only to find it replaced by a Pizza Hut takeaway outlet.  By this time we were quite hungry so we decided to give it a shot.  I don't usually review fast food places but I gave this an exception.

Bulgogi pizza

They have some pretty good lunch specials, especially for takeaway, so we ordered a couple of pizzas and sat down to wait.  They do have some pretty amazing looking pizzas that are quite expensive, making the prices at Pizzakaya in Roppongi look a lot more reasonable.

Everything pizza

We took the pizzas home and ate them over a few meals.  They were ok, not the most amazing or worst either.  We probably won't eat from there again, but hey, at least we know what we are missing out on.

Pizzakaya

Rating: Excellent
Meal:  Dinner for 2
Price:  3530 yen
Payment:  Credit cards accepted
Dishes: Santa Fe pizza, one beer
English Menu: Yes

Smoking: No

On our third try during our evening in Roppongi, we finally struck gold!  We had passed by Pizzakaya earlier in the evening as we walked towards our original destination, and on the way be to our hotel we decided to check it out on a whim.  We were very glad we did!

First, we saw they had Rogue Dead Guy ale on the menu, so of course we had to have one of those.  Then as we started reading the menu we were very impressed and decided to try the Santa Fe pizza which had BBQ chicken, caramelized onions and fresh guacamole.  When it arrived we were blown away by the flavor.  The guac was clearly fresh and as my wife kept repeating was the equivalent of an entire avocado on our pizza.  The meat was super tasty and the caramelized onions absolute perfection.  The flavor just kept jumping out at us with every bite.  This is the best pizza we've had in Japan to date, hands down.  We really wanted to come back the next day but there were some other spots on our must try list.

Two Dogs Taproom

Rating: OK
Meal: Dinner for 2
Price: 4650 yen
Payment: Credit cards accepted
Dishes: Lamb with arugula pizza, 4 beers
English Menu: Yes
Smoking: Separate section

My wife and I spent the night in Roppongi over the weekend and got to try out several new restaurants in the area.  We were desirous of good beer, so we found Two Dogs Taproom and on the strength of their large taps we gave it a try.  We lucked out in that on a Sunday evening we were in time for both happy hour and 50% off pizzas.  The beer was very good, however, this is a food blog, so I rate these places on the food itself.

Beer menu

Unfortunately the pizza was a bit disappointing and only merits an Ok.  The lamb arugula pizza sounded like a great idea, but the result was lackluster.  We finished up unsatisfied and resolved to try again and find something delicious elsewhere.

Rogue and Stone Brewery were available!

 

The disappointing pizza

The Pizza Company

Rating: OK
Meal: Dinner
Price: 3.9 BHD
Payment: Credit cards accepted
Dishes: Garlic chicken pizza
English Menu: Yes
Smoking: No

The Pizza Company is a very meh pizza restaurant I reviewed sheerly for completeness sake.  I personally do not intend to ever return. 

I did end up eating the whole thing, but over several days...it never got any better.

Urban Slice

Rating: OK
Meal:  Dinner/Breakfast
Price: 8 BHD
Payment: Credit cards accepted
Dishes: Mediterranean Pizza
English Menu: Yes
Smoking: No

I needed to be in my hotel room around dinner time last night, so I figured pizza delivery would be a good idea.  I had picked up a menu from Urban Slice, another pizza joint on Al Shabab Avenue/American Alley.  Fresh pizza is usually good, and this pizza had a garlic sauce base with chicken and tomatoes and, oddly, pickles of some kind.  Not sure what I thought of the pickles, but the pizza itself was fine.  I ate some of it and saved the rest for breakfast (or two).

I was tempted at first to give this a Very Good, but as I ate it my estimation fell, mainly due to the quality of the ingredients.  The dough was also quite sweet.  So in the end, it just gets an Ok.

Il Capo

Rating: OK
Meal:  Dinner
Price: 2.8 BHD
Payment: Credit cards accepted
Dishes: 2 pieces of pizza
English Menu: Yes
Smoking: No

Another spot along Al Shebab Avenue/American Alley, Il Capo was recommended to me by a co-worker.  I needed to grab dinner on the way somewhere so figured it a couple of slices of pizza would be nice.  It was pretty good, and maybe getting a full pizza would merit a higher rating, but overall it was just Ok.