I got on the wrong train. That’s how this one started. I was headed to somewhere I wanted to try for another “project” but accidentally got on the wrong train and found myself outbound on the line back towards Caseros. Rather than backtrack, I went with it, figured it was fated, and headed to a pizzeria that had been recommended… well, sort of. A few months back a local foodie whom I follow had tweeted out for people to recommend the best pizzerias in the suburbs, and justify their choice. Now, most people didn’t bother with the second half, unless you count “in my opinion” as a justification, but I made notes of a few that had reasons given and sounded interesting. [Photo at the top taken at the Muñiz train station, the closet one to the third pizzeria.]

So, ensued a trio of trips out to the western suburbs of Buenos Aires. Thankfully, all three pizzerias were within a few blocks of their town’s respective train stations. Had I had a companion or two, we might have used local buses and gotten to all three in one day, but I was solo.

 

Santa Lucía Pizzería Bar, Av. San Martín 2819, Caseros – Weird. Seriously, kind of sums up this pizza. I like the place. It’s small, casual, and relaxed. They have a few tables indoors plus a sidewalk seating area. Service is quick and friendly. A fairly lengthy menu of pizza choices, all available in large and small, and a good number of them by the portion. Choice of thick or thin crust. I ordered up my classic fave, the Calabresa, on thin crust. The former part, the toppings, were an absolute delight. This pie is generously topped with overlapping layers of moderately spicy sausage, then roasted yellow bell peppers, and then fresh tomato slices. There’s lots of good quality mozzarella underneath along with a decent tomato sauce with some flavor to it, and a surprising amount of parmesan atop, plus fresh herbs. But then, there’s the crust. It’s a miserable excuse for a crust. It’s less than a half centimeter thick, it’s dense, chewy, and almost seems like it’s fried in oil until it’s a hard puck of unrisen, flavorless dough. It’s near inedible, and although I ate most of the toppings from the pie, I basically left the crust on the plate. Should I ever get back that way, perhaps I’ll try the thick crust, which in retrospect looked much better!

 

Restaurante Delva, Ntra Sra del Buen Viaje 792, Morón – The only one of the three spots that offered up an individual size as well as the standard small and large. Oddly, only cut in half, rather than in quarters, so had to cut it myself in order to pick up a slice. Then again, Argentines generally eat pizza with knife and fork, even the thin crust type. Stuck with the Calabresa as a comparison, plus being one of my favorites. Here, basically the reverse of the above. Really good crust, decent tomato sauce, and then the rest… meh. The sausage itself was okay, but seemed more like salami than the promised spicy longaniza, and even for an individual sized pie, there wasn’t enough of it, basically one small slice on each quarter, and then it was mediocre, oily cheese, and two strips of roasted pepper. It was all just kind of underwhelming. The place is very popular, with a steady stream of people coming in for takeout orders, and the restaurant itself stayed fairly full the whole time. I did note that it seemed like most of the takeout orders were for empanadas rather than pizza, though some pizzas went out, and I only saw one other table with a group eating pizza – most were eating other dishes. This place is more a full on Argentine restaurant than a pizzeria.

 

Pizzería La Imperial, Dr. Pedro A. Pardo 1569, Bella Vista – Excuse the weirdness of the pizza photo – as you can see from the first photo, the whole place is bathed in a weird, reddish glow, and I couldn’t get my phone to take a photo that wasn’t completely red-washed. This is the best I could manipulate it to reasonably normal colors. Here, they offer small, large, and by the piece. I decided on a small, as the Calabresa wasn’t one of the portion offerings – actually very few of the couple of dozen pizzas were available by the piece. So I got half Calabresa and half Romana. The former consisted of just slices of sausage and cheese – nothing added – no tomato, pepper, nor onion – kind of disappointing. The latter was slices of ham and roasted peppers, plus anchovies and was far better. The real winner here is the zesty tomato sauce, and plenty of it. The crust was pretty good too. The mozzarella, decent, and not overly oily. So overall, I’d put this as the best of the three, I just wouldn’t order the Calabresa again. Then again, I’m not likely to make the hour and a half trip out to Bella Vista/Muñiz again.

If only I could get Santa Lucia’s toppings, with La Imperial’s tomato sauce, on Delva’s crust, I’d have one really spectacular Calabresa pizza.

And those were the only three noted spots from that Twitter series. I’d like to think there are better pizzerias out in the western ‘burbs, but, perhaps not? Suggestions will be taken into consideration.