Culinary Discoveries: Blaze Pizza

By far one of the favorite restaurants we have encountered on the trip so far, Blaze Pizza deserves nothing less than a blog post of its own!

On the recommendation of Ryan, we made a walk to the pizza place from where we were staying. It was about a mile away from our hotel in Pasadena, CA. As we walked through the doors, we were met with a crowd. While it was technically lunch hour for many people, I’d like to think that, after having experienced this awesome pizza, the place was just that popular. We grabbed a menu and began to figure just how getting a pizza here works.

The ordering area is set up like what you would find in a Subway or a Chipotle, promoting the idea that customers have the ability to choose what is on their pizza. The pizzas themselves are personal pan size, allowing a person to have complete control on what they want on their pizza since they will be the one eating it. The menu even gives the customer some basic options for starting their pizza ranging from a simple, cheaper one topping or cheese pizza options to templates for specialty pizzas to a completely custom-built pizza. The real bonus in the last two options is, no matter what you mix and match on the pizza (you can even add to or take away ingredients from the template option!), it’s still the same price. After being populated with ingredients, the pizzas are then put into an oven for about three minutes and cooked brick-oven style while the customers wait for their creations. The pizza could be accompanied by some freshly made original or blood orange lemonade (either one was delicious), soda, or water for drink options and a s’more sandwich for desert. Most everyone in the class had either styles of lemonade and a s’more cookie and the vote for deliciousness was unanimous.

While some of us in the class stayed conservative with our pizza building, others chose to be adventurous. One of our pizzas ended up having two different sauces, four different cheeses, an assortment of meat, and a multitude of topping (spinach, onions, mushrooms, etc.).  No matter what everyone put on their pizzas, we could all agree that the taste was excellent. Our astounding flavor experience was only heightened by the quality and kindness of the staff working at Blaze. Many of us were asked multiple times if the food was good and other questions as well (Have you been here before? What sauce did you choose? Etc.).

All in all, our time at Blaze Pizza was overwhelmingly positive. If any of us have the fortunate opportunity of coming back to the LA area, we certainly know where to go for some of the best pizza humans have ever tasted. Keep up the good work, Blaze Pizza!