Gary D.
Yelp
I love the idea of combining Korean meat with Italian food, but for reasons I'll explain in detail, Pazzo's attempt is a BIG FAIL. Two dishes I ordered have far more oil than taste, and I truly regret placing this order. I'm writing here to publicly ask the restaurant for a refund, to correct their menu, and improve their dishes.
I was drawn to Pazzo today when searching for "Risotto" on UberEats. Now that Louigi's has abandoned their Italian menu, I've been searching elsewhere for this special treat. Quite a few expensive restaurants popped up with a mushroom risotto, but I hate mushrooms (and it's usually a loss to get an expensive restaurant delivered), so I kept looking until I found Pazzo! They don't seem to have any traditional Italian risottos, but the bulgogi risotto sounded like fun!
Shortly after placing the order, I remembered that I had previously ordered Pazzo's bulgogi pizza and didn't like it. I couldn't remember why, but thought: at least I didn't get the pizza again!
There are two big problems with the dish. The pieces of bulgogi are very small, and so completely overwhelmed by the risotto, you can't really tell they are there. Also, I think of bulgogi as a spicy dish and this meat wasn't spicy at all - another reason it got lost is the creamy rice.
Second big problem: after rice, the main ingredient in this dish is Alfredo sauce. There are two ways (at least) to make risotto - marinara sauce or alfredo sauce. Maybe I should have called the restaurant and asked which they used, or looked more closely at the picture, but this simply wasn't mentioned in the written description. On UberEats, the description reads: "Risotto made with our homemade Bulgogi (marinated in our special sauce) and topped with Mozarella." That doesn't specifically say WHAT the special sauce is, but with bulgogi, I imagined a brown savory (and hopefully spicy) sauce - NOT alfredo! On Yelp, the description is: "Risotto made with rib-eye, marinated in our homemade korean bbq sauce" which more specifically says the rice should have BBQ sauce, not alfredo.
A funny thing happens to some cream sauces when you microwave them - the cream turns to oil. I don't think this actually changes the flavor (since all the ingredients are still there), but it makes it much easier to see the enormous amount of oil in the dish. It also makes it possible to pour some of the oil out and to soak up some with bread (delicious, I'll admit) but the dish was still SO OILY, and so little flavor. Please Pazzo, come out here and pick-up the leftovers because I DON'T WANT TO EAT THIS!
Now, onto the Shrimp pizza. I had asked for "no basil, all dishes" and the pizza was still COVERED with basil - but I'll accept that pizza isn't "a dish" and I probably should have said no basil again. I was able to pick-off much of the basil with my fingernails.
But what's left is still not much of a shrimp pizza. I realize that shrimp is expensive (but Italian meats aren't cheap), but the pieces of shrimp were very small and very far apart, making this essentially a "tomato and basil pizza with shrimp garnish."
One more thing: I specifically avoid shrimp pizzas in pesto sauce because they are too oily. Pazzo's description doesn't say anything about pesto sauce or oil sauce - in fact, their Yelp description says: "Roasted peppers, garlic, tiger shrimp, and sun-dried tomatoes; topped with mozzarella cheese, roma tomatoes, and fresh basil. If you want something light and healthy, this is a great choice. Great taste with no guilt." Perhaps the word "roasted" implies oil but it hardly prepares you for the amount; "tiger" implies large shrimp - none found here! Calling this pizza health - THREE TIMES - needs to be backed up with some nutritional information as it doesn't seem healthy to me! And finally, the photo on Yelp's site shows large shrimp and large green leaves on top, not the tiny shrimp and stringy basil which covered my pizza. I'm posting a picture to this review.
Finally, I ordered chicken parmigiana, which looks fine, although I haven't tried it yet. My recommendation: if you must eat from this restaurant, stick to the basic Italian dishes and maybe you'll be happier than I am!
P.s. I remember now the reason I didn't like the bulgogi pizza - the pieces of meat were also very small, and it was also very oily rather than savory.
