604 Foodtography

When Fmed of Wise Monkeys shot me an email asking if I could come for an impromptu chowdown/tasting at Pizzeria Barbarella, I jumped on it.

I’ve been waiting for Terry’s pizzas for a while. The last time I visited Terry was when I had a late lunch at Nha Trang. He’s gone through a lot, having sold off Ah-Beetz more than a year ago to fulfill his dream of opening a pizzeria here in Vancouver.

I bumped my existing dinner plan and invited James along, who once was told by his mom he should stop eating pizza. So I think that means he likes pizza. A lot. He’s the one who drove me to Abbotsford to try out Ah-Beetz over 2 years ago, and at the end of that post….

Terry, I look forward to the day you can open an establishment here in Vancouver.

Amazing how things have progressed, right?

Terry had originally acquired a location on Commercial Drive, but after that fell through due to the city’s strict zoning laws, he found a greasy dirty Chinese restaurant at Broadway and Fraser.

Now just a week or so from officially being opened, it’s going to be a lot of work to finish the floors, sweet up all the dust, install all the fixtures…but the most important part is already present. The dough mixer and the oven, which runs at a cool 900°F or 482°C.

During this very informal tasting, which was a pay-what-you-think-it’s-worth affair, Terry brought out numerous pizzas for us to try.

Although he doesn’t have his own cured meats ready yet or his ideal ingredients, he still worked his magic with what he could scrounge up from the supermarket.

My words cannot accurately justify nor describe these amazing pizzas, so for now, you can just look at the pictures and I’ll see you when Pizzeria Barbarella officially opens.