Portland Pizza Tour - Firehouse

We had the pleasure of getting to try Firehouse in Portland a little while ago! Spoiler alert - It's one of my personal favorites so far! Firehouse is a traditional Italian restaurant that features a Neapolitan style pizza. We learned alot about the process of making this style while we were there. The Neapolitan style is traditionally cooked at a very high temperature for a shorter amount of time. This causes the dough to be very soft on the inside but bubbled with a little char on the outside. Our waitress explained that the sauce and toppings in a traditional Neapolitan style would not exceed 2 ingredients. We found this to be really amazing especially after testing how flavorful the pizza was! The environment was very cozy and comfortable. We were told that one thing that sets Firehouse apart from others is the fact that they have an authentic Italian, Brick pizza oven in their kitchen that was brought here from southern Italy.

Between the 4 of us we tried the pizza margherita: tomato, fresh mozzarella and basil, pizza with Zoe’s sopressata, fresh mozzarella and chili flake and pizza with house-made fennel sausage, onions and fresh mozzarella. Each one was flavorful and really good. I personally liked the fennel sausage one the best, but you also can't go wrong with a margherita.

Click here to see the menu.

Our Ratings Below -

Kendra's Ratings

Pizza - 8.5

Environment - 8

 Kendra's Ratings

Pizza - 5

Environment -8

 Kendra's Ratings

Pizza - 8.5

Environment -8.5

Kendra's Ratings

Pizza - 8

Environment -8

Portland Pizza Tour - Baby Doll Pizza

Last night's conquest was Baby Doll Pizza in SE Portland. Baby Doll is a pizza by slice joint as well as a delivery service in Portland. It was small but really enjoyable. It was so nice outside that we ordered and sat outside on the picnic tables. We all tried different slices varying from veggie to meat. I think the collective favorite was Canadian bacon, banana peppers and mushrooms and then also the classic pepperoni. So far I think Baby Doll has been my favorite pizza by the slice place. I loved the crunchy, New York style crust most!

 Our ratings below -

 Kendra's Ratings

Pizza - 7

Environment - 5

Chris' Ratings

Pizza - 8

Environment -6

Ron's Ratings

Pizza - 8.8

Environment -7

 Lisa's Ratings

Pizza - 8

Environment -7

Portland Pizza Tour - Nostrana

We had the pleasure of visiting Nostrana for the first time and it was incredible. Not be biased but this has by far been my favorite place yet! I want to go back and order every single item on the menu. The pizza was very traditional Italian - thin, crunchy crust that tasted like a delicious Italian baguette, house-made mozzarella (made fresh daily), rich herb flavors and a mix of Italian meats. Collectively we ordered and tried the Salumi (finocchiona salami, tomato, provolone, house mozzarella, oregano, honey, Mama Lil’s peppers), Diavola (spicy sausage, house mozzarella, provolone, tomato, Mama Lil’s peppers) and Alla Fiama (tomato, red onion, Mama Lil’s, wild oregano, spicy oil, black olives). I enjoyed all of the different flavors of each pizza. I was most surprised at how well the honey drizzle on the crust of the Salumi worked. We also were so surprised that we all loved the Alla Fiama so much since it was a cheese-less pizza, it actually had some of the best flavor of them all. The pizzas came with traditional Italian pizza scissors to cut our slices. I thought that was really fun to have control of as well.

The atmosphere was lovely and looks exactly how I wish my kitchen looked. Complete with a brick pizza oven. It was relaxing and open and the service was great. Bonus perk is that Nostrana is in a little square with other businesses and they have their own parking lot which is a really great surprise from the normal Portland street parking we are used to. It was just a fabulous evening.

The dessert menu looked so delicious and was so reasonably priced that we decided to get dessert as well. We tried the marionberry sorbet and the burnt orange gelato. They both came served with a shortbread cookie. The burnt orange gelato was my favorite, the flavor was rich and the gelato was so creamy. It was an overall culinary delight and it will be very hard to beat in my opinion.

Our ratings below -

 Kendra's Ratings

Pizza - 9.5

Environment - 9.5

 Chris' Ratings

Pizza - 8

Environment - 8

 Ron's Ratings

Pizza - 9.3

Environment - 9.3

Lisa's Ratings

Pizza - 9

Environment - 9

Portland Pizza Tour - Gladstone St. Pizza and Saint Pizza Lounge

Visited Gladstone St. Pizza and Saint Pizza Lounge last week! The building is basically divided into two parts, one with a bar and one more traditional dine-in. Both serve the same pizza. We ate in the lounge for our trip. The pizza was New York style again, which we are loving! We ordered the Meat Combo pizza which had Italian Sausage, Pepperoni and Canadian Bacon. It was amazing. I mean how can you go wrong with an all meat pizza? There were so many other great pizzas that I would love to go back and try! Great experience!

Our ratings below!

Kendra's Ratings

Pizza - 7.8

Environment -  7

Chris' Ratings

Pizza - 6.5

Environment - 6

Ron's Ratings

Pizza - 8.5

Environment - 8

Lisa's Ratings

Pizza - 8

Environment - 7.5