Pizza Fusion Stole My Heart and Filled My Stomach
Yes, it’s true. I love, love, love pizza. I’ve perfected the art of making delicious vegan pizza at home but occasionally I feel a pang of sadness that I can’t go out for that perfect slice of pizza or pick up a pie on Friday night. Not any longer! Today my pizza blues were cured with a visit to Pizza Fusion, 5735 E McKellips Rd., Suite 107, Mesa, AZ 85215.
I heard about Pizza Fusion on Facebook but was a bit reluctant to drive out to this obscure location in East Mesa (ok, I’m a lazy sucker for convenience) until I convinced my good friend Tuula to make the trek with me. It didn’t take much convincing since Tuula is like minded about food choices. I was pleasantly surprised that the journey wasn’t really as long as I thought and that the restaurant is fairly conveniently located off the new 202 freeway.
Enough about getting there. Let’s talk about the food. When it comes to restaurants clever vegans can always come up with something to order but there are good vegan dishes and there are horrible vegan dishes. For instance ordering vegan at Outback is terrible. All I can muster is a side of steamed veggies and a baked potato with ketchup. It will suffice in a famine but it’s not what I call a good vegan dish. Pizza Fusion on the other hand, delighted my taste buds and filled my belly.
We ordered the Farmer’s Market vegan pizza with a medley of roasted artichoke hearts, red onion, roasted zucchini and roasted portobello with tomato sauce with vegan cheese. Can you believe it? Yes, you read that right. They have vegan cheese! Better yet, you can order any one of their pizzas with vegan cheese. I know! It’s time to stand up and do a little dance. Something as simple as vegan cheese at a pizza joint makes me as happy as an insect fluttering around a warm light bulb.
When the vegan pizza came to our table, it looked amazing! It was rectangular shaped with fragrant veggies piled on top. The cheese was melted perfectly and I could barely wait to shove it in my mouth, which I promptly did. This tasty morsel of vegan pizza did more than quench my pizza pang, it far exceeded my expectations. It was flavorful, crisp, sweet, fresh … I could go on. Tuula and I are opportunists. And we took this opportunity to eat 3/4 of the entire pizza! That’s more than normal but it was so delicious, I could not bare to leave it for tomorrow’s leftovers. I’ve been so excited to tell you about the pizza that I forgot to mention our starter Fusion Salad which was great too but, you know, salad is salad. I was there for the pizza.
What I didn’t expect was a monster brownie for dessert. You see we got to talking with the manager Sandy and she told us that we absolutely had to try this vegan, gluten-free brownie. My first reaction to dessert is typically no. I assume that the desserts are a melange of dairy products or eggs, the typical. But not so at Pizza Fusion. Tuula and I went for it. We dove right into this warm, exquisite brownie. When I make vegan brownies they always seem a bit crumbly and strange. This vegan, gluten-free brownie was absolutely perfect. Every bite was deliciously sweet and as it slid off the fork, it seems to melt in my mouth. The dollop of vegan whip cream on top, dare I say, was the icing on the brownie.
After this gluttonous spectacle, I felt filled with love for Pizza Fusion. They starved off my pizza pangs that had built up over the years. They dazzled me with an unbelievable brownie. But there was more. As I started to look around, I began to see that the owner, Jennifer, truly believes in what she does. She cares about people eating healthy and saving the planet … one pizza at a time. From the 100% post-consumer recycled paper products to the low flow toilet in the bathroom and the sign in the mirror that says “this person is changing the world,” you can tell that Jennifer wants her customers to feel that their food choices are making a difference. And they are.
Pizza Fusion is more than just great food. It’s a place of inspiration in a listless and frankly boring restaurant market. It’s a place where you can talk to the owner and the manager and feel like they care about the same things you do. It’s something different, something genuine, and something with damn good food!
P.S. Jennifer did not pay me to write this review. I just loved Pizza Fusion that much. You can follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/PizzaFusionAZ.
call or email me next time you go…would love to join you!
– hollye