The Best Pizza I Ever Did Eat

Dear reader,

Let me tell you about that time I ate the best pizza. 

It wasn’t in Italy. 

But let’s start there.

My parents took me to Italy for my 32nd birthday. After a trip to Spain and France 7 years ago, I swore off Europe. I just didn’t like it. Honestly, old crumbling buildings aren’t my thing. It didn’t have the challenging culture shock that my backpacking soul was craving. It was just all too “western” for me, if you know what I mean. My travels were saved for Central America and Asia.

But after six months of budget backpacking around Southeast Asia last year, I was ABSOLUTELY EXHAUSTED. Non-stop scooter honks will do it for you. An old crumbling building in a Tuscan organic farm didn’t sound so bad. I left Asia and took a 14 hour flight to Rome to meet up with Mami and Papi, for their fourth and my first time in Eataly.

Eataly :)!

Italy is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been to. It really is just jaw-droppingly gorgeous. Not the old buildings. But the landscape. Those Tuscan countryside sunsets are no joke. It’s really everything you’ve seen in the movies.

It’s crowded. AF. The food is phenomenal. AF. But I was disappointed when I didn’t find the best pizza in the world. I wasn’t looking. I mean, does one even have to look in Italy?!

Don’t get me wrong. The pizza is DAMN good. Better than any pizza I’ve ever had in America. Roman pizza, la pizza tonda Romana, is paper thin, with a crispy-cracker crust you fold in like a wallet before gorging it down as if it’s your first time having pizza. It doesn’t leave you bloated and it’s served sans the guilt. You just can’t feel guilty eating pizza in Italy. It’s impossible.

But it wasn’t the best.

source: wholefoodsmarket.com

My favorite pizza is Whole Foods pizza. I didn’t say it was the best. But it is my favorite. Probably because it was my first time eating pizza made with high-quality ingredients in the land of chemically concocted cheap food. I’m a 90’s kid that grew up on Dominos and Papa Johns. When I took my first bite out of that Whole Foods pizza, I knew, for the first time in my life, what real pizza tasted like. It left an imprint on my taste buds and a preference for those legitimate flavors. Pizza made the way it’s supposed to be made, with double-zero flour, San Marzano tomatoes and rBGH-free cheese.

For me, my favorite foods are tied to a food awakening, an experience. It’s the nostalgia and the AHA moment I keep coming back to.

But still, it’s not the best.

The best pizza I ever did eat was…you ready…

The temples of Chiang May, Thailand

In Chiang Mai, Thailand. Let me just say, Chiang Mai is my food utopia. I pray you find yours. It’s a blessing and a curse once you do. It’s a blessing because you will consume flavors you didn’t even know existed. Your life as an eater forever changes. Your tastebuds transform. Your cravings expand. It’s a curse because anything you eat outside your food utopia sucks. It just sucks. Nothing ever tastes the same after you’ve eaten your way through your very own food utopia.

With it’s award-winning lattes, stir-fried to order night market noodles, and half-way decent mexican food, the food in Chiang Mai is vegan-friendly and flavor packed. Let’s not forget God’s nectar, the Thai coconut, is served ice cold in every corner. U. Topia.

It was in this expat friendly, laid-back delicious Northern Thai town that I found the best pizza. It was a little joint called “Why not?” Because pizza, why the hell not? Italian owned, this restaurant and wine bar is as authentic as it gets, with ingredients straight from Italy herself. 

I walked in with a craving and no expectations, a recipe for satisfaction. I sat down at my table for one and ordered what I always do; “A pizza margherita. Yes, the whole pie :). Oh, excuse me! A glass of red wine please. Actually, make it the bottle.” I was in a mood.

source: facebook.com/whynotchiangmai

The pizza arrived to my table straight from the wood-fired oven. I took a moment to smell (wow), to fuck with the crust, to impatiently give it a second to cool down because hot pizza doesn’t taste nearly as good as slightly cooled down pizza. 

It was love at first bite. The crust was fluffy, just how I like it. The sauce was intensely sweet, just how I like it. But the cheese stole my heart. This was the definition of melt in your mouth. It just melted. I didn’t even have to chew, this custard-like mozzarella just melted like butter into the abyss of my happy insides. For a good 15 minutes, I wasn’t in Thailand. Nor in Italy. I was, once again, in my food utopia, where everything was exceptionally delicious and nothing else mattered.

I returned to Why Not? every night for my last four nights in Chiang Mai. And every night I returned to my little food utopia. The consistency, just like the ingredients, was spot on. I don’t make this claim lightly, it really was the best pizza I ever did eat. 

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Pizza is my favorite food in the world. Reader, take note. On my deathbed, I want pizza. If not from Why Not?, then at least grab me a pie from Whole Foods. Pizza margherita. The way pizza is supposed to be. I love a glass of red, but I prefer some bubbles with my gluten. An ice cold German pilsner will do the trick. It’s gotta be ice cold. For dessert, anything chocolate. I’m not picky.

I’ll die the happiest foodie.