The Ninja Turtles and I share something - a love for pizza. I'm not sold on the whole living in the sewer thing, but I back their choice of favorite food. I could write you a novel singing the praises of pizza, but I wont. Instead, I'll review three restaurants here in the Denver area that offer vegan pizza.
(Rebellion's Chik'n BBQ pizza)
The Rebellion is a small, take-out only, independently owned pizza joint located just outside of downtown Denver. They offer a vegan alternative for almost every non-vegan pizza topping they serve. You have your choice of veggie sausages, pepperoni, and even Canadian bacon. The dough for the crust is organic and made in house. The best part is that the employees actually understand what being vegan means. You get dirty looks and no one questions where you get your protein from when you order a soy cheese pizza there.
The pizza pictured above is the vegan version of their Chicken BBQ. For Under $15 you get a huge pizza with a barbecue sauce base and topped with Follow Your Heart mozzarella, mock chicken, mock Canadian bacon, and red onions. It is a fake meat lover's paradise.
(Yeah, so this a picture of Pizza the Hut from Spaceballs. I don't actually have a picture of City O's pizza.)
City O' City is an all vegetarian and vegan restaurant run by the same people that own Watercourse. It's located in downtown Denver. I wish I could rave about the service here but I can't. The service generally sucks. The employees are way too busy being hip to pay a whole lot of attention to you and you'll wait a long time for food. Fortunately, the food makes up for it.
City O's menu consists primarily of pizza but there are some baked goods and bar food-type fried wonderfulness thrown in. They make their own vegan versions of both ricotta and mozzarella. They also offer homemade seitan pepperoni and sausage, tempeh bacon, and BBQ tofu as toppings. Honestly, I find that the seitan toppings leave something to be desired. The real winner in City O' City's pizza department is The Urban Cowgirl. They take a thin, crispy crust and top it with chipotle marinara, pineapple, green pepper, and onion rings. You read that right. Onion rings on a pizza. It is the most magical addition to a pizza that I've ever encountered. Onion rings make anything better.
I'd be doing a great disservice to all 3 people probably reading this blog if I didn't mention City O's seitan buffalo wings. It's like they took heaven, deep fried it, and coated it in wing sauce. Honestly, the wings are better than the pizza. The wings might actually be better than sunshine.
(Build Your Own pizza with caramelized onions, roasted peppers, and Daiya cheese)
Zpizza is the newest place on this list. It's sort of like a smaller, more expensive, fancier version of Pizza Hut. Except Zpizza's pizza actually tastes good. The one location in Colorado opened about 2 months ago and just so happens to be located 5 minutes from my office in Greenwood Village. There's not much seating in the place so your best bet is to get it to-go.
Zpizza offers a good amount of vegetable toppings but it's the Daiya that really makes the pizza. Daiya is far superior to any cheese alternative I've tried. If it weren't for the Daiya, the pizza would probably be pretty average. The crust is good, but not remarkable. The price is fairly high. A small, two topping pizza with Daiya sets me back $13. But the Daiya. Holy crap, the Daiya. It must be made from crack and the tears of unicorns because it is addictive and fantastical.
Daiya cheese? That sounds very, very promising.
ReplyDeleteI've become 95% vegan, my lactose intolerance has reached epic proportions. I can't eat milk chocolate!
I've found one place in Seattle that uses it, Sidecar... Hmm, think I'm gonna have drag Denny there.
You should also try Mellow Mushroom Pizza, they have the best gluten-free, dairy free pizza I've ever tasted! :-)
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