Always on the look out for a bargain eat that is fresh and of good quality, the other night I could not help but be intrigued by the buy one get one free offer on pizza at Tapped Leeds. Out with a friend for a post-work drink it was a temptation we couldn't resist and won us hook, line and sinker.
Whilst Tapped might be better known as the relatively new American-style bar to Leeds serving an extensive selection of craft beers,cask ales and bottles from all over the shop... they also happen to have a corner of their bar designated to a pizza station.
In comes Big Dan's Pizzas! Hand made on site, they use imported Italian ingredients and even use beer brewed on site to add to their pizza dough.
Pizzas come in three sizes at 7", 12" and 18". When I was there the BOGOF offer was only available with the 7" pizzas so with a friend (yes it's Diane!) we thought we'd buddy up. The cheapest 7" pizza is £3.50 and the most expensive was £4.50. We went for 'The Truffle Shuffle' and 'The Hammy One'. The most expensive pizza was used for the BOGOF offer so it came to grand total of £2.25 each.
With lots of competition on the Leeds pizza scene as of late there were high expectations. Two of my favourites of small pizza/slice offerings are Kitschen, which sell mini pizza's at £3 a pop and Dough Boys, with their most expensive slice at around £2.80 (that's if you're not counting the extremely generous half price slice offer they've got going on).
The pizza arrived at the table, it took a good 15 minutes to arrive but we could see it being made by 'Big Dan' in the corner. How can you grumble when a pizza is made from scratch before your eyes?
Splitting both pizza's in half, I first started on the The Truffle Shuffle. The pizza, small and wee as a 7", was loaded with cheese and toppings. Perhaps too many toppings for this little'n as it made the base quite soggy and difficult to take a singular bite from... a singular bite that is without having the whole piece of pizza slop off very attractively on your chin (A very serious fear of mine due to a pizza cheese burn on my chin from my younger years!). The pizza was hot, but luckily not burn-worthy so my chin and I were alright there!
The toppings were a delight and a nice surprise. Good quality and well matched flavours with the buffalo mozzarella white truffle salami, grilled fennel and capers. It had a great bittersweet taste to it and all the flavours came through sharply. I am however a little bit fussy when it came to the cheese, with the cheese being rather clumpy and heavy, making it overall too much for the small pizza.
On to The Hammy One. This was topped with buffalo mozzarella (again, too clumpy and too much for me!), Italian gran cotto ham, mushrooms and garlic. I'm sure this pizza would have tasted a lot better if I hadn't still had the taste of the previous pizza still lingering in my mouth. As with the last pizza, the base on this one was also rather soggy and sloppy from the toppings. The flavours were there, but unfortunately they were no match compared to The Truffle Shuffle.
Overall, for the bargain offer that was available for FRESHLY made pizza one can't complain. I would be interested to try their pizza in a larger size to see if the base held up better. I definitely recommend trying The Truffle Shuffle if you like a good interesting pizza and to hit up their 2-4-1 offer (available every Monday and Tuesday) if you are down that end of town.
Tapped Leeds is obviously not a restaurant and it does not specialise in pizza, however 'Big Dan's Pizza' and their little pizza station in the corner are doing a great job of offering some good in-bar grub which is made to order and uses fresh, quality ingredients.
Have you tried pizza from Tapped Leeds? Or do you have a favourite pizza haunt in Leeds?
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