Sarah Jo Austin

San Francisco Oven’s California Aloha Pizza

September 1st, 2007

As much as I like pizza, I generally don’t eat it more than once a week, but San Francisco Oven released their new California Aloha pizza on Tuesday. I could hardly wait the four days to try it. First, I love SFO and have loved all their other pizzas (you’ll get those reviews later, I’m sure); second, Hawaiian pizza is my favorite, and I’ll try any variation.

The California Aloha is topped with spicy ham, fresh pineapple, cilantro, and sweet smoked BBQ sauce. All together, they’re a great combination, but I would’ve liked more ham and pineapple on my pizza.

The spicy ham had good flavor (and I’m not generally a ham person) but it was a little tough. I’m not sure if the toughness was due to the brick oven baking or if it was just the nature of the ham. The ham pieces were a little large and were hard to bite through, so when I tried to just bite off a bit of the ham, I took the rest with me. If they’d been smaller, SFO could’ve added more and they’d have been easier to eat.

The pineapple was fresh and tasty; most Hawaiian pizzas I try have canned pineapple. Again I would’ve liked to have more on the pizza.

This was the first pizza I’ve tried with cilantro, and I liked the kick it added. Usually, I associate cilantro with Mexican food and homemade salsa, and I forgot about the great flavor it can add to a dish.

The BBQ sauce was tasty, too, though I had to explain to Linden, who was eating with me, why BBQ sauce is good with pineapple. It’s a lot like math: If a=b, and b=c, then a=c.

If pineapple + ham = tasty, and ham + BBQ sauce = tasty, then pineapple + BBQ sauce = tasty.

As I said above, all the toppings in combination were excellent. The cilantro and ham gave the pizza a spicy kick (this probably isn’t a pizza my husband wouldn’t like), while the pineapple and BBQ sauce countered the spiciness with a bit of sweet.

Perhaps it was the lack of Internet (my computer is a crap top) while I worked this afternoon, but I’d like to attribute at least part of my productivity to the California Aloha, which helped me complete the background chapter of my thesis and crank out two-and-a-half (single-spaced) pages of my lit review.

Entry Filed under: reviews