Pizza evolution! We try mochi-dough “stick pizza” from Roppongi’s EU Shokudou

Most of the foods we enjoy today have gone through many stages of evolution, to the point where you almost begin to wonder whether they can ever be improved upon. Yet, so long as cooks maintain their curiosity and enterprising spirit, the foods we know will surely continue to change. We can see the truth of this in creations such as Mokubaza’s cheese keema curry, which we covered in a previous article.

But how can we possibly improve on the wünderfood that is pizza? Well one pizza cafe in Tokyo’s trendy Roppongi district seems to think so…

Stick-shaped pizza?

Recently a new take on a common dish has come to the public’s attention after being featured on television. The updated dish in question is none other than stick pizza. True to its name, this particular type of pizza is made into a stick shape rather than into a circle. The surface is crunchy, the inside fluffy–something that’s difficult to achieve with normal batter. Yet stick pizza somehow does just that.

June 2014 opening

In June 2014, EU Shokudou, a café specializing in stick pizza, opened its doors in the area of midtown Roppongi, Tokyo. When you say “stick pizza,” most Japanese don’t seem to be familiar with the term, but it’s something that has been around for a while in some western countries. You can think of stick pizza as something reminiscent of that shape.

15 Varieties

EU Shokudou have 15 different types of stick pizza on offer. Taking their queue from pasta sauce, six of these flavors range from carbonara to meat sauce. Adventurous customers can try some of the more unusual flavors, such as walleye pollack roe potato and shrimp squid ink. Rounding out the 15 are five dessert flavors, which include chocolate banana and cinnamon apple.

A reasonable 300 yen

At around 20 centimeters (7.5 inches), each individual stick pizza is fairly long. Lower-priced varieties include the 180-yen (US$1.50) corn and bacon, with those on the other end including the 660-yen ($5.50) Wagyu beef ragu sauce. Seeing as most of the choices are priced at 300 yen, they won’t break the bank.

Mochi dough makes for a crunchy exterior

Out of all these enticing options, our reporter chose the meat sauce, carbonara, and shrimp squid ink. These turned out to be longer than he had expected. That being said, they weren’t overstuffed on the inside, making for a quick meal. The texture is more crunchy than flaky, probably owing to the use of rice batter. Conjuring up memories of roasted mochi, the browned surface is truly a thing of beauty.

No more runny interior

As for the filling itself, it was deliciously moist and springy, with some bits of soggy dough making for an added treat. Normally, when you bake pizza dough in a wrapping, the ingredients tend to get a little runny. However, the clever cooks at EU Shokudou seem to have developed a means of counteracting this effect. On the whole, the stick pizzas felt like more of a snack than a meal. There’s no doubt that stick pizza would be a hit if someone were to sell them like crepes on a busy Harajuku street corner. We’re looking forward to seeing how this trend develops!

Shop Details
Name: Stick Pizza & Cafe Bar EU Shokudou
Location: Tokyo, Minato Ward, Roppongi 7-3-13 Trusty Building 1F
Hours of Operation: 11:00~23:00

▼ Each order comes in a special wrapping. Fortunately, the flavors are written on the exterior.

▼ From front to back: shrimp squid ink, carbonara, meat sauce

▼ meat sauce

▼ shrimp squid ink

▼ carbonara

SoraNews24 —Japan News—