HAHA. Guess who was reading your post Fero? That's right, Mr. Rain and Mr. Wind. Yeah, there they were, one day sitting in their house, feet on the table in front of the fireplace (not sure if they have one), reading ferovpizzaquest and laughing in that typical mischief sinister type of laugh. They would have kept on laughing, had it not been for knocks on the main door. Silence felt on them as Mr. Wind mustered the courage and went to open the door. And there they were: Barney, Henry, Katie and many other Misters and Misses storms of the past winter, about to perform in their full glory.
All right, it was not so bad, but it was one of the worst winters in Wales for past X years and I've had enough of rain. Thus I was really looking forward for some real spring in Slovakia, but most of all, for my family and friends.
As I have mentioned before, the journey from Cardiff to Slovakia is not the easiest and if you want to do it inexpensively, you have to plan ahead. So I did, buying everything in advance, including airport bus, plane tickets and trains in Slovakia. Time is precious, vacation days not many, and so the plan is tight.
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| Zleteli orly z Tatry, tiahnu nad Podolia... |
Unfortunately, I also mentioned (in some blog post) that statistically, you're bound to experience problems when travelling. It might be 5%, it might be 10% of your travels - whatever it is, my time came this time and as a very unfortunate first link of the journey. The bus to the airport came just 15 minutes late to the place of departure, which would be fine. However, the rules in UK say that the driver must have a minimum legal break before continuing driving and so I was told to make my own way and try to ask for a refund afterwards. Well, not that I would have much options to choose from - either I stay home, or I take a taxi for the 1 hour ride. So I did, with a naive hope that National Express would reimburse the price (about the same as the price of all the other tickets added up). No miracles, all I managed was a refund of the original bus ticket, after about 20 minutes of haggling with the customer service and (eventually) talking with the manager. So two advises for you, dear readers:
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| Better than pizzas! Fazulovica & lokše from Teta Marta |
- Allow more time before the flight, if you can at all. The worst you risk is having some more time for yourself and the book you've meant to read for ages.
- If you talk to customer service, don't give up, and if nothing works with the person you talk to, ask for the manager.
On Saturday, me and my parents went out for a short hike in Male Karpaty, which, as the name translation suggests, is really just a small mountain range. However, there's beautiful and peaceful nature and many options for hiking with interesting stopping points. We've walked just a small fraction near Lozorno, to Cerveny Domcek ("Red House"), not meeting a single soul along the way, except for the few glimpses of a deer in the forest. Lenka would be probably worried when reading this that I'd ditch my normal life society for a cottage in the middle of nowhere.. No worries, not YET :-P), but there just is something about being in the nature, just by yourself for a while..
Just as well, there is something about going for a nice pizza afterwards :-) . And since there is a recently opened place in Stupava, which boasts of "real Neapolitan pizzas" and an Italian chef, my pizza hunting rifle took on an easy next target in the scope.
The place is a rather inconspicuous one, based in a large house in Stupava's centre. That induced quite homely atmosphere underlined by the large oven with fire by the kitchen. But I was mostly interested in the menu - what kind of level of "real Neapolitan pizzas" are we talking about :)
I must say that Il Galone offers quite a range of pizzas and ingredients. You'd find the standard not-so-much-Italian topped pizzas that are common in Slovakia, yet are still featuring Neapolitan base and for a great price (starting as low as 3.5 euros). Bit more up the ladder would be ones featuring Italian this or parmigiana that and if you're ready to spend around 10 euros, you can go for some of the specialities with Buffala, rocket or Parma ham.
We decided to one spicy option with Italian salami, then Quatro Staggioni and a plain Marinara, just to get a better idea of the dough and the sauce. Then we moved on to observe the process. First order made, then ticket printed, pinned to the board.. After 2 minutes, the chef came from the kitchen with a box of what I guessed was mozzarella. Read the ticket, stretched the dough, topped it. Someone came to ask him something. The bases were on the desk for some time and when he started to get them on the peel, they were already sticky. He tried several times, eventually succeeded and not much longer, our pizzas were being taken out. At that point I came to have a closer look and said hello. And although we hardly exchanged few words, I got the idea - this is a friendly guy who likes what he does.
Ehm. If you've just glossed over the last sentence without appropriate few minute pause in which you'd stare in disbelief at the screen, please go back and re-read. You see, dear readers. A friendly chap who simply likes to make pizzas is just not that common type of pizza-chef character. Sure, you could find a "Easy peasy, I'll make your pizzas in 3 minutes" guy (in reality 10 minutes), a "get ready for the best pizza in Africa" guy (true story) or a one of the many other variations of "Bam! This flour is 12% protein and I made that pizza, I made that menu, I built this house and cheers have a nice day, but I'm a macho" type of guy. Perhaps I spoke too little with the chef in Il Galone, but I was definitely positively surprised :)
And as for the pizzas themselves? Well, although they won't top my list, we've enjoyed them very much. The edges were round, puffy and quite as I imagined they would be on a Neapolitan pizza. The sauce was also very nice (though not one I'd wake up craving for in the middle of the night). And ingredients fresh, abundant (especially on the 4 seasons pizza) and tasty, though I expected something more from the "Italian salami" on our spicy pizza. However, we happily finished off everything and kind of agreed, that the basic Marinara was the best, after all, which is a good sign of the dough and sauce quality.
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And though we were full, we did have a space for one more home made Tiramisu - and a happy birthday song : -) .
Dough - 8
Ingredients - 8
Sauce - 8
Atmosphere - 7
Service - 8
