Great Pizza at Gino's Brick Oven Pizza, Katipunan

I had heard about Gino's at Katipunan and asked my students about it -- surprisingly even if it was just a stone's throw away from the Ateneo, quite a number had never heard of it.  The few who had tried it said it was worth a stop over before I headed home after class.

Gino's is on the second floor of this building across Miriam University,  look for the Mercury Drugstore on the ground floor.  It's a bright, cheerful place, with basic tables and chairs but with a shiny wooden floor.  These wooden floors spell the difference for me -- the owners obviously care enough to make a better impression.  Connected to Gino's is Cello's Doughnuts -- most likely owned by the same group.  

The first time I tried Gino's I ordered 3 pizzas to take home.  The waiter recommended the SMEGG,
with their own homemade sausage, mushrooms, gouda cream and eggs.  It was still slightly warm when I got home --  despite  the C5 traffic.  Gino's brick oven makes for a softer, thin crust which makes lifting each slice difficult -- best solution is to fold each slice and eat it like that.

This is Gino's mushroom pizza -- their best seller and I heartily agree.  It reminded me of Mozza's mushroom pizza but with a lot less mushrooms.  I liked the fact that this pizza used cream as a base instead of the usual tomato sauce.  Aside from mushrooms and garlic, you can also taste a lot of the mozzarella and a hint of bleu cheese.  My favourite!

Gino's Margherita pizza is also one of their bestsellers.  Tomato sauce, mozzarella and crumbled kesong puti with a sprinkling of chopped basil -- simple and very tasty.

Two weeks later, I was back at Gino's this time with friends.  For starters, we ordered the Burratta, (in Italian, it means "buttered")  a huge pocket of mozzarella and cream that was a bit rich for my taste.   Drizzled with EVOO  and a bit of freshly ground black pepper which somehow,  cut through a bit of the cheesy creaminess.
My friends are carnivores so we also ordered a side of speck or smoked prosciutto.

This is called the Bomb and yes -- it's an explosion of pizza goodness! Onions caramelized in balsamic vinegar added a sweetish tangy taste -- plus mozzarella, bleu cheese and mushrooms... yes, I agree -- it's appropriately named.

I didn't taste this but my meat loving friends did -- the buffalo chicken pizza looked spicy hot but was quite mild.   Gino's tried and true combination of mozzarella and bleu cheese plus tomato sauce and chopped chicken  is a flavour that buffalo chicken wing lovers will definitely recognise and enjoy.

Here are my pizza loving carnivorous friends ... please don't judge us by the number of pizzas we ate!