The Forge Pizza Works For Me

The Forge Pizza located in Jack London Square in Oakland opened this past Tuesday. It was highly anticipated for me because I love pizza and I love Jack London Square.

I checked it out on Friday after work with a group of friends. We got their early and got a nice comfortable booth to sit in. With lots of local beers to choose from, I had Oakland’s Linden Street Town Lager while one of my friends had Mendocino’s Scrimshaw Pilsner. I had a tough week at work so guess who had the 20 oz?

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We started with a couple appetizers, crispy cheese curds and potato skins. Both were excellent. The cheese curds were battered and deep fried and came with tomato sauce to dip. It tasted like a lighter version of mozzarella sticks. The potato skins were wood oven baked topped with guanciale and taleggio cheese whiz. I would describe it as mini versions of twice baked potatoes. They were delish!

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We also ordered a salad. Sometimes ordering a salad makes you feel like your meal is a little healthier. The arugula salad came with citrus, frisee, pecorino, parsnip ribbons, and honey vinaigrette. It was an interesting combination that worked well.

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The first pizza we had was the margherita which had fresh pulled mozzarella, tomato sauce, and grana. I always like to have a simple pizza to start so you can assess the pizza and its crust. Thin crust pizza in Forge’s wood iron oven is a winner.

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Our second pizza needed some meat so we went with the pepperoni. When it came out we thought we had the wrong pizza because it looked like it was topped with sausage. The waitress said it was correct as it was homemade pepperoni. I am glad it was not sent back because the flavor of the pepperoni was so good.

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For dessert, we had two items. The first one was the butterscotch pudding with salted caramel. We had some mixed reviews. Not everyone liked it, but I did. There was a sweet, salty, and smokey flavor that I found intriguing.

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The second item was the root beer float. I only had a taste because if I wanted a root beer float, I would’ve ordered it a little earlier in my meal. This would have been a great compliment together with the pizza.

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The Forge Pizza was highly anticipated for me and it met all my expectations. I will definitely be back as frequently as I can.

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