Pizza @ Da Cibo Pizzeria, Tokyo

I don't have any particular pregnancy cravings (yet), but any carb-laden food sounds good at the moment. When one of Rob's colleagues gave a recommendation of a pizzeria he liked to go to at Tokyo Eki (station), I was more than happy to eat pizza and satisfy my carb cravings. Da Cibo is located in the "Kitchen Street" section of the vast station area where all of the dining establishments always have customers during the opening hours simply due to the sheer number of commuters passing through the station.

It's a small-ish pizzeria and the service was good, as is typical in Japan. Obviously there are plenty of pizzas offered on the menu, and there is a decent selection of alcoholic beverages too. Serving sizes are quite small (compared to the huge serving sizes in New York where I last had pizza last October), but it was a good thing because it meant we could try two pizzas without putting too much strain on our digestive system.

The view of the kitchen and oven from the entrance of Da Cibo - I love how all the kitchens in Japan are always so clean:


I ordered Frutti di Mare (1600yen or ~AU$16), which I think translates to "fruits of the ocean". This is basically a seafood pizza with a tomato base and topped with mussels, clams and prawns. It was pretty good, although Rob thought it was a bit of a hassle to shell the shellfish before eating the pizza; I didn't mind it so much because it meant that the shellfish were cooked in their shells, which is always better than cooked without the shells. Seafood pizza from take-away places like Domino's or Pizza Hut tend not to be very popular, and I've figured out exactly why: seafood and cheese don't combine very well together on the tongue. On the other hand, a pizza base with tomato sauce pair excellently with seafood, however the middle of the pizza do tend to get a bit soggy from the lack of cheese layer that acts as a moisture barrier.

Frutti di Mare, aka seafood pizza:


Rob selected Calabrese (1500yen or ~AU$15), a spicy pizza with toppings of mozzarella cheese, homemade sausage, another type of cured meat and green jalepenos (pretty mild ones if they were indeed jalapenos). Tomatoes may go well with seafood, but mozzarella cheese makes a pizza very satisfying (albeit a tad unhealthy)! It was good, but I would have trouble eating all 6 slices of this cheesy pizza.

Calabrese, aka spicy sausage pizza:


It was a very satisfying lunch that came to around 4000yen (~AU$40) including drinks. Just what I needed.