The neighborhood pizza place is one of the great staples of urban living. It’s nothing fancy – a place to ride out a hangover or call for delivery on a rainy night. But if you live in downtown Yangon, chances are you don’t have one. PaPa, on Nawaday Street, is a little too far and Parami, near the Shwegonedine flyover, a little too pricey.
So when Hot Stone Pizza, a halal joint that dishes up stone-baked pies, set up on 49th Street a few weeks back, people started talking. The Facebook page had hundreds of fans before the doors opened.
The place isn’t exactly crowded yet, though. On a recent Saturday lunchtime, there were a handful of customers who, in typical Yangon-style, had to cross an open sewer to reach the entrance. The décor is clean and bright, with diner-style seating and some kitschy paintings of Venice, and the service friendly.
The menu pulls some surprises. It’s Indian-heavy – toppings include tandoori chicken and paneer tikka – and, unusually for a pizza place, there’s an alluring array of appetizers.
My partner and I started with the crostini. Italian for ‘little toasts’, most crostini are a crispier take on the brushetta: baguette slices brushed with oil and baked until brown.
These were more like savory tarts: delicate short pastry packed with a cheesy filling and topped with slices of parmesan and rich, fruity tomato. They tasted like Mediterranean summers. I could have eaten them all day.
Their piadines – stuffed Italian flatbreads – are less dainty but good in a greasy way. The quattro formaggi, with cheddar, mozzarella, parmesan and feta was equal parts cheese and oil. It disappeared in seconds.
All this appetizing left us whetted for the main course. We plumped for a Margherita – partly because we’re boring like that but also because you can tell a lot about the cut of a restaurant’s jib from how it does the simplest dishes.
Parami’s comes with buffalo mozzarella and costs K12,000. Papa’s goes down easy but leaves a greasy aftertaste.
We ordered the thick-crust, which at 11,000 was about double the price of the thin. It was large – more than adequate for two – deep and crispy. The airy base crackled and crunched with every mouthful. The top layer was more cheese than tomato and the scraping of sauce was a tad sweet.
True to form, the pie proved a good reflection of the place itself: simple, but deeply satisfying.
Hot Stone Pizza is located at #G-8, SOHO, Bo Myat Tun Road, in between Merchant and Mahabandoola Streets. Open everyday from 10:30am until 10:30pm. Call them on 09263455500 or visit the Facebook page.
Photos / Coconuts Yangon
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