biteintoboulder.com

1175 Walnut Street
Boulder, CO 80302
(303) 999-3833

Although BOP has what seems like the typical Italian restaurant deal on their menu, the second word in the restaurant’s title narrowed the focus significantly: Pizzas.

BOPs slightly misshapen pizzas ironically speak for their own craft.  If the crust of this pizza could speak for itself it would say: “Who cares that I’m not always a perfect circle if I’m the delectable combination of warm, fluffy dough and perfect crispy crunch that won’t internally deafen you from any table conversation you might be trying to have.”  The crust would be right, it was pretty damn good.

When it comes to their toppings, BOP really keeps true to the design principle of—”keep it simple, stupid.”  Two out of the three pizzas we ordered at our table only had one topping each.

The third pizza had four toppings, so that kind of ruins my hypothesis.  However, if you exclude the meatballs all of the toppings are made from pig, and if you go even broader, all of the toppings are meat (hence one topping… kinda). Anyway, let’s dissect it:

Rome Plow [$15]: Starting with a modest Margherita base, the Rome Plow is then stacked with the food versions of two typical farm animals: beef and pork (mostly ham).  Although neither a cow nor a pig are commonly pictured pulling a plow, they sure do make for velvety-soft meatballs, high quality ham, and finocchiona (a classy Italian substitute for pepperoni).

And here are the other two delicious pizzas…

Hazel Dell [$13]: With a change of base, this pizza is Naked (olive oil + mozzarella). The misshapen naked pizza got a little self-conscious, so it covered up with a generous portion of locally grown mushrooms from Hazel Dell (hazeldellmushrooms.com).  Simply put… this puts any other mushroom pizza to shame. (Note: this is not listed on the menu.)

The Beet [$14]: This one is topped with copious amounts of sliced, roasted beets that lie on top of a foundation of cannelloni sauce.  I wasn’t even surprised that my first taste of purple pizza was a strong competitor against the other two more traditional ones we ordered.  I could have done without those stringy stems though :-/

Okay so I’m just gonna throw these two things out there. (1) Our pizza took too much time to come out of the kitchen and subsequently be devoured by our table of hungry (and waiting) men.  (2) A pizza and an appetizer could make the bill too steep for one person looking to eat at a restaurant with the word “pizzeria” in the name, but would definitely make a great deal for two.

After praising BOP’s pizza for 85% of this post, I only had those two complaints: time and money.  Even so, time = money, and that makes for one complaint.  So, when I return to BOP to ask them my very curious question—if it stands for “Brick Oven Pizza” or not—I’ll try to branch out from their spectacular pizzas and discover the rest of their menu.  Hopefully I’ll be able to make it out in a timely manner.  I’ll keep you posted on the Brick Oven Pizza thing, but until then, chow!