Yummy GF pizza in Tucson... Eclectic Pizza for the win!

 

I spent a lovely day in Tucson with friends this weekend. We traveled down (a 2-hour drive) to see Wicked, the Musical. Wow, what a performance and what fun. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. But...on to the pizza, which was the real star of the day.

We stopped at Eclectic Pizza before the show for their GF pizza. The owner, Renee Kraeger, had mentioned on my Facebook page, Gluten Free in AZ, that we should come down and try it out. No need to tell me twice. The restaurant has a dedicated GF menu with salads, pizza, appetizers and desserts.

We found the restaurant, a lovely, clean storefront, in a typical strip mall. The bright colors on the wall and beautiful mosaics and lighting inside make it a peaceful and comfortable place to park yourself for a bit. We started out with salads that were enough to share but not enough to fill, just what a salad should be before the meal. Although there are two sizes to the salads, we chose the smaller. I ordered the roasted red pepper salad with organic baby spinach and was pleasantly surprised to find ribbons of fresh basil, along with a lovely balsamic dressing that was perfect for the light salad. My companion had a Caesar salad, and apart from her aversion to tomatoes in a Caesar salad, said it was quite lovely, that it had just the right amount of pepper and cheese, and finished it off. The salads came with a wonderful, crunchy cheese cracker made of Parmesan. Daughter grabbed that quickly, but not before I got a quick bite of it's salty, crunchy goodness.

The Old Town Classic

We ordered two GF pizzas, which only come in one size, 10 inch. Although at first we thought that would be much too small for the four of us, we shared the two pizzas between us and still had leftovers. My companions chose pepperoni (thereby ensuring these vegetarians would not share) and we chose the Old Town Classic, a simple pizza with tomato, mozzarella, fresh basil.

Wow, what a pleasant surprise. It was light with a great flavor. The pizza crust was even good on its own, without sauce or cheese, which is unusual in most GF pizza crusts. There was plenty of cheese (we love lots of cheese) fresh basil and lots of fresh tomatoes. I especially loved the crispy, chewy texture of the crust. Of course, we decided that the final test would be eating the leftovers cold later that night when we got home from the long drive after the show. The verdict? Awesome! I had one and Daughter had the other piece, right out of the box and cold. The crust was still chewy and crisp, the cheese was wonderful. Not many GF pizzas can hold up to that test.

The pizza crust was from Dad's Gluten Free, a place I had never heard of. I can't see anywhere on the site where it can be bought in the state, but it is available to order online. I'm still addicted to my GF Creations crust, but this is a great alternative to a crust that is the closest to real as I've found. Runs a close second to Picazzo's. Check the Web site for a great deal. New customers get free shipping on One Crust! ($7.99) so you can give it a try without breaking the bank. Orders of 10 crusts get free shipping also, according to the site. That's a little steep for me, but you might want to give them a try if you've got the cash.

Although the restaurant has GF desserts, including chocolate cake and brownies, we were so full we just couldn't do it. This only means we'll have to head down again.