A Plethora of Pizza

Last night after work my colleague and I checked out a pizza place by the Worker's Stadium near Sanlitun.

It's called Kro's Nest and this is its newly-opened second location. The first one is in Haidian District, where many universities are. Kro's Nest is known for its cheap and good pizzas and so we wanted to try them too.

The new location has a strange entrance at the side of the building which is very dark and hardly welcoming. But once you pull the giant door open, you enter a cozy place that feels more like a pub than pizza parlor.

We didn't make a reservation and the manager said we'd have to wait until 9pm. 9pm??? Thankfully he said if we didn't mind, we could eat at the plastic tables and chairs by the entrance. We grabbed the last table and oogled at the pizzas.

They are gigantic to say the least so you'd better be hungry when you come. The large ones are as big as a truck tire. And I'm not exaggerating! Just watching the servers deliver them to hungry tables was a daunting sight. One slice would be enough per person.

As there were only two of us, we settled for the medium size and could even have two different toppings on each half the pizza. There was a variety, from all cheese, to Hawaiian, and vegetarian. We settled on Meghan's Special - spinach, cheeses, black olives and an olive oil base. The other topping was Kro's Nest Special - meatballs, onions, salami, green peppers and cheese.

We also ordered French fries - the slim McDonald's kind, and a Chinese version of Greek salad - cabbage with cherry tomatoes, onions and black olives with grated feta on top. The server asked us if we wanted Thousand Island or Balsamic Vinegar dressing. Uh, the latter please.

They also had many beers on tap, the cheapest, Tsingdao at 15RMB.

Lots of expats frequent this place as well as many beautiful people having a bite to eat before hitting the clubs nearby on a Friday night. Many people walked out with doggy bags - or in this case pizza boxes.

Our fries came almost instantly followed by the salad which we had to mix the dressing ourselves. For some reason we waited for quite a long time for our pizza. But we didn't mind watching the staff throwing the dough in the air and orders from upstairs put on a clip that slid down a line to the bar.

Finally the pizza came and we were overwhelmed. I started with the Meghan's Special which was choc full of cheese and didn't have much flavour or texture. But the Kro's Nest did making it the more tastier of the two. We also asked for the thick crust and I was pleasantly surprised to find the edge of the pizza didn't break your teeth. Instead it was thick and fluffy bread that was delicious.

But after two slices -- actually I only ate half of the second one -- I was stuffed. Maybe if we didn't order fries I would have been able to finish the second slice. But there were still two more left.

So we each got a pizza box and carried our slices home for our lunch the next day.

And interestingly enough, the slice of Meghan's Special tasted better as a cold pizza...

Kro's Nest
Gongti North Gate
VICS Club South
6553 5253