Mad for Pizza: More Than Just a Toppings-All-You-Want Pizza Place

Wazzup Pilipinas!

It was sort of intriguingly funny to realize the food attendants were carrying names like Pepper, Garlic and Sausage. Though it's not their real name, but merely fancy pizza toppings-themed nicknames given to them that reflects their personality. The restaurant management thought it would be a crazy way to totally immersed their customers to a complete pizza adventure. You're not just making your own pizza, but even the people around you has a hint of a pizza in the making.

Imagine yourself calling out to a server named Pepperoni, and maybe you'll see yourself unable to  stop grinning. Well, I was smiling all over the idea, that even encouraged me to ask some of them to do a video shoot (which you will see embedded within this article) to highlight their individual aliases. Try to see if it truly matches their personality when you visit the restaurant.

The recently opened Mad for Pizza is located at  Il Terrazo, Tomas Morato in Quezon City and offers Toppings All-You-Want pizza for only P280. But what makes it different from the other pizza place with a similar Make-Your-Own-Pizza theme is that this brand not only allows you to customize your own pizza, but it also offers a lot more equally satisfying dishes and drinks to complete your dining experience.

Their pizza is also bigger, with a dough of 10 inches in width plus toppings as fresh as it was harvested and prepared from their respective point of origin. Their pizza brims with high-quality sauces, cheeses, meats, and vegetables plus four options of crisp and chewy homemade doughs available in Classic, Garlic Parmesan, Herb, and Spinach are especially prepared in-house.

Mad for Pizza is the brainchild of Cyril Reyes, the former Manager of famous restaurant and hotel chains in Manila, and designated as Vice President of Mad Pizza. The other board members include Justine Ryan Chua as President, Julie Chua as Corporate Secretay, and Jayson Chua as Treasurer. This line up actually makes it more like a family business since they are all related to each other.

 

 

During my visit to the restaurant, I was immediately approached and greeted by the restaurant manager Manny Durado, who mistaken me for a photographer because I was taking photos of the restaurant with my trusted Sony Alpha NEX camera which I won from a blogging contest. I came in very early, as always, since it was my very first event that day.

Manager Manny Durado with Assistant Manager Halvin Sy, Kitchen Manager Albert Pineda, and Assistant Kitchen Manager Renell Ian Peralta.

He introduced me to some of the Mad for Pizza staff including Assistant Manager Halvin Sy, Kitchen Manager Albert Pineda, and Assistant Kitchen Manager Renell Ian Peralta.

I was also introduced to Pepper, one of the crew members who shared a few information about Mad for Pizza. I got the names of all the owners and restaurant management from her.

Sausage, Olives, Pepper and Pepperoni

We were served tall mugs of Bottomless Iced Tea (P 108) while waiting for the others to come so the food tasting can start. Later I realized we  were allowed to choose our drink so I opted for their recommendation of the Frozen Iced Tea (P 88). The rest of my table mates had the Salted Caramel Milk Tea (P 95) and the Strawberry Mango Iced Tea (P 88).

All I can say is - Whoah! The best preparation of drinks, and a superb Frozen iced tea that lingers in the taste buds even after drinking!

Bottomless Iced Tea (P 108)

Salted Caramel Milk Shake (P 95)

Strawberry Mango Iced Tea

Frozen Iced Tea (P 88)

Beef Stew Pasta (P 188)

When majority of the bloggers were there, the crew got instruction to start rolling out the food for photo shoot before we feasted on them. Yummy is actually an understatement as many of them were too heavenly to ignore.

The press release has the following excerpts defining my favorite dishes of which I appended my comments:

The Angus Beef Belly in Adobo Sauce (P 198), also known as the “Amboy”  was prepped and tenderized through overnight marination to ensure its melt-in-your-mouth texture. The semi-sweet adobo sauce that lingers in the meat gives this dish a delicious Filipino-American flair while heightening the beef belly’s tasty components.- 100% agree to these statements! The soft and tender beef belly was a heavenly delight that it's probably the dish that I craved for more.

The Tennesse Pork Spareribs (P 268) will surely qualify for its insanely tender meat, made even more intense with richly smothered barbecue sauce. This dish specialty, just like the Angus Beef Belly in Adobo Sauce are smoked, so just imagine a double dose of tasty and flavorful meat with unmatched tenderness in every forkful.- The delightful taste of smoked meat in barbecue sauce is another heavenly experience for me. I am tempted to eat a lot of this dish but it was a good thing we were sharing every food because otherwise I would have eaten everything up.

Classic Fish and Chips (P 188) is a meltingly tender dory fish wrapped in crispy, lightly coated pancake breading with a whiff of vanilla essence. - I've tasted so many fish fillet that I can now clearly identify which ones are better - and this one is among them.But why are they calling the fries as "chips" or maybe they run out of the "chips?"

Using rigatoni, Beef Stew Pasta (P 178) is perfectly hearty, infused with tomato based sauce mixed with stewed slices of smoky Angus beef belly. - Though it was a bit strong for many of us, it offered an engaging flavor that can be improved if they could hold the spices.

The rest of the dishes like the Rock and Roll Nachos (P 178), Disco Fries (P 188), House Salad (P 158) were all satisfactory, and amazingly of large serving.

Disco (French) Fries (P 188)

House Salad (P158)

(Rock and Roll ) Nachos (P 178)

Mad for Pizza Classic Fish and Chips (P 198)

Angus Beef Belly in Adobo Sauce (Amboy) ( P 198)

Tenesse Pork Spare Ribs (P 268)

Andross' Choice (250)

Anya's Creation (P 250)

Justine's Favorite (P 250)

They also served the three recommended pizza creations of Justine's Favorite, Anya's Creation and Andross' Choice. My favorite was the Justine's Favorite - as the name implies - since I love pepperoni more than anything else.

We never had the opportunity to make our own pizza since we couldn't possibly eat more after trying out the previous dishes served to us. Though we were sharing, the over-all amount of food we ate made us all bloated - that was why we were in shock when the sort of game introduced by the restaurant was a pizza-eating contest. Lol !!! I couldn't eat another bite afterwards. Most of us in our team were as fat as a refrigerator but we failed miserably big-time to the other group who were not what they seem to be.

However, I took a video of how the pizza is made so just scroll down below for the video.

We also tried a couple of desserts like the Panna Cota (P 88) and the Bannoffe Cubbler (P 88) which were both sweetened just right - not too sweet, and not too boring. Lol!

Panna Cota (P 88)

Bannofee Cubbler (P 88)

Pizza Masters are doing our pizza

Pizza masters preparing a topping-full pizza for us

 

Pizza sauce first then the cheese of your own choice, and followed by lots of toppings

Toppings overload  and this is just the first batch

Second toppings overload - I must have died and is now in heaven

We're so Mad for Pizza that we're smiling about it!!!

What is commendable about the staff was they were always smiling to everybody especially when we call their attention for anything we need. The jolly pizza makers were all smiles for the camera!

The restaurant Manager is very approachable and was game for any of my jokes. If you want to know why I was so fond of him, then be ready to visit the restaurant and he will be happy to share a laugh with you.

It's also time to end this story for the meantime and just wait for updates from the restaurant via their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/MadForPizzaPh

I leave you with another video below about the pizza making process as demonstrated by one of the kitchen crew.