Some PR peeps for Blaze Pizza sent me some coupons forever ago to try it out the pizza here and I finally got around to it. There’s a location up in far away Carlsbad, one in Encinitas and a newer spot that’s in the Balboa/Genesee area. We tried to go one Saturday evening and quickly realized that Saturday evening was NOT the time to go since the line was out the door. Holy cow. When did Clairemont get to be a popular neighborhood?!
We ditched that idea and ended up coming back the following Saturday… but in the afternoon. It was much, much less crowded. No line!
The menu is pretty simple. They have “Signature Pizzas” which make it easier to decide on something if choosing your own toppings is too much pressure for you. The Signature Pizzas and Build Your Own Pizza are both $7.95 and you can get whatever your little heart desires in terms of toppings.
If you want a deal, you can get a 1 topping pizza (with cheese included) for $6.25 or a Simple Pie with only mozzarella, Parmesan, and red sauce for $5. Really cheap! The only thing that will cost you extra is choosing a gluten-free crust (+$2) or vegan cheese (+$2). It’s nice they don’t have “premium” toppings and it’s kind of a free for all.
Sauces!
Cheeses and meats galore!
Here’s the lady saucin’ up one of our pizzas. The crusts are already prepped so you don’t have to stand there and watch them roll out the crust.
Lots of veggies.
Once you make your final pizza topping decisions, your pizza get shoved into a hot, hot oven to get bubbly and golden delicious for you.
Sizzle and bake!
There’s lots of room and seating in here.
Once our pizzas were done, they were pulled out and placed on this waiting tray. They guy then cut the pizzas. At this point you could get different “finishes” to put on top of the pizza, such as arugula, pesto drizzle, bbq sauce drizzle, or an olive oil drizzle. I didn’t know about the drizzles until later, so I didn’t get to try any of those.
This is our “Frankenstein-esque” pizza that we “built” ourselves. Jake’s portion on the right has pineapple and sausage on it, S’s portion has olives, and my portion had onions and mushrooms. And of course, ricotta all over because ricotta is necessary for pizza.
Ooo, look at that nice crusty bottom! The crust is what made me really like this pizza. It was nice and crispy with a good chew to it. The red sauce was good and I really like the variety of toppings they offer AND that you can see it all beforehand. The toppings look nice and fresh. It was really cool that we could have different toppings on different sections of the pizza so everyone could get what they wanted. This way you also don’t overload the pizza with too many toppings.
The White Top pizza comes with white cream sauce, mozzarella, applewood smoked bacon, chopped garlic, oregano and arugula on top. I added ricotta. Naturally. If I remembered I would have asked for it sans arugula.
This was my favorite of the two pizzas and I really enjoyed the creamy white sauce. It was nice and garlicky and cheesy and that made me quite happy. The bits of bacon gave it an extra little burst of smoky/salty flavor while eating and they didn’t overkill it with too many toppings.
Crusty bottom #2.
We didn’t stay to eat the pizzas at the restaurant. Instead we headed down to Fiesta Island with Maya.
Eating pizza on the hood of the car. Awwww yeah.
It was such a spectacular day to be eating outside.
While the pizzas at Blaze Pizza aren’t gigantic, I feel they’re large enough to satisfy me and any pizza craving I could have. The pizza were done quickly and tasted fabulous. The price is also really on point so I can see myself returning to try out a few more topping combinations.
Blaze Pizza
Multiple Locations
5604 Balboa Ave.
San Diego, CA 92111
(858) 810-8486
Disclaimer: I received two coupons for complimentary pizza at Blaze Pizza. I was not otherwise compensated and all opinions stated here are my own.
Woot, pizza and Fiesta Islan! We tried to go to this place on Monday, but they were closed! As many toppings as you want for one price is such an intriguing concept and that white sauce is calling my name! Your pizzas look so good!! 🙂
Wow, they must have closed for the holiday (that I did not get off, sigh)! I really liked this one, more than some other other similar type joints (ahem, like Pizza Studio – never wrote about it because the photos sucked but it was NOT good). The crust here is excellent! Hope you try it out soooooooon, it’s in your hood, no excuses 🙂
We just went too! And we were impressed. It was funny because so many people randomly kept on mentioning Blaze to us and here we had our gift cards sitting on our cabinet for so long. 🙂
Haha! Gosh, I’ve been sitting on the those gift cards for the longest time! Glad I’m not the only one 🙂 Glad to hear you liked it, too! I was surprised at how much I liked it actually.
haha this reminds me that I have three free pizza coupons for Blaze Pizza Clairemont! i consider it as a ‘consolation’ prize for my LONG 85 degree bakery grand opening wait…
my pizza place visits are so spread out that i get confused between all these pizza places though. maybe i should do a ‘pizza week’ to compare the ones in clairemont/convoy… blaze, pieology, and pizza studio, and whatever else i’ve forgotten. wish you could join haha! 🙂
I still need to visit Pieology and Project Pie, those are the only ones I haven’t tried yet. Jake would totally be into a pizza crawl if you set it up, hint hint 🙂 Seems like a good consolation prize to me!
Doncha know Clairemont is the new hotspot! Just kidding. When will the customizable pizza bubble burst? At least there are more options now in SD.
Hahah, right. The new hotspot 🙂 I think with all those new restaurants in the area it just makes the evenings suck more. I wonder when that market will bust, too. I still haven’t tried Project Pie or Pieology, they’re on my list.