Isola: pricey but perhaps worth it for this pizza

Area:  Midland Square (across from Nagoya station) 4th floor  ミッドランドスクエア
Restaurant:  Pizzeria Isola  イゾラ
Website and Info:  http://www.isola.st/nagoya/

Hours:  11am-10:30pm (Lunch LO 2:30pm, Dinner LO 9:30pm)


This pizzeria is bit on the pricier side but that's not surprising considering this is Midland Square.  There were 3 lunch sets to choose from but I chose the cheapest one (1420 yen).  Each comes with a ham salad (the pricier sets come with veggie appetizer dishes and dessert).  

The salad had a really nice olive oil dressing, light on the vinegar, and using good quality olive oil.  It actually tasted like olives.  Italian Puglia ham salad should have more than one slice in my mind, but the ham was different than regular grocery store ham, so I hope it was good quality (I'm no ham expert but this one tasted more meaty than salty so I assume that's good).  

The pizza of the day was housemade sausage and broccoli with a cheese base (buffalo mozzarella and something else).  The sausage was actually really good.  It was seasoned perfectly with perhaps some cumin, crispy on outside but bursting with juices.  The mozzarella was milky and squeaky almost like poutine cheese.  I'm not sure where the oils in this pizza came from, whether it was the sausage or cheese, but it gave an extra flavor boost.  There was also olive oil drizzled in the centre. When placed in the hot oven it made the cheese crisp, the pizza dough became almost juicy, but not soggy.  The dough was chewy and had some nice toasty parts.  The broccoli was also nicely seasoned.  

I'm a slow eater and I don't really like it when I've asked to have my coffee shokugo (after the meal) and they bring it before I'm finished eating.  But the coffee here, a long espresso (or maybe it was an americano) is really good so I can forgive them.

The music playing was american adult contemporary and pop music.