I took my parents out to Punch Pizza on Mothers Day. I decided on Punch because plans for this weekend were a bit up in the air until the last minute on account of the weather, my dad is a farmer, so I couldn't really make reservations for some Mothers Day brunch. And, I didn't want to wait some place for 45 minutes to an hour and fight crowds and noise for some food where the quality had more than likely been sacrificed in order to feed a giant number of people on account of the holiday. I knew with Punch it may still be busy, but the wait wouldn't be long and the pizza would still be good and, above all, mom would like it.
Punch is authentic Neapolitan style pizza. In fact, they are one of only about 25 U.S. members of Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana, which is an international trade association that seeks to “promote the culinary tradition of the Neapolitan pizza”. They have strict rules for members ensuring the authenticity of the pizza, which include wood-burning domed ovens and dough that is made from only flour, yeast, water, and salt. Punch actually flies in some of their toppings from Italy each week.
We arrived there with my parents at 11:35. I remember this exactly because I was going to meet my parents at their hotel at 11:15 in order to be at the restaurant at 11:30 and I would have been perfectly on time had I not nearly forgotten mom's card and had to turn around to get it and waste 5 minutes in the process. My brother and his fiance were meeting us there and beat us by a few minutes. The place was still pretty quiet at this point with maybe not even half of the cozy dining room filled. We spent a few minutes going over the menu and my wife and I tried to answer any questions the best we could but neither of us have done the "craft your own" option, so we weren't exactly sure on all the details. I was willing to spend as much time as needed on the menu because I had some concerns about bringing this group here. My mom, my wife, and I will eat pretty much anything. My brother's fiance is a really picky eater. She does a good job of making it her problem and not everybody else's, but I really don't know the things she likes and doesn't. My dad is Norwegian and most of my siblings display this trait when it comes to food. I seem to have overcome this affliction.
My brother and his fiance ordered and grabbed a table while we spent another minute on the menu. My wife ordered her favorite, the Siciliana (proscuitto, artichoke, picholine olive, basil), and then I ordered my favorite, the Visuvio (spiced salami, saracene olive, cracked red pepper, pepperoncini, basil). Mom order the Palermo (spiced salami, sun-dried tomato, saracene olive, oregano) and then told the girl at the register that "you're going to have to help him" and pointed to dad. Dad then explained to her that "I'm Norwegian". He ended up ordering a Napoli (sauce, oregano, mozzarella) with ham, sausage, onion, and garlic. My brother had also ordered the Palermo and his fiance got the same thing dad did but without the sausage.
We couldn't have been sitting at our table for more than five minutes before our pizzas came, which is about par for the course. It only takes 90 seconds to bake a pizza in their 800° oven (there is video of this on their website). If you aren't familiar with their pizzas, they are individual sized and are very thin crust. The outer crust rises in the oven and the middle stays thin and doesn't get crispy. You will need to be prepared to use your utensils or carefully dive in with both hands. It can be a messy experience between that and the wonderful charred spots on the crust that can leave your fingers and lips black.
I just love Punch and everybody in our group seemed to really like it too. The ingredients at Punch are very flavorful and I love the spiciness of the Visuvio. The only blemish was that my brother must have missed that the Palermo has olives on it and, after eating a couple, he picked the rest off. I'm not a fan of olives myself, but I do kind of like the saracene olives that are on my Vesuvio.
Punch has 6 Twin Cities metro locations.
UPDATE:
Here is that video I mentioned, courtesy of Punch Pizza.
They also have a Flickr page where you can check out some photos like this one.
The Siciliana.
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