Blue Label Pizza & Wine, Ann Siang Road

I was looking forward to this visit to Blue Label Pizza & Wine (#B1-01, 28 Ann Siang Road,). After all, this outfit was the product of Travis Masiero under his group of restaurants. Luke’s had always delivered, so a casual pizza and wine place would probably be a breeze and still deliver. Right?

We had their kale "Waldorf" salad on blind faith in the belief that it would be good since Luke's has an excellent kale salad. More goat's cheese and grapes would have made it kickass but we were just settling for "we liked it and would come back again for it". And we would.

This was where the faith got a little shaken. Their plate of Blue Label State Fair fries. I'll try to be succinct. Black pepper sauce was weak. Truffle was totally unnecessary even though I was hoping that I would be proven wrong. The pepper sauce, the aioli, the salty fries all made sure that those minuscule shavings never got a chance to even mutter. Not great fries, Les Bouchons across the road makes better ones. It was edible. Just greasy, salty and unimpressive.

It had occured to me at this point that I don't even like the fries at Luke's.

We got ourselves the pie In Honour of "Pepe". If you didn't know, Frank Pepe founded his pizzeria Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana in 1925 and made famous his white clam pies with coal oven crusts which are still around today. I'm assuming it's that Pepe.

With the cheese, bacon and (maddening whispers saying) clam juice, there was quite a bit of salt. Fine for those days where one would grab a little pizza to go with beers. But not so much for nights when you’re just looking for a pizza dinner. I’m not getting much of flavour nor texture from the clams. Just mostly cheese and bacon and some garlic. Sorry Pepe. This tribute didn’t quite do you justice.

There was a saving grace. The crust was nice. The middle got soggy and was barely holding up the toppings. But the cornicione was crispy and delicious. Like what they used to say for Gardenia bread. The only similar type of crust I recall with that texture are those from Pizzeria Mozza. Must be the aged dough thing huh?

There was a killer carrot cake. It's not bad. It's a killer because after all the food, this was a large slice. And it was just half a slice. The other half had to be doggie bagged. There was a nice thick layer of cream cheese on top and an even thicker layer in the middle of the cake. That's probably the other reason why it's a killer. But as I said, not bad. Not too sweet. Cake was nice. Wished there was more cake to cheese ratio though.

Look at all those walnuts studded across the back of the cake. For some odd reasons, I got reminded of the faces of the souls trapped in the shell of Jinmen.

There was soft serve. This was a swirl of vanilla and spiced pumpkin. We liked this. It's pretty good. It's also not too sweet which was great. Those crumbs are apparently candied walnuts.

To say that we were a little disappointed would be an honest understatement. I'd give it another chance but that's gonna be a while before it happens.