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Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Stephanie Frieze Knows Her Pizza Pies!

Above: My hungry relative peruses the menu with great anticipation at Bluto's Pizza as another restaurant fan and customer (background) waits to pick up their order. Photo copyright 2008 by Mizu Sugimura.




"In Your Neighborhood" blogger Stephanie Frieze has my vote for her timely recommedation (A Review From My Porch, Saturday, July 19) to stop by Bluto's Pizza when visiting the Long Beach peninsula.

My husband and I were in the area last weekend in connection with our first visit to the Finnish American Festival in Naselle, WA over the weekend of July 25-27.



Above:
Cheerful black and white checkboard floor
decorates the section of the restaurant where
we were seated at Bluto's Pizza last Friday afternoon.

Thanks to friends who have a home in Nahcotta where I have stayed and blogged about before, my spouse and I could enjoy both venues during a quick three day, two night getaway in our gas-friendly Toyota Prius. Thank you Stephanie - for posting this very excellent and welcome recommendation about Bluto's just days before week this trip!

I couldn't be more pleased! We got to Bluto's on Friday afternoon after a full-day of traveling beginning with a drive down to Costco in Warrenton, OR; a brief stop at Seaside, OR (where we had celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary twenty one years ago) and back to Washington State and Friday afternoon's festivities at the Finnish Festival!

While we ate a quick snack of chicken teriyaki, noodles and sour cream cake at the Finnish Festival, after a full day of driving Hubby was more than ready to dive into a hearty pizza which was more than fulfilled by his decision to split a tasty medium sized pizza (one half taco/one half chicken garlic) with his wife.

The pizza at Bluto's Pizza is definitely well-worth a stop as Stephanie recommends if you are staying in the Long Beach area. However, should you choose to eat-in the restaurant as we did, bringing your own heavier weight Chinet-type paper plate is well advised - as the quality of paper plates we were given to hold our pizza slices was unfortunately extremely thin. The moisture from just one single piping hot slice of pizza fresh from the oven was more than enough to put a good sized hole in the bottom of my serving plate even before I could finish off the first delicious slice.

Below: Yes, the spouse looks skeptical - but this picture was taken before he took the first bite of the yummy taco/chicken garlic pizza we ordered at Bluto's. By the time we left the restaurant he was all smiles! Photo copyright 2008 by Mizu Sugimura.

13 comments:

Jaynie Jones said...

Wow! Does that ever look good!!!

Stephanie Frieze said...

OMG, Mizu. I was in there last Friday picking up our usual Friday night order! We must have just missed each other. Shame on your for not stopping by my porch, but I'm glad you enjoyed the pizza. My favorite is the chicken garlic.

We didn't make the Finnish Festival as we were working in the yard. :-(

I found out that although raised in Philly, Bluto used to live in Tacoma.

Stephanie Frieze said...

Chicken teriyaki is Finnish??

Kim Thompson said...

Mizu:

Tell me about this Finnish festival, please, please, please. My husband is Swede-Finn and his grandparents were born and raised in Finland before immigrating to Washington. My husband's family is really into their cultural roots, so I'd love to tell them about your adventures.

Please your photography of the wonderful food (thanks Steph for introducing it) is making me hungry and makes my pathetic pasta dinner look downright dull.

Kim

Lorraine Hart said...

Happy Anniversary Mizu and Yaz!

Stephanie Frieze said...

Kim, Pacific County and Astoria, OR are loaded with Finns. Naselle has two Finnish Festivals per year and Astoria has a Scandinavian Festival in mid June. You will want to mark you calender next year and try to get your husband to one of them.

Mizu Sugimura said...

Stephanie -

Darn it! I've been so immersed in what's going on at home I didn't know you were at the coast that weekend. Should have turned up on your porch!
Talk about luck - just missing you at the pizza parlor as well. That shows me! :)

Mizu Sugimura said...

Stephanie -

A la chicken teriyaki - all I can say is that the vendors secured the very first booth in the food row at the festival! :)

Mizu Sugimura said...

Jaynie -

And it really tastes as good as it looks! We (all the bloggers) ought to all go down there and have a pizza with Stephanie some time - between us all we might be able to share and taste everyone of the flavors!

Mizu Sugimura said...

Jaynie -

And it really tastes as good as it looks! We (all the bloggers) ought to all go down there and have a pizza with Stephanie some time - between us all we might be able to share and taste everyone of the flavors!

Mizu Sugimura said...

Jaynie -

And it really tastes as good as it looks! We (all the bloggers) ought to all go down there and have a pizza with Stephanie some time - between us all we might be able to share and taste everyone of the flavors!

Mizu Sugimura said...

Kim -

I'll get back to you on the Finnish American Folk Festival - the one we just saw - ASAP when I'm not so clicker crazy. Didn't really mean to inflict my comment to Jaynie just now three different times! :)

Mizu Sugimura said...

Lorraine -

Thank you! I was remembering the nice time we had at Seaside last week. Our actual anniversary comes next month - but I'll take your most warm and appreciated well wishes a month early just the same! :)