FOOD | Postmodern pizza

One can’t always leave the drudgery of office life but we can always take a break, loosen up, laugh with colleagues, and get to eat together the food we crave. So one rainy afternoon a few friends and I thought it would be a wise idea to order from a pizza parlor and have it delivered to the office.

THE FOOD
We swarmed the box of Shawarma pizza from Da Vinci as it arrived, and each took a slice. It’s not like anything most of us have tasted before. It looked strange at first, for some of us, but inviting enough to make our mouths water. It is shaped like a pizza: round and sliced into triangular shapes. But it’s everything a pizza is not.

Instead of the usual thin crust, chapatti, a round, flat unleavened bread is used. And as you put the pizza into your mouth, you bury your teeth into the succulent taste of tomatoes, onions, green bell peppers, cabbages, and beef in exotic white sauce instead of the usual red tomato sauce. Putting hot Tabasco on top further enhances the pizza’s taste.

It’s a perfect marriage of eastern and western tradition, very post-modern if there is such thing in food.

And in true postmodern spirit, here’s what the rest of the group had to say:
Mae: Lahi siya. Karon pa ko katilaw. It’s not your ordinary pizza.
Pyen: Reminds me of Dubai.
Josef: Lami siya. Mora siyag shawarma nga lapad.
Kristin: Mas lami seguro kong init gyod.

Intrigued by the pizza’s exotic taste, we decided to give Da Vinci pizza parlor in Central Perk a visit the following day.

THE CROWD
It was early evening when we went there, the sun having set earlier and dusk was starting to creep in. That evening was the first time after a long while that I came to visit the place.

It used to be full of young people drinking beer and had quite an unpleasant reputation due to the rumbles that often happened there. So I was surprised when it was an entirely different sight that we saw. Gone were the toughies. Instead, a decent crowd greeted us, mostly students and young urban professionals.

THE INTERIOR
Much can be said of Da Vinci’s interior. (Central Perk, the convenience store has shrunk to give way to the expanding pizza parlor.)

The place is very contemporary in appearance. In a different time we would consider what is modern as contemporary. But that is no longer so. Da Vinci pizza is post-modern.

We live in a time of “juxtaposed realities” with discarded worldviews leaving messy leftovers, not just in terms of their physical manifestations but also of a body of beliefs, values and principles.

In Da Vinci, there is no endorsed worldview, no whole to unify the various parts. It doesn’t pretend to be able to tie up and tidy everything into a cohesive unity.

Inside, our attention was drawn right away by the playful looking, low lying, round tables and chairs made of refreshingly white Gemelina wood. Overhanging them are industrial aluminum shaded lamps.

The counter design, with its arches was inspired by the leaning tower of Pisa, according to Milton Lee who designed it. Looking at it, I felt transported to a bygone era.

Standing right in the entrance to the kitchen is another industrial lamp he also designed. I like the place's eclectic feel.

Various elements in the parlor represent different worldviews, yet everything jelled, nothing seem obtrusive. It is proof perhaps that we have learned to inhabit such a complex reality ourselves. We left after finishing Perk's special, a red sauce pizza that could rival the exquisite taste of white sauce pizzas.

In a postmodern, postcolonial world, nothing is what it seems and the office can be the comfortable cave of one’s inauthentic existence, yet an afternoon with friends savoring a pizza of chappati topped with chopped cabbage, green bell peppers, tomatoes and onions in white sauce, is sure to make any bored bloke perk up with culinary satisfaction and soulful rejuvenation.