Yard Sale Pizza's Vegan Menu Brings The Fire

Yard Sale Pizza's vegan menu ★★★★☆

Harry Rosehill
By Harry Rosehill Last edited 50 months ago

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Yard Sale Pizza's Vegan Menu Brings The Fire Yard Sale Pizza's vegan menu 4

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Photo: Justin De Souza

Yard Sale Pizza is cool — just look at its merch line for proof. Veganism is cool — deal with it, haters. So it's only natural that Yard Sale has introduced a fully vegan menu.

This new menu consists of three pizzas, a few sides and one dessert — of which I try most. Let's cut to the chase and talk about the pizzas, specifically, the dough. The base and crust are exquisite, blotchy beauties that walk the tightrope between too thick and too thin, offering the ideal level of crisp with each bite taken. So the dough is immaculate, but what about up top? Especially as we're dealing with the sometimes-nebulous world of vegan cheese.

The Magic Mushroom pizza dives head first into the vegan cheese minefield, being a white pizza. It's a bold move, but one that pays off. It's undoubtedly helped by the flavour undercurrent of truffle oil, but the vegan parmesan holds its own. In fact, we forget we we're eating vegan pizza after a while, and just think of it as really good pizza.

Then there's the American Not: centering on vegan pepperoni and chillies. It's admirable that Yard Sale is using its own homemade vegan pepperoni, unlike so many other eateries which use Quorn and the like. It tastes homemade too, by which I mean it doesn't taste like meat whatsoever, and while it isn't bad per se, it's not something you need to go out of your way to try. The pizza's spiciness (courtesy of the chillies) creeps up on you — it's like one of those 'once you see it, you can't unsee it' memes, except replace 'see' with 'taste'. Illogically, it's hotter than the Holy F*ck hot dip it arrives with.

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Speaking of dips, the other two are delightful for crust dipping. The vegan garlic and herb dip hits the exact spot a garlic mayo pizza dip should, and is far superior to those that many average high street pizza brands serve — whether this is praise for Yard Sale's vegan talents, or criticism of the big dogs is questionable. On the other end of the scale is the chimichurri, which has me thinking "Why don't we eat chimichurri more?" As a nation I mean. Why isn't it up there with salsa, hummus and tzatziki as a dip that's sold in every supermarket? Perhaps because nowhere would do it as well as Yard Sale.

To finish off there's an East Side vegan ice cream sandwich made by Happy Endings. I have to be talked into even ordering it by the waiter — so full am I — but with one bite, I just can't stop myself. Caramel oozes delightfully out of the flavoursome offering. After finishing it, I can barely stand I'm so full. But it's a satisfied and happy fullness, one that I'd happily return to.

Yard Sale Pizza, various locations.

Last Updated 16 January 2020