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Lawson’s divisive ‘drinkable’ mapo tofu beverage from Japan has been making the rounds on social media in recent days, and while sticking the popular Sichuan dish in a to-go cup to be sucked up through a straw is endlessly questionable, The Pizza Project’s decision to slap it on baked dough is infinitely more understandable and welcomed.
In celebration of Lunar New Year, The Pizza Project is launching a limited-time Sichuan Collection menu comprising three special items that combine Italian cuisine with Chinese flavours in the most eccentric of ways. Sichuan pepper, with its love-it-or-hate-it mala numbing qualities, will be the star of the show, alongside other fiery ingredients.
Available only from February 1 to 28 to ring in the Year of the Fire Horse, The Pizza Project’s festive Sichuan Collection includes the mapo pizza ($130) – an unexpected East-meets-West homage to the legendary Chinese recipe reportedly invented by a ‘pockmarked grandmother’ in 19th-century Chengdu, who lends her name to the spicy and now iconic dish. Although this pizza interpretation of mapo tofu is sans tofu, it does come stacked with moreish pork mince, fior di latte, mapo sauce, garlic, dried chilli, and Sichuan pepper, resulting in a pie packed with rich flavour and numbing heat.
Similarly, the Chinese Diavola ($130) merges savoury and spicy spianata – a cured Italian salami from Calabria aged with hot chilli peppers and paprika – with umami XO sauce, bold Sichuan spices and pepper, and chilli garlic for a novel Italian-Chinese fusion that keeps taste buds fired up. A dollop of cooling ice cream would be a natural next step to help tone down the burning sensations left behind by this duo of piquant pizzas, except The Pizza Project’s Sichuan ice cream ($80) will probably only exacerbate it. Likely happy news for heat-seekers who are still in the game for even more spice, the unusual Sichuan ice cream blends fior di latte with Sichuan herbs and pepper to create an icy-hot experience, bolstered by a crown of crunchy peperone crusco (aromatic fried peppers from Italy’s Basilicata region) and a drizzled topping of cherry tomato jam.
If you dare to take on the Sichuan Collection, the limited-time menu will be served during the month of February only at The Pizza Project’s Central and Wan Chai locations.
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