April 2013
As far as KL’s pizza delivery services are concerned, the familiar pairing of Domino’s and Pizza Hut predictably lead the way, followed by lesser names like Canadian Pizza and Papa John’s. In early 2011, local outfit Skippys Pizza joined the fray, making a name for itself with its pork-centric thin-crust pizzas. The husband-andwife team of Marc and Fay began with a home delivery service before setting up shop at Phileo Damansara later that year.
I’ve been a patron of Skippys since my university days, but the delivery charges (from RM6) and erratic delivery time (sometimes as long as an hour) led me to actually visiting its simple and cosy physical outlet one weekday evening for dinner. My dining companion and I opted for the two 9-inch pizzas dine-in special (RM32), which is amazing value considering that a 9-inch pizza starts from RM24. Our Marc’s Special and Spicy Pork arrived within 15 minutes with polarising results. The flavourful Marc’s Special, a perennial favourite topped with pork ham, baby spinach, mushrooms, garlic and egg, was a revelation. Spicy Pork, on the other hand, had loads of chewy pork bits and lacked the spiciness or the punch associated with its name.
Aside from other intriguing pizza variations like Mexican (minced pork, baked beans, corn and chilli), Oriental (Chinese sausages and chilli) and the vegetarian Herbivore (mushrooms, bell peppers and olives), Skippys also serves pasta, pork rendang, vinegar pork trotters and other affordably priced mains. Feeling a tad adventurous, we decided to explore Skippys’s everexpanding menu for non-pizza items and ended up with its new pork burger, which looked more like a round sandwich than a sloppy joe, and pork chop. The thin and tender pork patty on the massive burger was disappointingly overshadowed by the sesame seed-heavy buns while the slightly dry pork chop could have used some gravy of any sort.
With no other restaurant in KL specialising in pork pizzas, Skippys remains the place to go for your porcine-topped pizza fix, though the other dishes here appear rather hit or miss. Coconut House’s hearty wood-fire pork-rocket salad pizza is highly commendable and also highly satisfying, but in terms of flavour, Skippys is still a worthy contender. Wong Boon Ken