Tidal Wave Mexican Food

Yeah I know what you are thinking, it's a Mexican place.  Their pizza can't be good.  I mean why does it even serve pizza ?  Well everyone likes pizza, so there has to be a pizza for everyone.  This is the closest to Mexican pizza I have found in L.A., of course I haven't really been looking.  The restaurant has of course traditional Mexican food which isn't too bad.  It also has about 7 kinds of pizza, including a mexican pizza, that has pinto beans, ground beef, mozz cheese, guacamole & pico de gallo.  They also have the classic Margherita (they call it the Mozzarella Pizza).  This is what I got, don't worry I went back for the Mexican pizza.  You can read about that below.  They have medium and small, medium is supposedly 12 inches and its about $10.   

The basil was surprising, even though that is what is suppose to be on the pizza, it is many times left out and this was the last place I expected them to include it.  So I give them props for that.  The rest was pretty far off from a N.Y. style pizza, obviously.  However, you could say it was some kind of guilty pleasure.  It had a very pleasurable taste, very sweet and soft and melt in your mouth, kind of.  The sauce was pretty canned.  So was the cheese.  The crust was a very different kind of material, different kind of dough.  It was very flat and flour-y.  Similar to a pita type material.  Similar to the crust of a pizza I had in Mexico actually, Fabrizzio's.  Although this one was not crispy at all, only on the edges, which were almost non-existent.   

So there isn't much of a reason to like this pizza, but I did.  Not nearly as much as even a mediocre slice of N.Y. style, but enough to enjoy it.  Is it good quality? No.  Is it N.Y. style?  No.  Is it enjoyable, yes.  

Tidal Wave Mexican Food

6112 Sunset Blvd. Hollywood 

(323) 467 - 4084

Open: Monday-Friday : 9am-7pm

Price: $

Overall: 

The Mexican pizza is a different story.  Without any pre-conceived notions of what a pizza should be, you tend to go at this pizza with an open mind.  Of course the base (crust) is the same as the cheese pie.  So still not crispy.  What it has is a lot of stuff, a lot of ground beef, a lot of beans, and thankfully a lot of guacamole that was put in the middle.  What it didn't have a lot of was cheese, I couldn't taste too much of it.    

It was pretty good, with the exception of the lack of cheese, I liked it.  Kind of like a burrito they forgot to roll up, or a tostada salad with a pizza crust instead of a crispy chip bowl.  I would give it a 3.5 rating since I'd get it again, and there isn't another place I know of that serves something  like this. 

Overall it was pretty enjoyable, but in a different way.  I find it hard to really see it as a pizza or at least a different style of pizza.  So much for an open mind.   It was round and flat.  Of course so is a quesadilla.  It has cheese and tomatoes on it, but not in the same way.  I guess by definition it is a pizza, just I suppose a Mexican style one. I don't really believe that the only thing that makes a style of pizza different from another style is the toppings.  I think toppings are just an extra, that is based on preference and what is available.  Just putting usual Mexican ingredients on flat round dough isn't a different style to me.  You can make a N.Y. style pizza and still put on beans, ground beef and guacamole, I think.  This goes for California pizza as well.  People say this is a whole other kind of pizza.  I disagree.  Yes, the crazy toppings on pizza like BBQ chicken started in CA, so I guess this style has a good argument.  Still, you can get a NY style pizza with BBQ chicken.  Different toppings doesn't mean different style.  At most it is a substyle of NY pizza.  A spin off.  Like the animal the giraffe, it is a species but there are many subspecies, like the Baringo Giraffe.  They are almost the same, but one has a slightly different pattern and lives in a different region.  I don't get the sense of a CA style pizza.  I suppose every pizza is just a spin off of NY style, and NY style is of course a spin of of Neapolitan style.  I could keep writing about this but I'll save it for another blog.  

My point I think was, what Tidal Wave was serving was Tidal Wave style pizza.  The fact that it had Mexican ingredients and was possibly made by Mexicans, doesn't quite make it officially a Mexican style pizza.  I don't know exactly what a Mexican style pizza might involve, but I don't think this was it.  It was still pretty tasty.