Pizza Palace of Durham

Last night was my second trip to the Pizza Palace of Durham. Considering that they been open since 1965 and that's ten years longer than I've been alive and living in or near Durham, it's surprising that my first trip was only a few months ago. The quality of their pizza makes it even more astounding. The restaurant was originally located on Hillsborough Road, where Blu Seafood & Bar is now. Now they have a much larger location and are able to host live bands. One was setting up most of the time that we were eating and the band had quite a lot of gear.

The crust on their pizzas is nice and thin and it's crisp, but not too crispy. They have twenty-six different toppings from which to choose, including pine nuts. There was just something very exciting to me about the idea of having pine nuts on a pizza and this time I had a chance to try them out. I convinced two of my friends to share a large 16" pizza with anchovies, spinach and pine nuts. That turned out to be a great combination. The pine nuts just added a little crunch and flavor, but it wasn't excessive. I liked their tomato sauce, too, because it wasn't too sweet. The pizza wasn't overly greasy, either. Overall, it was a great pizza and as you may have gathered, I'm fairly picky about pizza. My other friends seemed to enjoy their pizzas, too.

For my previous visit, I was in a larger group and ended up eating several slices of their Syrian pizza, which has olive oil, mozzarella, onions and lots of fresh garlic. That was also very good. I look forward to trying more topping combinations and their entrees in the future.