Pizza My Mind: The One and Only Beijing Boyce Slices Up Pizza+, Irish Volunteer, Q Mex

In the run-up to this weekend's (Oct 17-18) the Beijinger 2015 Pizza Cup, we've asked Beijingers to tell us about their favorite pizza places.

Canadian Jim Boyce has a decade of Beijing pizza-guzzling experience. He's currently working with the wine federation in Ningxia on a two-year project that pairs 48 international winemakers with local wineries. We asked him to tell us about his favorites and the pizza places he's most likely to frequent or pick up the phone and order.

For home delivery when you're too lazy to make dinner:
I live near Workers' Stadium and have three go-to pizza joints for delivery. When I want 'za, and nothing but 'za, I call Pizza+. At least half of my orders are for the capricciosa, a hard-to-resist combo of ham, artichokes and olives, with the four seasons (more ham and artichokes), and the forest (mushrooms, sausage, truffle cream and walnuts) rounding out the top three. I find these pies tend to be heavy on salt and always have a two-liter bottle of water handy.

When I want to convince myself I'm being healthy, by ordering a salad or a whole wheat crust, I call Gung Ho!. My favorite pizza is the smoked pork and mushroom although I often opt for simple options like rocket or pepperoni and drizzle them with my precious stock of Taco Bell hot sauce. My default salad is the Greek, usually the low-salt version, as this further convinces me I'm being healthy.

When I want a wider menu, I call Nasca Cafe. I typically get a medium Super Nasca or Mexican Passion pizza – I like the fresh tomato sauce and the golden crust – and tack on a sandwich or burger.

Finally, once in a while, I'll call Buona, the preferred pizza delivery joint of many people when I arrived in Beijing a decade ago, including my chef friends at the time, and still open near Workers' Stadium West. The pepperoni and cheese is the guilty indulgence equivalent of the KFC spicy chicken burger.

For a pint out with the gang:
The Irish Volunteer in Lido is a good option with its Canadian pizza and 15-kuai happy hour Tsingtaos served in frosted mugs. Kro's Nest is also good if you want to get sloppy and guzzle a week's worth of calories in pizza and booze in a few hours. And I've only had pizza at Ramo a couple of times, but it is delicious, and I plan to get some of "the gang" over there soon for more.

Then there's The Den. If you're partaking in the half-price happy hour, daily from 5pm to 10pm, it's easy to add a few half-price pizzas, too. Yes, I know aficionados turn up their noses, but when The Beijing Beatles want pizza – and a surprisingly high number of my happy hour experiences at The Den have been with these troublemakers – The Beijing Beatles want pizza.

For the end of the month when you are worried about the budget:
Beijing has loads of lunch, by-the-slice, half-price and buy-one get-one options. One of my favorites is the half-price deal at Q Mex on Tuesdays – it sounds weird but the hybrid "nacho pizza" is a heap of delicious and only costs RMB 34. There are lots more, like the Monday half-price deal at Luga's Villa, the buy-one get-one deals at Gung Ho! (smoked pork and mushroom!) on Tuesdays and at Ramo on Wednesdays, the lunch deals at La Pizza (which makes some of the best pies in town), and LM Pizza (underrated, IMHO), and on and on.

Of course, there are many places that don't fit the above three categories, from higher-end venues like Sureno to veterans like The Hidden Tree and The Vineyard Cafe to quirkier options like Mao Mao Chong, as well places I have yet to try, such as Bottega. Suffice it to say, we have a wealth of pizza options in Beijing and that means lots of debate when you talk about which ones are best.

Would you like to be profiled as part of the Pizza My Mind series? Fill out our online questionnaire here. Prefer to respond to these questions orally? Send us an email at info@thebeijinger.com with your phone number and a good time to reach you and we will call you back to interview you over the phone.

Photo courtesy of Jim Boyce