No matter where you travel in the world there are going to be a ton of places that are serving pizza. It very well may be the world's most popular food and no matter what the preference of the area is - here it is noodle dishes - there are going to be a ton of places that serve pizza. Just like anywhere else in the world, there are a ton of pizza places here and most of them are pretty terrible. The only way you can ever find out is if you give them a try. They could be a "diamond in the rough" or they could be absolute trash. Most of the pizza places here in Da Nang are not very good at all to the point where Dominos and Pizza Hut are preferred by many of the expats over the places that try to be real Italian pizza joints.
Also, any time you are on or near the beach in almost anywhere in the world, the restaurants that are there are generally gonna be ripoff city. Well one day I didn't really have a choice because I was on foot, with a group of friends, and we were all pretty hungry. Therefore we decided to give this food truck with a stone oven in it a try and we honestly expected to be seriously disappointed but needed food.
There were 2 things I was expecting from this place: For it to be overpriced and for it to be garbage. Well I suppose that my perceptions are not always correct because it was neither one of these things. The pizzas were a price that you would expect to pay away from the beach at around 120-200k VND ($6-9) and it was actually one of the best pizzas I have had in this city the entire time I have lived here.
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I was so shocked by the look of quality when i was there that I didn't bother taking a picture so this one is actually from their website. My group ordered two pizzas, a margherita and a pepperoni pizza, which are likely the two most commonly ordered pizza for Americans.
The crust was done well, it was thin, almost on the verge of being crispy, and it was neither burned nor undercooked. It also had the perfect amount of cheese on it but this might just be a personal preference. As much as I know people love cheese, I believe there is such a thing as putting too much cheese on a pizza and therefore ruining it. It also had the perfect amount of sauce on it and unlike other places in Asia, they didn't sweeten the sauce and kept is Italian. Seriously, if you have never been to this part of the world they ruin a lot of Italian dishes because the locals, for whatever reason, seem to prefer pizza and pasta sauce to have a sweetness to it.
The cheese pizza was 120 and the pepperoni was 180. Both of these are very normal prices for a pizza and given our location I expected them to price gouge but alas, they did not. They also had pints of beer for 55k VND which is around $2. This is completely unheard of on the beach here as everyone charges around double that amount just for a bottle, let alone a pint in a glass pint receptacle.
I was so happy with this place that I have been telling everyone I know about it and it turns out that almost everyone else has been avoiding this place because they presumed exactly what I did that this place was going to suck and be overpriced. Sadly, as far as everything else on the beach here is concerned, that is exactly what they are.
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This is also from their website and I can't imagine why they chose to use this one :P
Hats off to Herbal Pizza though because they probably COULD get away with charging more than they do but they don't do so. I will definitely be back. I suppose the only downside for some people is that you have to sit on these tiny chairs that are nearly on the ground if you want to eat there but hey! You are at the beach on a sidewalk after all so we can't get everything correct.
If you are in Da Nang you will almost certainly encounter this place by accident since it is in a high traffic area of the beach on the boardwalk, but if you need everything to be spoonfed to you, here is their map location.
It isn't often that I discover something that completely exceeds all of my expectations and it was just wonderful that completely by accident that myself and our group decided to stop here. We will be back, that is for sure.