The Joint

Address: 1219 Wharf St.
Phone: (250) 389-2226
Website: http://www.eatatthejoint.com/
Price: $8-25
Notes: Great pizza with specialty-diet options as well!




The Joint is one of those places I've only been in once before, late at night when I had been drinking at the pub until wee hours. I remember being grumpy because I had to pee like the dickens and they were pretending like their bathroom was out of order. Health code violation! Hmph!

Returning again a few years later, it looks like it's had a bit of a revamp - the booths have really nice concrete tables and are nicely divided for some privacy while eating in. The one thing is - eating in at 5:00 on a work night during the summer means excess car exhaust comes into the restaurant from the cars queueing to let people cross at the corner. Yuck!

The one nice thing - and this was my reason for visiting, is that they have a gluten-free pizza crust as well as gluten-free topping options! The crust is made from a rice base, although it is only available in individual and large sizes.


Service:
June 28, 2011
It kind of drives me crazy when severs talk to only one of the two people involved in ordering. Usually it's me fading into the background and my partner-in-food-and-life being assumed to be the main person, but today I was assumed to be in charge. Totally weird, especially since in this case because my friend was the one who knew which tasty, tasty toppings were the best and was sharing the place with me. Pet peeve!


Food:
June 28, 2011

Gluten-free Pepperoni Pizza with Pesto Drizzle via foodspotting.com

So this is my first foray into trying gluten free food. I've been feeling for a while like gluten and/or wheat is Not my friend (bad news for a food blogger, hey?) at least in large amounts. My friend is full-out Celiac, so when we scheduled a girls day she offered to share her favourite GF-Friendly place with me.

She ordered us the pepperoni with pesto drizzle on top. Super tasty toppings! I had half of a large (4 slices) and I was full for hours afterwards. I would totally order it again, especially the pesto drizzle! Next time I would maybe add roasted garlic (if they have it?) because I think that would have taken it to the next level... but still, very very good! A bit greasier than a regular pizza but I think it's just that the grease wasn't all absorbed into the crust like it usually is in a flour pizza.

Comparing regular thin crust to the rice crust:
I wasn't sure what to expect (people who eat gluten free sometimes complain about the texture). I found it to be a bit 'cardboardy' at first, but much less so than I was afraid of. After A few bites I didn't even notice anymore, in fact I kind of liked that it was more dense-chewy instead of soft-chewy or crunchy as some other pizza crusts are. The toppings definitely made it work, though... yum!

My friend was dazzled by the gluten-free chocolate cupcake - I'm pretty sure she enjoyed it, I had a great picture of her with chocolate from dimple to dimple but (sadly?) it got erased from my phone when it crashed. I'm not a big chocolate fan, but there was only a few non-chocolate items in the dessert case and they either were super bready or something I wasn't craving. I opted for the "reversed Nanaimo bar" but was significantly underwhelmed. Not entirely sure how it was supposed to be reversed and it didn't really taste much like nanaimo bar.