The last time I had a pizza from Norman was maybe more then 20 years ago and I still remember its taste to date. Full of nostalgia from my childhood, I decided to give it a try again. Every time I pass by the Jounieh highway, I look to the right to check that Norman is still open, but I never had the courage to stop. I was not sure if this place was still the same, I didn’t know what to expect…
Having dinner with my friends in Jounieh, we decided to order from Norman. Every Monday and Thursday, its “buy one and get one free” night. We ordered six pizzas for the total price of LBP45,000. Yes, six pizzas for the same price as two from some of the big chains.
Half an hour later, the pizzas reached. Thirty-centimeter pizzas, generously filled and standing still in their square boxes, not sliding around and most importantly, not soaking the carton in oil.
First impressions:
- The pizzas fill the boxes completely
- The ingredients are generous and cover all the dough
- The carton box doesn’t have a drop of oil on it. These pizzas are not very fatty
- The dough is thin, thicker than an Italian pizza and thinner than an American one. Its consistency is as good as you’d expect it to be, enjoyable without being chewy or too crispy
- The ingredients stick to the dough, making it easy to grab a piece and eat it with your hands
Let’s eat some American pizzas:
- It’s better I call them American pizzas with a Lebanese touch, or a Lebanized American pizza. A thirty-centimeter pizza with a thickness of three to four millimeters is topped with a generous load of ingredients, melting and sticking to the dough. A dough that’s slightly crunchy on the borders, enjoyably chewy in the middle, joining together the good points of an American and an Italian pizza and losing the less likeable things, like the fattiness and oiliness of an American pizza or the overdose of dough that goes down on your stomach like concrete.
- I like the chicken they used, the quantity of corn, the ham, tomato sauce quality, seasoning… It was all good.
- The pepperoni pizza is a must try
- I liked it for the price paid. A pizza that’s only LBP17,000 on normal days, going down to LBP8,500 on Mondays and Thursdays when the buy one get one free offer is in use.
- Non-pretentious, this creation is exactly what pizzas used to be like before American chains came to our country. There is a homey feel to it, which makes me want to order it again.
PS: There’s one thing that’s very important. Norman adds garlic powder to their pizzas. Make sure to ask them to leave it out if you’re intolerant to garlic.
