As if finding top quality pizza and Italian dining in the heart of Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City isn't sufficiently surprising, imagine my piqued curiosity to find out that one of the city's top dining venues Pizza 4P's was started by a Japanese couple, Yosuke and Sanae Masuko, formerly from the finance and media fields, who had left those corporate jobs behind in search for a more creative pursuit.

And no, they weren't just passive investors who bankrolled the operation - they were motivated by the great responses received from the backyard pizza-making classes they were hosting for friends and family. When they started their first restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City, you can bet they got into the thick of it and anchored 16-hour shifts. Today, there are over 20 Pizza 4P's outlets across Vietnam.

Founders Yosuke and Sanae Masuko left their corporate careers in pursuit of a creative way to bring happiness to others, through pizza. (Image Source: The Dot Magazine)

The name is pretty iconic and certainly memorable. It comes from the founder Masuko's profound desire for happiness - personal and unto others. Pizza is his method. Masuko was deeply affected as a teenager when tragedy struck when his bestfriend, who at the time appeared to enjoy a blissful life, had decided to take his own life. Masuko was the last person to hear from his bestfriend, which made him question how he could find true happiness.

This led to a multitude of experiences in which Masuko would venture in search for happiness, but eventually what stuck was a friend's suggestion and book recommendation to building a wood-fired pizza oven.

Masuko would enlist the help of his friends and family, and after 6 months of mud and toil, he would build his own oven in his backyard in Tokyo. This led to many gatherings and pizza parties.

He felt pizza could be a simple yet powerful tool to creating happiness for himself and others - hence Pizza 4 Peace or Pizza 4P's.

Given the tear-jerking backstory and ethos, it should come as no surprise that one of the biggest tenets of the restaurant chain is to achieve sustainability, going so far as to publish a self-initiated sustainability report.

When you think about pizza, you can't help but think about cheese. And so it was a no-brainer for sustainability efforts to start there.

Through many iterations, Pizza 4P's now makes it own cheese. 

In the cheesemaking process, the desired cheese must separated from the whey that floats above it, and is typically discarded.

To realised a vision of sustainability, Pizza 4P's has continuously looked for wheys (get it?) to make use of the otherwise would-be discarded whey.

One of which is to turn it into... Whey Stout!

The surprises seem to be never-ending with Pizza 4P's.

At their historic Ben Thanh outlet, I had to give their Da Lat Whey Stout a try.

According to Pizza 4P's, they've worked with another well-known local establishment, Pasteur Street Brewing Co, a core staple in the Vietnamese craft beer scene, to use the excess whey from its cheesemaking to turn heavy and bitter stouts into something more milk and refreshing. That said, Pizza 4P's admits that this awesome treat only makes use of a small amount of that whey (which they've found other uses for) as it only blends whey water with the stout, but highlights that the goal is nonetheless to get people talking about sustainability.

Pizza 4P's Da Lat Whey Stout, 5.5% ABV - Review 

Color: Espresso

Aroma: Milk coffee and chocolates, immediately you find an aromatic espresso roast that is also mellow and fragrant. 

Taste: Not as thick as your usual stout, which makes it easier and more friendly on the palate, with a more milky and silky mouthfeel. There's more on milk coffee with the light bitterness and acidity you'd find in espresso's. 

Finish: As it recedes, the proportion of milkiness goes up, with more on milk chocolates.

My Thoughts

This isn't your usual heavy-hitter stout, it's much more friendly and easier on the palate and while it isn't particularly complex, what it does superbly is hold back the usual stout-bitterness that can turn casual drinkers off and overwhelm the palate. This is in other words a great food companion; easy to drink, yet still chockful of lovable flavors, that's also incredibly aromatic. You won't get gassed out drinking this so grabbing a pint is a no-brainer.

Kanpai!

@111hotpot