Posted by Joe DiStefano, June 30, 2008 at 12:30 PM
Ever since T.J.’s Pizzeria in Flushing closed I’ve mourned the loss of kimchi pizza. So when I heard that My Favorite CheoGaJip Chicken was slinging several kinds of Korean pizza, including one topped with bulgogi, I had to try it. Korean barbeque and pizza both rank high on my list, so even though CheoGaJip didn’t have kimchi pizza, I was pretty excited. Since T.J.’s pizza was more of a standard-issue New York City slice topped with fiery preserved cabbage, I never really thought of it as Korean. I envisioned CheoGaJip’s pizza as a tastier, more Korean pie; living halfway between paejun and a standard New York ’za. Sadly all my hopes for mouthwatering Korean pizza were in vain. The only good thing about CheoGaJip was the fried chicken, and while we don't normally like to write about things on Serious Eats New York unless they are delicious– some things just have to be shared.
Continue reading »
Posted by Ed Levine, June 10, 2008 at 10:55 PM
Photographs by Robyn Lee
Roberta's
261 Moore Street, Brooklyn, NY 11206 (near Bogart Street; map); 718-417-1118; robertaspizza.com
Must-Haves: Paige's Breakfast Burrito, Calzone, Guanciale and Egg Pizza, Porchetta and Fontina Sandwich
What You'll Spend: $25 per person for salad, pizza, soft drink, tax, and tip. Roberta's is BYO on beer and wine
Grade: B
There are three kinds of people in the pizza-making universe. There are the to-the-oven-born, old-school types like Lawrence Ciminieri of Totonno's, whose great uncle Anthony Pero (nicknamed "Totonno") introduced pizza to the family gene pool almost a hundred years ago. Then there are the obsessive, perfectionist, chef/bread baker types, like Anthony Mangieri of Una Pizza Napoletana, Andrew Feinberg of Franny's, and Chris Bianco of Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix. Then there is the third school, what I call the "We're good cooks who love pizza, so let's open a pizzeria" contingent, where a can-do attitude, enthusiasm, some cooking chops, and economic necessity are the forces driving the people involved.
Wall of logs and the pizza oven.
The partners at the very fine Bushwick, Brooklyn, pizzeria Roberta's definitely fall into the latter camp. Musician and bar-owner Chris Parachini and his partners Brandon Hoy, Carlo Mirarchi, and Mauro Soggio decided to open a pizzeria because they love pizza. They found a practically unfinished space with high beams and poured-concrete floors in a hard-core commercial section adjoining an auto-repair shop in Bushwick, went to Italy to apprentice with an Italian pizzaiolo, found a fire-engine-red wood-burning pizza oven in a bankrupt Italian pizzeria (yes, pizzerias do go bankrupt in Italy), and came back to Brooklyn, put in the pizza oven in the front and waited for the city to install the gas line in the kitchen in the back. They waited and waited until they were about to run out of money, so they were forced to open Roberta's with the aforementioned pizza oven and three pans and three propane burners in lieu of a kitchen.
Continue reading »
Brick Oven Bar Be Cue, we hardly knew ye. I'd been eager to try the pizza offerings at this unlikeliest of barbecue joints, housed in a gritty former warehouse on the corner of Third Avenue and 6th Street in Brooklyn's Gowanus neighborhood. But in the last couple of weeks, the place never seemed to be open. After a quick phone call to confirm hours, the owner, Emmanuel Maropakis said he'd given it two months and decided to close. "Not enough interest," he said. And as for the pizza, that never happened. "I couldn't find the right guy to do it," he said.
Posted by Ed Levine, May 8, 2008 at 4:00 PM
Every spring I check in at Sullivan Street Bakery and Grandaisy waiting for them to start making their incomparable artichoke pizza. Last week I went and hit paydirt—or should I say, artichoke dirt. Take a look at this slice of artichoke-topped beauty. Exhausted after a long day at work? A slice of artichoke pizza picked up on your way home would be a perfect salve for any work or boss-inflicted wound.
Sullivan Street Bakery
Address: 533 West 47th St., New York, NY 10036 (b/n 10th and 11th)
Phone: 212-565-5580
Website: sullivanstreetbakery.com
Grandaisy Bakery
Address: 73 Sullivan St., New York NY 10012 (b/n Spring and Broome); 176 West 72nd St. New York, NY 10023 (near Broadway)
Phone: 212-334-9435, 646-274-1607
Website: grandaisybakery.com
Posted by Ed Levine, January 26, 2008 at 8:47 AM
When my friend Tony DiDio, also known as the Count of Carroll Gardens, tells me about a new pizzeria in his neighborhood I end up listening intently to what he has to say. And when a Serious Eats community member seconds Tony's recommendation (thank you, janerac) then I get seriously motivated to actually write about it.
So when Tony told me about Luna Rossa, I ended up going there on my way to Lucali (it was a little embarrassing to walk into Lucali with a pizza box under my arm, but what the hell).
The pizzaiolo at Luna Rossa makes his Neapolitan-style pizzas in one of those combo wood and gas ovens that seem to be popping up everywhere in New York these days. My margherita had a nice crisp exterior crust and the tender interior crust I crave but rarely find. If you've been to Caserta Vecchia or Savoia, two other pizzerias in Carroll Gardens, you will find the pizza at Luna Rossa to be similar (though the dough is thankfully a little softer). It's not pizza worthy of a long trip, but if you're in the neighborhood you'll be very happy eating pizza here.
Luna Rossa
Address: 552 Court Street, Brooklyn NY 11231
Phone: 718-875-1384
Posted by Ed Levine, January 12, 2008 at 9:00 AM
I hadn't been to Lombardi's in a year or so, so when two pizza-crazed colleagues from Minneapolis came to New York this week, I decided they should experience eating at the oldest pizzeria in America. We ordered three pies: a small sausage; a small half-pepperoni, half-pancetta; and a small half-plain white, half–sautéed spinach. All the pies were at least very good, and the white pie was awesome.
Continue reading »
Posted by Ed Levine, January 11, 2008 at 9:01 AM
Lucali's, 575 Henry Street, Brooklyn NY 11231 (b/n Carroll Street and First Place; map)
I finally made my way to Carroll Gardens to eat at the pizzeria of the moment, Lucali's. I'm embarrassed that it took this long. I'm officially chagrined, too, now that I've seen the place and eaten Mark Iacono's pizza and calzone. Mark and his brother (Mark makes the pies, his brother takes them in and out of the oven) make what is essentially a Di Fara–style pie in a wood-burning, gas-assisted oven.
That means the cheeses that go on the pie include mozzarella di bufala, a low-moisture full-cream mozzarella, and freshly grated grana padana. That cheese combination produces a spectacular, simultaneously tangy and creamy topping for a pizza.
Toppings include (among others) sausage from the neighborhood's fantastic Esposito's Pork Store (on nearby Court Street) and fresh portobello mushrooms that Mark slices to order. Lucali's crust is just about 100 percent crisp, which means those of us who'd like a little tenderness in our pizza crust interior will have to look elsewhere. Interestingly, Mark's calzone crust was in fact much more tender.
Crisp-tenderness issues aside, eating at Lucali's is a deeply pleasurable experience. It's a totally real, unpretentious, and heartfelt pizzeria. Plus, it's the only pizzeria I know outside Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix that gives off such a singular warm, lovely, and inviting glow.
"Don't be a stranger," Mark called out to me as I was leaving.
I won't.
Lucali's
Address: 575 Henry Street, Brooklyn, NY 11231 (near Carroll, map)
Phone: 718-858-4086
Posted by Ed Levine, December 24, 2007 at 3:46 PM
Though there's lots being said about the Jewish tradition of eating Chinese food on Christmas Day, no one has suggested what Jews and other people who don't observe Christmas should eat on Christmas Eve. I have a couple of suggestions:
Treat yourself to a pastrami sandwich, french fries, and mushroom barley soup at the newly reopened Second Avenue Deli. Beware of long lines, even at off hours. I have no idea how it will be on Christmas Eve. If the lines are too long, head for Sarge's, Katz's (skip the french fries and the soup there), the Carnegie Deli, Artie's, or Pastrami Queen.
Have pizza, but treat yourself to really good pizza. That would mean Una Pizza Napoletana (alas, they are closed today), Franny's, Totonno's, DiFara, Nick's, Lucali's, and perhaps Sal and Carmine's. Slice master Kuban swears by the pies at Peppe's in Park Slope.
Have a banh mi. I don't know why I say this, but somehow it seems right.
Perhaps you have a better idea. Please let us know.
Posted by Ed Levine, October 10, 2007 at 5:59 AM
I wanted to love Luzzo's pizza. I really did. Atlanta pizza maniac Jeff Varsano raves about it, and I trust his pizza palate. I had heard many stories that it is frequented by Italian expats who come to kick back, have a glass of wine, eat some pizza, and watch Italian soccer games at the small dining room in the back of the restaurant facing the wood-and-charcoal-burning oven.
I hadn't been to Luzzo's since it first opened serving more traditional New York Italian-American pies, so I was very excited to finally be going back.
What I found was not what I expected.
Continue reading »
Posted by Ed Levine, May 25, 2007 at 9:57 AM
I'm away for the weekend, but if I were in Gotham, this is where I would go:
DiFara for a slice. The 45 minute wait is part of the experience.
Shake Shack for a shack burger and a small vanilla custard.
Ssam Bar for a Bo Ssam (pork shoulder). This requires some planning. You need at least six people to eat the Bo Ssam and you have to order it 48 hours in advance.
Gnudi and the Cuban Sandwich at the Spotted Pig. Go as early as they open.
The whole pig at Daisy Mae's. Also must be ordered in advance. Take it home for a party.
The fried chicken at Rack & Soul. Make sure they fry it to order. Or have a party and have them fry you up a mess of chicken.
Where are you going to eat this Memorial Day Weekend?
Posted by Ed Levine, November 10, 2006 at 7:07 AM
The election is over, and we have gotten rid of quite a few turkeys. We have a new governor, Eliot Spitzer, and though he is a New Yorker he doesn't seem like he's the type of guy who cares about food. In fact I'd be willing to bet money (if Spitzer wouldn't throw me in jail for illegal gambling) that he's an "eat to live" kind of guy.
So I thought I'd give him a hand by offering him a list of five places to eat that might inject a little pleasure and fun into his life. The man looks like he could use all the help he can get in the fun department...
Continue reading »
Posted by Ed Levine, October 2, 2006 at 1:00 PM
Although I have always vowed not to give ELE a bite by bite description of everything I eat, this past weekend I had so much good food I feel compelled to tell all of you about every incredibly delicious bite I took:
Friday 6 p.m.: A fantastic white pie at the Totonno's at 26th St. and Second Ave. Anyone who thinks the only way to get a great Totonno's pie is to go to Coney Island is just plain wrong.
Saturday 1 p.m.: I went with a couple of friends to the Red Hook Soccer Fields, where we proceeded to eat at every stall. The Red Hook Soccer Fields are one of those life-changing NY food experiences: great home cooks from many Latin American countries cooking for the rest of us. Real food, honest food, in an incomparable setting. I will have lots more to say this week on this not-to-be-missed experience, and I would urge all of you to go this weekend to the corner of Bay and Clinton Streets in Red Hook.
Sunday 1 p.m.: I bought my mother-in-law lunch from Bouchon Bakery. The sandwiches (a roast beef and a turkey) were disappointing (rolls didn't seem fresh, turkey too peppery, flavorless roast beef), but the sweets I brought made my mother-in-law amd me very happy: two chocolate bouchons, one incredible nutter butter cookie (or whatever it is they call their incredible peanut butter cookie), and a coffee eclair that was good but not worth the $3.75 price tag.
Sunday 7 p.m.: I bought a first-rate Eli's apple pie to bring to Calvin Trillin's house for dinner. As I exited Eli's I bought a cup of terrific vanilla ice cream and a cup of equally good grapefruit sorbet from Eli's sidewalk gelateria.
At Trillin's we had some amazing pimientos de Padron, small, vaguely smokey and only occasionally hot peppers, flash-fried and salted. Then Trillin brought out the big guns: boiled pork and chive dumplings from Super Taste on Eldridge Street. Best dumplings I've ever had in my life; remarkably delicate wrappers, porky filling with a slightly roughhewn texture, and something that gave the dumpling a vaguely sweet taste.
Trillin knows more about where to find great food in Chinatown than anyone else I know. He is also one of our greatest writers, whether he's writing about food or politics or anything else. "Bud" Trillin is, as I've said before, a national treasure. If you don't already own The Tummy Trilogy and Feeding a Yen (which contains his story on the above-mentioned peppers) them log on to Amazon and buy them immediately.
For dessert, the apple pie, a friend's very fine flourless chocolate cake with whipped cream, and melon sorbet and hazelnut gelato from Cones on Bleecker Street. More about Trillin's Chinatown favorites will be coming in a separate post.
Posted by Ed Levine, September 29, 2006 at 8:02 AM
I'm glad that so many of you share my concern for the state of the pizza slice in Manhattan, but as a number of you pointed out, there are still a few spots serving slices worth eating:
- Patsy's: (East Harlem) The only coal-fired slice I know of in NYC.
- Sal and Carmine's: (Upper West Side) Solid slice, canned mushrooms, no delivery.
- Mimi's: (Upper East Side) Too much cheese, but that's true all over (pun intended)
- Maffei: (Chelsea) Best grandma slice in Manhattan
- Joe's: (West Village) As a reader pointed out, it seems unfair that the original Joe's location is now an Abitino's, one of those less than mediocre mini-chains spreading like pizza cheese.
- Bleecker St. Pizza: (West Village) Crisp-crusted Long Island-style slice transplanted to Manhattan
- Vinny Vincenz: (East Village) Unheralded but noteworthy thin-crusted Sicilian haven
- Famous Ben's: (Soho) I particularly like the Palermo Pizza, made with seasoned breadcrumbs and a sweet onion sauce.
- Pizza Suprema: (Midtown West) Fine sliceria that's good to know about when you're going to the Garden.
DeMarco's is okay, but it pales in comparison to DiFara.
Stromboli is no longer what it once was.
I can't think of a good slice in Tribeca.
Any other noteworthy slices?
Posted by Ed Levine, September 27, 2006 at 7:06 AM
Ladies and gentlemen, we have a pizza slice crisis in NYC that threatens to undermine sixty years of tradition, a crisis that calls out for mayoral or government intervention.
The NYC slice, once a justifiable source of culinary pride in this town, is going to hell in a hand basket filled with pizza cheese and canned pizza sauce. Think about it. The streets of Manhattan are filled with slice joints, each one worse than the next. You know the slices I'm talking about. The crust is thick and gummy. Every bite brings a mouthful of unbaked dough. The sauce is canned pizza sauce. It tastes like Franco American on a bad day. The cheese is that abomination called pizza cheese, and there's so much of it on every piece that slice weights are approaching one pound.
I call this the Ray's syndrome. Ever since some variation of a Ray's (Original Ray's, Ray Bari, Imitation Ray's, ) started appearing on every corner the state of the NYC slice has never been worse. Other mini-chains have also descended on our city like some kind of slice plague, and the situation has reached epic proportions. Our quality slice culture is fast disappearing.
Interstingly, this fast deteriorating situation seems to be limited to Manhattan. Brooklyn's quality slice culture remains intact, or certainly more intact than Manhattan's. Certain neighborhood in Queens have upheld slice standards well. And Staten Island, the home of Nunzio's and Joe and Pat's, is a veritable beacon of pizza slice quality.
I wrote about the state of the slice in the Times a few years ago.
The situation has only gotten worse. C'mon, people, this is an important quality of life issue. Or I should say a quality of slice issue.
What can we do about it? There's no sense in lobbying Blomberg or anyone else in his administration. They're all lame ducks, and they've had one whole term to tackle this issue. And they have done nothing.
I believe the answer lies in lobbying our city councilmen and women.
Tell them that was once a source of city pride has become some kind of cruel joke perpetrated by slice purveyors who are taking down our reputation.
Reply to this post, and I will present it as a petition. Join me in saving the NYC slice. It's not too late.
Bring Back the real NYC Slice.
Posted by Ed Levine, August 24, 2006 at 8:46 AM
I went to L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon at the Four Seasons Hotel on E. 57th St. last night for dinner. Spent $250 for dinner for two and was certainly not stuffed. Thank God my brother was paying. The dinner included two glasses of wine, one dessert, and six small plates. No coffee, not even iced tea for me.
A few amazing dishes; languostine fritter, gazpacho, sea urchin cauliflower cream. Others were merely good, and in no way special. One dish, foie gras ravioli in chicken soup, was deadly dull.
We got major attitude initially until I hit it off with one of our servers who used to work in a pizzeria in Staten Island. We compared Staten Island pizza notes. We both declared our love for Joe and Pat's. Said server even gave me a taste of the Alsatian pastrami cured and smoked in-house that's served with potato salad and foie gras. Katz's has nothing to worry about.
Maybe it was just too early, maybe we ordered wrong, or maybe this is another misguided line extension of one of the world's great chefs. At this point I don't feel the need to return. I would much rather eat at Daniel or Jean Georges for its incredible $28 two course lunch. You even feel full after you eat it.
Posted by Ed Levine, August 1, 2006 at 3:29 PM
By popular demand, here's a list of my top ten pizza slices in NYC:
1) DiFara (you all know where it is)
2) Adrienne's (Old Stone St., Wall Street)
3) Patsy's (117th and First Avenue)
4) Joe and Pat's (Staten Island)
5) Nunzio's (Staten Island)
6) Sullivan Street Bakery
7) Sal and Carmine's (102nd and Broadway)
8) Joe's (Carmine Street and Park Slope)
9) Grandma Slices at Maffei (22nd and Sixth)
10) Louie and Ernie's (Bronx)
Anybody beg to differ?
Posted by Ed Levine, May 17, 2006 at 1:30 PM
I started thinking about this last week. Everyone loves the idea of a good, cheap neighborhood Italian restaurant, and we all like to believe we have one in our midst. But most often the neighborhood Italian restaurant we claim as our own really doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Either the ingredients used are sub-standard or the cooking is sloppy or the service is lousy. And just because the owner smiles at you and tries to make you feel at home doesn't make it a good restaurant.
But I do have one on the Upper West Side: Celeste. At Celeste the frying is deftly done, more than creditable Neapolitan pizzas come out of the woodburning oven, pastas are properly al dente and lightly sauced, and salads are made with good ingredients, especially given the modest prices. And they have one of the best Italian cheese courses in the city, thanks to the obsessive cheesemongering of Carmine, one of the owners.
Celeste's executive chef and co-owner Giancarlo Quaddalti also owns another good cheap Italian restaurant, Bianca, in the East Village. There he makes gnocco fritto, impossibly light pieces of fried dough he serves with prosciutto or stracchino cheese, his excellent lasagna, and an assortment of pastas and main courses that more often than not show a high degree of precision and skill.
My third good, cheap Italian restaurant is Franny's in Brooklyn. Husband and wife chef-restaurateur team Andrew Feinberg and Franny Stephens have justifiably become known for the terrific pizzas Feinberg and company turn out from the wood-burning oven, but Feinberg's crostini and salads show a skilled hand and a reverence for quality ingredients you don't often find in restaurants this moderately priced.
What about you? Do you have a good, cheap Italian restaurant in your neighborhood or town or city?
Celeste
Address: 502 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, NY 10024 (map)
Phone: 212-874-4559
Bianca
Address: 5 Bleecker Street, New York, NY 10012 (map)
Phone: 212-260-4666
Franny's
Address: 295 Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11217 (map)
Phone: 718-230-0221
Website: frannysbrooklyn.com
Posted by Ed Levine, May 3, 2006 at 7:27 AM
It was a week of memorable bites:
The prosciutto balls at Joe's Superette on Smith Street in Carroll Gardens. There's still very little else on the shelves in the store, but those creamy, tangy, peppery, crunchy prosciutto balls rock. And the best thing: They're 50 cents each. I buy 'em by the dozen. Photo courtesy of iheartbacon
The Kobe Beef appetizer at Morimoto. It's one of the first preparations of Kobe Beef that makes me understand what all the fuss it about, and why it may actually be worth the money. At Morimoto it's carpaccio thin and every little slice is decadently rich, meaty and fatty at the same time. I also have to say that this was the first time I ate in the main dining room at Morimoto, and it was a lot of fun: fun to look at, fun to eat in, and fun to be able to actually talk to my tablemates without screaming. They have these great fiiberglass sheets between the tables that really do soundproof the place.
The cayenne cheese sticks at Murray's Cheese Shop. I have had a ton of cheese sticks in my time, but the Murray's cheesesticks were buttery, tangy and had just the right amount of kick to them.
Continue reading »
Posted by Ed Levine, April 1, 2006 at 12:29 PM
A reader e-mailed me about the Pala post and asked if I was a fan of Denino's, a Staten Island pizzeria. In Pizza: Slice of Heaven
, my book about pizza, I wrote the following about Denino's:
At Denino's, the pizza box says it all: IN CRUST WE TRUST. They should trust their crust, because it is light and crisp and plaint. Denino's is a classic red-brick tavern pizzeria (with a separate dining room), but it is just as welcoming to kids after a little league game as it is to middle-aged softball players coming in for a pie and a brew after a game. I'm crazy about Denino's sausage pie, which features fine sweet Italian sausage made fresh every day by a local butcher. If you want to go vegetarian, try the white pie, made with mozzarella, onions, fresh garlic and a splash of olive oil. After fifty-four years you might think the Denino family has gotten bored with making pizza. Not so, according to third-generation co-owner Michael Denino: "We still put our heart and soul into every pie.
Posted by Ed Levine, March 30, 2006 at 12:40 PM
There are a few ingredients every great pizza needs, and I don't mean cheese, sauce and dough. Last night I went to Pala, a new Roman-style pizzeria just south of Houston Street at the northern tip of the Lower East Side. I was a few minutes early so I chatted with an Italian gentleman who I deduced to be the owner. He told me that he uses a brick-lined electric oven that can get up to 800 degrees Fahrenheit, a combination of Italian fresh mozzarella and a good local cow's milk mozzarella purveyor, DiPalo Dairy, high-quality LaValle (sp?) canned tomatoes, and twelve kinds of flour in his dough, including King Arthur and Giusti, a California-based organic flour purveyor. So why was his pizza so bland and flat-tasting? Well, first and foremost because it lacked salt. And beyond that, it was missing the most important ingredients of all, heart, soul and love. Either nobody in the joint either knew what great pizza tastes like, or nobody cared enough to do what it takes to make great pizza. Pala coulda been a contender. At this point it's clearly a wannabe.
Posted by Ed Levine, March 24, 2006 at 12:45 PM
When I was growing up in deepest New York suburbia (Cedarhurst, LI), slices of pizza were fifteen cents. Forty years later you can pay up to $2.50 for a piece of 'za. So I was sent hurdling back to my youth when I passed a sign advertising 99 cent pizza. I couldn't pass up that kind of bargain. I ordered a slice, the Hispanic man behind the counter handed me a fresh, hot slice that needed no reheating. I took a bite. It was perfectly acceptable New York pizza, better than chain except Bertucci's. I started thinking about other food experiences across the country and what they cost. A meal at Masa in NYC costs $350 before drinks, tax and tip. That means for the same price you can get 350 slices of pizza at my new discovery. That means you can have a slice a day for for more than a year for what it ends up costing someone to eat at Masa. I then grabbed a flyer. The name of the place appears to be 99 cent Fresh Pizza. Now that's what I call great marketing, when the promise is in the name. 99 cent Fresh Pizza is at 569 Ninth Avenue (NW corner of 41st St.).
Posted by Ed Levine, December 17, 2005 at 1:29 PM
With the diet going very well, last week I decided to once again talk about food instead of eating it, by agreeing to talk to a class of second graders about pizza. Because I didn't think seven and eight year olds would understand the intricacies of the effect of the immigration laws on the formation of the multi-ethnic pizza culture in America, I decided that since I was speaking to them at one in the afternoon I would bring two kinds of pizza to the class and talk about their similarities and differences.
Pretty simple and straightforward, right? But when I picked up a message on my voice-mail the night before my scheduled lecture, I knew it wasn't going to be just another school presentation. "Ed, this is Sara*, Bobby's mother. Could you please call me?" I don't know anyone named Sara who has a child named Bobby, but being a responsible citizen, I returned the call. Sara turned out to be the mother of a child, Bobby, who was in the class I was going to address. Bobby, his mother explained to me, had severe food allergies (when I asked for specifics, she replied only that his allergies were "deep") that would preclude him from eating pizza. She asked me if I could possibly refrain from bringing pizza into the class. I explained that I was quite sensitive to Bobby's plight, that I had friends and family whose children also had bad food allergies, but that I didn't know how else I could engage a class of second graders in a discussion of pizza. She acquiesced. "If you decide you have to bring pizza to the class, just let me know by 11:00, so I can make something special for Bobby so he won't feel bad about the other kids eating pizza." I got off the phone and congratulated myself on defusing a potentially sticky situation deftly. I was a little worried I was turning into Larry David (Curb Your Enthusiasm) without knowing it.
Continue reading »
Posted by Ed Levine, November 12, 2005 at 1:46 PM
My wife and I had a benefit pizza party for the Goddard Riverside Community Center, which offers housing, counseling and a place to go for the elderly and people of all ages in need in my neighborhood in New York. Forty people paid $125 a person to eat pizza at our house, so I wanted to make it special so that they would think they would get their money's worth.
Phoenix' Chris Bianco, who I think makes the best pizza in the world at his Pizzeria Bianco, sent me fifteen pizzas UPS Next Day, and the pies arrived in perfect condition. Actually, some of Chris' housemade sausage had fallen off what he calls his Wise Guy pizza (also made with smoked mozzarella and caramelized onions), but I took care of that problem by eating all the loose sausage pieces. Anthony Mangieri, who may just make the second best pizza in the world, sent up ten pies from Una Pizza Napoletana , his shop in New York's East Village. Anthony's pizza is sublime. It has a slightly lighter crust with less body, and he is such a purist he does not have toppings on his pizza other than different combinations of buffalo mozzarella, tomato sauce, and fresh cherry tomatoes.
Because I always worry about people at our parties not having enough to eat, we had ten pizzas delivered by three other killer New York pizza makers, Lombardi's , Totonno's and Adrienne's .
So we had five of the pizzerias in the country represented at our apartment.
For starters my friend Mike sent over forty figs stuffed with blue cheese wrapped in prosciutto (he also sent over a salad) made in the kitchens of his contemporary Greek restaurant, Onera .
Mark Buzzio, one of the great salami and sausage makers in this country, donated platters of his incomparable salami, braesola (air-dried beef) and mortadella, made at Salumeria Biellese , his unprepossessing storefront right near Madison Garden.
For dessert we had cookies from a great baker, Yura, and amazing ice creams and sorbets from one of the country's best gelato makers, Jon Snyder of Laboratorio de Gelato .
To drink, Josh Wesson of Best Cellars sent over a case of white and red wines.
I guesss I shouldn't have worried about people not having enough to eat. I counted all the pizza slices up, and I came up with a figure approaching four hundred slices for 40 people to eat.
That's ten slices a person. I guess that's enough.
Thanks to everyone to donated their handmade food, and to everyone who forked over $125 to eat pizza with us. I think you got enough to eat. And just in case you didn't, we sent everyone home with a pizza to go.
Posted by Ed Levine, November 2, 2005 at 1:48 PM
You'd think someone who'd just spent a year eating a thousand slices of pizza researching a pizza book would be sick of 'za. Then why do so many of my posts revolve around pizza.
I went to Lombardi's last night and was struck by how much the pizza has changed there in the last few months.
The crust is thinner and a little less pliable and yeasty than it has been in recent years, and it's a marked improvement over the thicker crust with clumps of unbaked dough that has all too often marred the pizza recently at Lombardi's.
The toppings are still superb: fresh mozzarella, great pepperoni, pancetta, sausage and house-roasted peppers.
It's actually a miracle I enjoyed the pizza at Lombardi's so much, because on my way there I stopped to try the new taco place around the corner from Lombardi's, La Esquina, 106 Kenmare St. Tel: 646-613-1333. I tried three tacos, the carne enchilada, made with grilled pork, cilantro, onions and a not incendiary pineapple-habanero salsa; a cochinita pibil, pulled pork, shredded cabbage, pickled onions, and japapeno; and a chorizo taco with potatoes, shredded cabbage, and salsa verde. The tacos were okay, nothing more((surprisingly bland), but they weren't a bad appetizer before pizza.
Or maybe I should just think of the pizza as a chaser for the tacos.
Posted by Ed Levine, October 31, 2005 at 1:59 PM
I am a huge fan of what is called Grandma pizza, a thin-crusted Sicilian-style pan pizza that's really popular on Long Island.
In Manhattan, Grandma pizza has been very hard to come by.
Maffei on sixth avenue and 22nd Street makes a good Grandma slice, and Adrienne's , a new place in on Stone St. in the Wall Street area (I'm warning you right now. Stone St. is one of those downtown NY streets that's impossible to find), makes a superb Grandma slice.
And now, New Pizza Town (2196 Broadway (corner of 78th St.), 212-769-2323, a mere three blocks from my Upper West Side apartment, has started making creditable Grandma pies. They're certainly not as good as Adrienne's, which are made with really good mozzarella and high quality tomatoes. But they are pretty damn fine, fine enough that I've been eating Grandma slices at New Pizza Town three times a week for the last month.
For a definitive look at Grandma pizza, check out Erica Marcus' piece in my book, Pizza: Slice of Heaven. She not only tells you its origins, she also tells you where to get it on Long Island.
