27 Apr
This review was one of the funnest of I done in a while. I had plenty of time to do it, had great light, and great weather. The pizza itself was wonderful, which always makes for a more enjoyable post. It’s much easier to write about something when you’re enthusiastic about it. Continue reading
Tags: Edison NJ, Lombardi Pizza Co., Neapolitan pizza in NJ, New Jersey, pizza trucks, WFO, WFO pizza in NJ
23 Feb
Barboncino's clam pizza. From my review on Slice.
Robert Sietsema reviews Barboncino this week in the Village Voice, and while I agree with most of his words, this passage jumped out at me:
There are a couple of inferior pies, too. Using clams on a pizza is always an iffy proposition. Sadly, Barboncino de-shells the bivalves first, depriving us of the clam broth that spills out when the shells open. The naked cherrystones are minced and placed on a cheese-saturated pie, overwhelming their briny flavor with dairy. Similarly, the boring marinara, priced at $8, represents the kind of pie made in Naples before the margherita was invented. It’s strictly for the lactose-intolerant.
I thought the clam pie at Barboncino was great. And I hate when places put the damn clams on in their shells. I don’t go to a pizzeria for a day at the shore shucking bivalves. Fuck that. A lot of these places that do clam pies take the clam broth and drizzle it back on the pie, anyway — I’m thinking of Franny’s and Motorino, whose clam pie Barboncino basically clones.
I do agree with Sietsema about the marinara pie. I know there’s been a vogue as of late among pizzaheads for marinara pies. With a couple rare exceptions, I have always found them boring as shit, too.
Tags: reviews elsewhere, Village Voice
30 Nov
On Slice this week I unleashed my SpaghettiOs Pizza with Meatballs upon the world. There’s not much to say about this besides the fact that it was a “stunt pizza.” At some point after Hurricane Irene we had a couple cans of SpaghettiOs left from our disaster rations. We ate through them pretty quickly (well, I think my wife did). But while they were around, I had the idea for SpaghettiOs pizza. I mean, look, the sauce is built in. And I’d been researching spaghetti-topped pizza at the time. Why not?
I do have to admit that I had to go out and buy a can of SpaghettiOs with Meatballs for this post. So it’s not purely an “eat down the pantry” effort. Not worth wasting a pizza doughball on.
Tags: Behind the Slice, junk food, SpaghettiOs, stunt posts
23 Nov
Over on Slice I make Thanksgiving pizza stuffing. This side dish is made with sausage, so I’ll use that as an entrée into how the pro-blogging sausage is made.
When holidays roll around and current events get big enough, you’ll see blogs adjusting their coverage around these happenings. Obviously a food site is going to go full-bore Thanksgiving. I don’t think any other site does Thanksgiving as well as Serious Eats. But some of that mania means that Thanksgiving creeps into some weird places — like the world of pizza. Continue reading
Tags: holidays, pizza fusion, stunt posts, Thanksgiving
18 Nov
“Why is it so smoky in there? When I have visited Di Fara, there are times that my eyes have burned so much that I was crying… from pain and unhappiness, not from deliciousness. Eating at Di Fara is like eating in a coal mine.” —my wife, in a memorable rant about why she hates Di Fara, over on Slice »
1 Jun
A regular Di Fara pie with half artichoke hearts and half semidried cherry tomatoes.
Pro tip: GO BEFORE OPENING TIME. Also, GET A WHOLE PIE. Round or square. Both great. It’s not worth the wait for only a slice or two. My favorite topping choice these days is the semidried cherry tomatoes. Continue reading
15 Apr
Al Santillo Jr., with his hundred-year-old wood dough trays at Santillo's Brick Oven Pizza in Elizabeth, New Jersey.
I’ve known about Santillo’s Brick Oven Pizza for a few years now but shamefully had not visited it until this week. It’s known (if it’s known at all among a wider audience) for the fact that Al Santillo Jr. arranges a portion of his menu by year.
That is, folks come in, tell Al, “Your dad used to make it like this,” and Al will try to re-create it, naming it for the year the customer says he or she remembered it from.
But all that’s on my review on Slice »
When I visited Al on Wednesday, the first thing he told me was that he was experimenting with water. His daughter had brought him a five-gallon jug of NYC tap water, and Al was making
8 Apr
Truth is, Nick’s Pizza was not my first choice for a review this week. I actually went to Verde Coal-Oven Pizza with the intention of giving it the spotlight. But when I got to Verde what I found was a very nice owner one and a half weeks in to a new venture, still working out the kinks, in a neighborhood that could use more places like this. The pizza showed promise but wasn’t quite there. It wouldn’t have been fair to formally review the place for Slice and fault it. It’s way too early.
So I ended up at Nick’s Pizza, a joint that’s been around since 1993 and has its shit down pat. Continue reading
Tags: Forest Hills, Nick's Pizza, NYC, old standbys, Queens
