Wednesday, April 30, 2008
"Porno Pie" Slices at Artichoke
The pizza theme continues.
We went to see the Duplass Brothers' Baghead at the TFF tonight. We'd missed it at Sundance and both Sherpa Dan and Josh Leonard told me it was worth seeing. I was a bit concerned because I generally agree with Sherpa Dan, but Mr. Leonard and I seem to have completely opposite tastes in film (much to my consternation). Anyway, they were both right. It's a smart and nice little piece of film making that manages to be both a satire of indie films while staying totally within said genre.
Realizing that we were near the newly opened and much lauded pizza joint Artichoke on 14th near 1st Avenue. Pretty much every NYC cool hunting email (thrillist, urbandaddy, et. al.) has blurbed this place, so I've been itching to give it a go.
It's a tiny place where more than five people on line means the line stretches out the door. The line is also hard to gauge because you don't know if all of these people just walked in and ordered whole pies or only slices that need to be cut and/or heated. We stood in line, chatting with some other fun customers and eyeing the folks exiting to try to determine if this experience was likely to live up to the hype. K. noted that it looked like a pretty cheesy pizza. (Pre-WeightWatchers, this might have excited us.) There were only three choices: plain, Sicilian and the house style of spinach and artichoke. We opted for a slice of plain and one of the house.
We hopped in a cab and headed uptown while munching as neatly as possible. K. declared it "pornographic": super-cheesy and a volcanic explosion of rich flavor. I have to agree. In some ways, it's like an open faced calzone.
On both slices, the bread is doughy with massive bubbles, the sauce is strongly flavored and seems to be heavily dosed with some nice olive oil. The house slice comes across as if it's pizza that is actually made with bechamel sauce. (K. said it's like that artichoke dip you used to get when "white trash food" got trendy again at parties a few years back.) The plain slice is much easier to manage. In either case, I cannot manage anyone having more than one slice unless you'd just exited the Mojave and were starving...in which case these would be too rich for your stomach anyway. This video of the Artichoke gang making an "off the menu" broccoli rabe sandwich speaks volumes about their food ethos. If it were a piece of furniture, it would be shabby chic and overstuffed.
Bottom line: I'd have a plain slice there again but K. would rather go to a place with a more sparing approach to ingredients and where you don't feel the immediate need for a Lipitor chaser.
0 comments
We went to see the Duplass Brothers' Baghead at the TFF tonight. We'd missed it at Sundance and both Sherpa Dan and Josh Leonard told me it was worth seeing. I was a bit concerned because I generally agree with Sherpa Dan, but Mr. Leonard and I seem to have completely opposite tastes in film (much to my consternation). Anyway, they were both right. It's a smart and nice little piece of film making that manages to be both a satire of indie films while staying totally within said genre.
Realizing that we were near the newly opened and much lauded pizza joint Artichoke on 14th near 1st Avenue. Pretty much every NYC cool hunting email (thrillist, urbandaddy, et. al.) has blurbed this place, so I've been itching to give it a go.
It's a tiny place where more than five people on line means the line stretches out the door. The line is also hard to gauge because you don't know if all of these people just walked in and ordered whole pies or only slices that need to be cut and/or heated. We stood in line, chatting with some other fun customers and eyeing the folks exiting to try to determine if this experience was likely to live up to the hype. K. noted that it looked like a pretty cheesy pizza. (Pre-WeightWatchers, this might have excited us.) There were only three choices: plain, Sicilian and the house style of spinach and artichoke. We opted for a slice of plain and one of the house.
We hopped in a cab and headed uptown while munching as neatly as possible. K. declared it "pornographic": super-cheesy and a volcanic explosion of rich flavor. I have to agree. In some ways, it's like an open faced calzone.
On both slices, the bread is doughy with massive bubbles, the sauce is strongly flavored and seems to be heavily dosed with some nice olive oil. The house slice comes across as if it's pizza that is actually made with bechamel sauce. (K. said it's like that artichoke dip you used to get when "white trash food" got trendy again at parties a few years back.) The plain slice is much easier to manage. In either case, I cannot manage anyone having more than one slice unless you'd just exited the Mojave and were starving...in which case these would be too rich for your stomach anyway. This video of the Artichoke gang making an "off the menu" broccoli rabe sandwich speaks volumes about their food ethos. If it were a piece of furniture, it would be shabby chic and overstuffed.
Bottom line: I'd have a plain slice there again but K. would rather go to a place with a more sparing approach to ingredients and where you don't feel the immediate need for a Lipitor chaser.
Labels: Film Festivals, Films, Food, NYC, Pizza, Tribeca Film Festival
Read the rest of this post...
Monday, April 28, 2008
Slice of Life
So last Thursday, K. said, "Let's take a walk" after we had dinner. I built on her idea and said, "Let's go to a wine bar!" So we hied ourselves over to Bin 71 on Columbus where we had a nice Banyuls and a very nice Auslese.
Dessert proved to be less nice. We ordered a molten chocolate dessert (what restaurant doesn't have one these days?) and it came burnt. Burning the chocolate cake did not enhance the flavor whatsoever. Now I should note that I frequently like burnt things (which seems to be genetic), but my beloved does not. And in this case, I had to agree.
Our waitress was rather shocked that we asked to return it. We had perhaps gone too far in sampling its burntness for her to feel it was appropriate. But she took it back and grudgingly brought another. Which revealed the problem. The center was cold, solid chocolate. And the bottom was only a bit burnt. Egads, Dr. Watson! They're making the cake, refridgerating it and then firing it when it's ordered! No wonder the bottom is burnt! They have to make the solid center turn liquid and they have to do it fast. So they broil that m*f'er until the bottom is charred. Ick. Unfortunate, because other than that silly dessert, the food at Bin 71 is quite good.
We left Bin 71 at about 10pm, feeling strangely unsated after our dessert failure and as we headed West back across 72nd Street, I noted that if Grandaisy were open I would actually opt for a slice even though we'd technically had our dinner. K. pointed out that our beloved City is the city of the slice. I agreed and said something to the effect of, "Some Saturday we should just wander around all day long splitting single slices from each joint we pass."
K. said, "Why don't we do that right now?"
We were just walking by City Pie which we've never actually tried before and I said, "Fine!"
We stepped in and looked over their selection. The plain in particular appeared to have an unusually thin crust. We ordered up a slice. Why haven't I tried this place? Is it the generic graphics? That thin crusted slice really rocked my world. It was one of the thinest crusts I've had that managed to be incredibly crisp, hold the pizza up just fine and was in no way charred. The sauce and the cheese were in terrific proportion. I found myself unexpected describing it as "a remarkably elegant slice".
From City Pie, we walked up Broadway a bit and then headed over to T&R on Amsterdam. Most Upper West Siders who grew up on the UWS are a bit religious about T&R. I've never been sure why because while I like it fine, it has never blown my socks off.
That said, we did have a bit of a fond NYC moment with with T&R when the blackout hit. T&R was furiously cooking off all of their ingredients because they had a working gas stove but no refridgeration. K. and I bought a pie and then trotted across the street to Nice Matin where they were only able to serve drinks (until the ice gave out) and had no food. Nice Matin allowed us to bring our T&R pizza inside and order up drinks.
We sat in the open doors of Nice Matin on that hot summer day watching the waves of fellow New Yorkers hoofing it uptown on foot the way we have to do when our beloved city breaks down. Suddenly, we heard what sounded like a parade and there appeared a few flatbed 18-wheeled trucks, giving a ride uptown to as many of our stranded denizens as would fit. Those folks standing up on the truck had taken to waving as if they were a parade and those of us on the sidewalks took to waving back and cheering. It was a strangely only-in-NYC moment.
Returning to our original story, the T&R slice was both enormous and workmanlike. It was of moderate thickness and pretty darn cheesy. I found it mostly impressive for its size, but perhaps I was just still flying from the City Pie slice. K. seemed to like it better than I did.
Now we were into double-dare-ya territory because there was still New Pizza Town between us and our apartment. Neither one of us was willing to back down and so our third $2.50 slice of the night arrived out of the oven just as my brother rang my cell. I explained what we were doing at what was now about 10:30pm and he was pretty amused.
The NPT slices are a sweeter sauce than most and thinner than T&R, but not qualifying as "thin crust" in the way that City Pie did. I like NPT a lot. There's something bright and happy about the sauce and it all comes together quite nicely.
All of this to say, we really need to do that wandering pizza walk one Saturday this summer. Anyone care to join us? Read the rest of this post...
0 comments
Dessert proved to be less nice. We ordered a molten chocolate dessert (what restaurant doesn't have one these days?) and it came burnt. Burning the chocolate cake did not enhance the flavor whatsoever. Now I should note that I frequently like burnt things (which seems to be genetic), but my beloved does not. And in this case, I had to agree.
Our waitress was rather shocked that we asked to return it. We had perhaps gone too far in sampling its burntness for her to feel it was appropriate. But she took it back and grudgingly brought another. Which revealed the problem. The center was cold, solid chocolate. And the bottom was only a bit burnt. Egads, Dr. Watson! They're making the cake, refridgerating it and then firing it when it's ordered! No wonder the bottom is burnt! They have to make the solid center turn liquid and they have to do it fast. So they broil that m*f'er until the bottom is charred. Ick. Unfortunate, because other than that silly dessert, the food at Bin 71 is quite good.
We left Bin 71 at about 10pm, feeling strangely unsated after our dessert failure and as we headed West back across 72nd Street, I noted that if Grandaisy were open I would actually opt for a slice even though we'd technically had our dinner. K. pointed out that our beloved City is the city of the slice. I agreed and said something to the effect of, "Some Saturday we should just wander around all day long splitting single slices from each joint we pass."
K. said, "Why don't we do that right now?"
We were just walking by City Pie which we've never actually tried before and I said, "Fine!"
We stepped in and looked over their selection. The plain in particular appeared to have an unusually thin crust. We ordered up a slice. Why haven't I tried this place? Is it the generic graphics? That thin crusted slice really rocked my world. It was one of the thinest crusts I've had that managed to be incredibly crisp, hold the pizza up just fine and was in no way charred. The sauce and the cheese were in terrific proportion. I found myself unexpected describing it as "a remarkably elegant slice".
From City Pie, we walked up Broadway a bit and then headed over to T&R on Amsterdam. Most Upper West Siders who grew up on the UWS are a bit religious about T&R. I've never been sure why because while I like it fine, it has never blown my socks off.
That said, we did have a bit of a fond NYC moment with with T&R when the blackout hit. T&R was furiously cooking off all of their ingredients because they had a working gas stove but no refridgeration. K. and I bought a pie and then trotted across the street to Nice Matin where they were only able to serve drinks (until the ice gave out) and had no food. Nice Matin allowed us to bring our T&R pizza inside and order up drinks.
We sat in the open doors of Nice Matin on that hot summer day watching the waves of fellow New Yorkers hoofing it uptown on foot the way we have to do when our beloved city breaks down. Suddenly, we heard what sounded like a parade and there appeared a few flatbed 18-wheeled trucks, giving a ride uptown to as many of our stranded denizens as would fit. Those folks standing up on the truck had taken to waving as if they were a parade and those of us on the sidewalks took to waving back and cheering. It was a strangely only-in-NYC moment.
Returning to our original story, the T&R slice was both enormous and workmanlike. It was of moderate thickness and pretty darn cheesy. I found it mostly impressive for its size, but perhaps I was just still flying from the City Pie slice. K. seemed to like it better than I did.
Now we were into double-dare-ya territory because there was still New Pizza Town between us and our apartment. Neither one of us was willing to back down and so our third $2.50 slice of the night arrived out of the oven just as my brother rang my cell. I explained what we were doing at what was now about 10:30pm and he was pretty amused.
The NPT slices are a sweeter sauce than most and thinner than T&R, but not qualifying as "thin crust" in the way that City Pie did. I like NPT a lot. There's something bright and happy about the sauce and it all comes together quite nicely.
All of this to say, we really need to do that wandering pizza walk one Saturday this summer. Anyone care to join us? Read the rest of this post...
Sunday, March 16, 2008
If there’s one thing I could happily eat every day it’s...
...Pizza! I have been kookoo for pizza as long as I can remember. My sister worked at Vinne’s Pizzeria in Scarsdale when I was a kid in the 70's and while I have no idea if their pizza was any good (it’s long defunct so there’s no way to know), I thought that it was cool she worked there. Growing up, Pizza & Brew became the destination of choice for pretty much every birthday party in elementary and junior high. When I went to boarding school, Sunday nights were awaited with bated breath because that was pizza and Pepsi night. (I suspect that’s an unthinkable menu for a boarding school today.)
My pizza obsession came into full effect when I was released into the pseudo-adulthood of college where you can choose your own food night after night. Napoli Pizza in Poughkeepsie delivers so many pies to the college that the Napoli’s go on vacation when Vassar is on break (at least they did in the 80’s). And every year there’s an article in the campus newspaper about the extreme volume of pies ordered during exam week. For me, exam week was hardly an exception to my pizza consumption. There were any number of weeks that I ordered (or scrounged) pizza every night of the week. Ah, the metabolism of the young!
Fortunately, now that I am arguably in full-on real adulthood I have chosen to make my home in The City. Here there no reason to suffer bad pizza. The City has lots and lots of great pizza. (And a remarkable number of blogs devoted to purely to pizza!)
Since this is The Evangelist, this is yet another list of my highly personal and idiosyncratic choices…only with a twist. This is actually cribbed from an email K. wrote to her friend who was coming to town while we are away (I write this from the comfort of the Southern Cross Club) and that friend just happened to have a serious hankering for pizza.
So here is our list (I have embroidered on the original so consider this co-authored), working south from our nabe.
Upper West Side
If you're on the UWS, and want to drop in somewhere for a slice, we love Rigoletto on Columbus around 70th street. Our favorite kind there is called "Garlicki" which doesn't have cheese on top, just a chunky tomato sauce with garlic and stems of parsley. Love it. Their stuff is best eaten on the spot -- when you get it delivered, you always have to throw it in the toaster oven to crisp the crust back up.
Also on the UWS is Patsy's (Columbus and 74th), which also makes a damned good pie. You just have to time your visit to avoid the stroller set because this being the UWS, it can be overwhelming.
Lots of locals rave about T&R on Amsterdam at 80th, but frankly we just don’t get the appeal. It’s not bad per se. It just seems unexceptional. If you want a classic NYC slice on the UWS, we much prefer the unexceptionally named New Pizza Town on the corner of 78th and Broadway. Slightly sweet sauce with the whitest of white crusts.
Now the real excitement at the moment for us is that as of a few months ago, at 72nd and Broadway is Grandaisy Bakery! For some, Grandaisy may fall too far into the "fancy" category of pizza, but their little thin-crusted rectangles of Roman-style pizza are world-class and not to be missed. You can do the very simple, cheeseless pomodoro, or we also pine over the zucchini and the cauliflower. As a special taste sensation, go for the which is not pizza at all, but a kind of bread somewhere between a focaccia and a ciabatta.
In fact we first went to Grandaisy specifically because of the bianca con pecorino. We were staying in LA at a friend’s home while they were away. (Thank you Lee & Josiah!) Lee reads Vogue and we stumbled upon a Jeffrey Steingarten piece about his obsession with true Italian pizza bianca. He went to Italy to learn a whole historical baking tradition that includes baking the pizza on humongously long boards (nine feet as I recall). Of course, after failing to recreate this comically improbably experience in his tiny apartment he learned that the folks at Sullivan Street Bakery in SoHo had long ago mastered it. As soon as we returned to NYC, we hied ourselves downtown to check it out pronto. (The Sullivan Street partners split up into two companies, one of which is now Grandaisy.) We have been obsessed ever since!
Midtown West
At West 57th Street (and another outpost at 54th and Broadway) is Angelo's Coal Oven Pizza. Their pizza is an excellent exemplar of traditional coal oven pizza - we usually get one with sausage and olives which comes with nice big leaves of fresh basil on it. A perennial favorite and very satisfying. How it ended up on 57th Street is a bit of a mystery. It doesn’t seem to fit into the neighborhood exactly, but that’s New York for you.
Soho
In addition to the downtown outpost of Grandaisy (which is in the original Sullivan Street storefront), there is Lombardi's on Spring Street, reputedly the oldest pizzeria in the New World and considered by many to be the best in the city. Lombardi’s is a coal oven pie with a thin, slightly blackened crust. Oh, so delicious.
I'm on vacation in the Caribbean...and I can still find joy in writing about NYC pizza! :-) Read the rest of this post...
0 comments
My pizza obsession came into full effect when I was released into the pseudo-adulthood of college where you can choose your own food night after night. Napoli Pizza in Poughkeepsie delivers so many pies to the college that the Napoli’s go on vacation when Vassar is on break (at least they did in the 80’s). And every year there’s an article in the campus newspaper about the extreme volume of pies ordered during exam week. For me, exam week was hardly an exception to my pizza consumption. There were any number of weeks that I ordered (or scrounged) pizza every night of the week. Ah, the metabolism of the young!
Fortunately, now that I am arguably in full-on real adulthood I have chosen to make my home in The City. Here there no reason to suffer bad pizza. The City has lots and lots of great pizza. (And a remarkable number of blogs devoted to purely to pizza!)
Since this is The Evangelist, this is yet another list of my highly personal and idiosyncratic choices…only with a twist. This is actually cribbed from an email K. wrote to her friend who was coming to town while we are away (I write this from the comfort of the Southern Cross Club) and that friend just happened to have a serious hankering for pizza.
So here is our list (I have embroidered on the original so consider this co-authored), working south from our nabe.
Upper West Side
If you're on the UWS, and want to drop in somewhere for a slice, we love Rigoletto on Columbus around 70th street. Our favorite kind there is called "Garlicki" which doesn't have cheese on top, just a chunky tomato sauce with garlic and stems of parsley. Love it. Their stuff is best eaten on the spot -- when you get it delivered, you always have to throw it in the toaster oven to crisp the crust back up.
Also on the UWS is Patsy's (Columbus and 74th), which also makes a damned good pie. You just have to time your visit to avoid the stroller set because this being the UWS, it can be overwhelming.
Lots of locals rave about T&R on Amsterdam at 80th, but frankly we just don’t get the appeal. It’s not bad per se. It just seems unexceptional. If you want a classic NYC slice on the UWS, we much prefer the unexceptionally named New Pizza Town on the corner of 78th and Broadway. Slightly sweet sauce with the whitest of white crusts.
Now the real excitement at the moment for us is that as of a few months ago, at 72nd and Broadway is Grandaisy Bakery! For some, Grandaisy may fall too far into the "fancy" category of pizza, but their little thin-crusted rectangles of Roman-style pizza are world-class and not to be missed. You can do the very simple, cheeseless pomodoro, or we also pine over the zucchini and the cauliflower. As a special taste sensation, go for the which is not pizza at all, but a kind of bread somewhere between a focaccia and a ciabatta.
In fact we first went to Grandaisy specifically because of the bianca con pecorino. We were staying in LA at a friend’s home while they were away. (Thank you Lee & Josiah!) Lee reads Vogue and we stumbled upon a Jeffrey Steingarten piece about his obsession with true Italian pizza bianca. He went to Italy to learn a whole historical baking tradition that includes baking the pizza on humongously long boards (nine feet as I recall). Of course, after failing to recreate this comically improbably experience in his tiny apartment he learned that the folks at Sullivan Street Bakery in SoHo had long ago mastered it. As soon as we returned to NYC, we hied ourselves downtown to check it out pronto. (The Sullivan Street partners split up into two companies, one of which is now Grandaisy.) We have been obsessed ever since!
Midtown West
At West 57th Street (and another outpost at 54th and Broadway) is Angelo's Coal Oven Pizza. Their pizza is an excellent exemplar of traditional coal oven pizza - we usually get one with sausage and olives which comes with nice big leaves of fresh basil on it. A perennial favorite and very satisfying. How it ended up on 57th Street is a bit of a mystery. It doesn’t seem to fit into the neighborhood exactly, but that’s New York for you.
Soho
In addition to the downtown outpost of Grandaisy (which is in the original Sullivan Street storefront), there is Lombardi's on Spring Street, reputedly the oldest pizzeria in the New World and considered by many to be the best in the city. Lombardi’s is a coal oven pie with a thin, slightly blackened crust. Oh, so delicious.
I'm on vacation in the Caribbean...and I can still find joy in writing about NYC pizza! :-) Read the rest of this post...
