Slice

Portland, Oregon: Nostrana

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:00:46 -0500

Previously in our West Coast Pizza Madness tour: Apizza Scholls, where our party of eight housed almost four pies. After dinner there had ended, only one brave soul—This Is Pizza's Adam Lindsley—dared join me for a second stop at Nostrana immediately after. (The rest of the folks retired to the Horse Brass for drinks, some vowing to meet us later in the evening for the third and final stop.)

Though I'm not a fan, I'm used to the notion of Neapolitan-style joints leaving pies uncut. I've never seen one offer scissors for the job, however. As This Is Pizza's Adam Lindsley noted: "...There's some kind of joyous youthful nostalgia that comes with picking up those scissors and cutting into your pizza as if it were construction paper, and Adam and I actually did a pretty good job of dividing the pie into six equal slices with them." [Photographs: Adam Kuban]

Nostrana

1401 SE Morrison Street, Portland OR 97214 map); 503-234-2427; nostrana.com
Pizza Style: Neapolitan, and it's VPN-certified
Oven Type: Wood-fired
The Skinny: Co-owned and helmed by Cathy Whims, who's kind of a big deal in Portland dining, Nostrana may be a better bet for its nonpizza menu items
Price: Margherita pie, feeds one, $11

When I gave some local friends my Portland pizza itinerary prior to the trip, they said I needed to add Nostrana to my fact-finding mission, so off we were to the fifth and penultimate pizzeria of my two-day visit to Stumptown.* Some quick research on the googs told me that Nostrana was a VPN-status pizzeria. VPN, of course, being the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana, an organization that certifies interested pizzerias as making "authentically" Neapolitan pies according to various pizza parameters—ingredients used, preparation methods, pie dimensions, and ovens and equipment used.

It turns out that this would be the first of five VPN-certified pizzerias I would visit in five days. What did I learn from visiting five VPN-certified pizzerias in five days? I'll tell you in my next post. For now, let's deal with Nostrana.

I have no photos of the pizza. After snapping the one above, I realized the atmosphere of the place didn't seem welcoming to weirdo food-blogger photo sessions. As befits the homebase of a Beard Award–nominated chef (Cathy Whims, Best Chef Northwest 2009 finalist), it's a classy joint. Kind of Northwest chic—all concrete-modern with plenty of wood accents and subdued lighting throughout the almost hangarlike dining room. Follow the soaring arc of a ceiling criss-crossed with wood rafters and your eye lands on a large, beautiful wood-burning oven serving as a focal point.

What 'This Is Pizza' Said

An excerpt from Adam Lindsley's account of our Portland pizza binge:

"...As for the pizza itself, it didn't rock my world. It's far from the best Neapolitan-style pizza I've had in the United States, and not even close to the top of the list for even the Pacific Northwest. The best thing about it is the sauce, as it's a pretty standard San Marzano blend. The rest of the pie seems a step down in quality from other VPN-certified pizzerias I've visited, such as Tutta Bella and Ristorante Picolinos in Seattle. The crust that night--crisper than most Neapolitan pies--was a little bland, and the mozzarella was on the thick side. It's not a bad pie by any means, just not an outstanding one...."

To my eye, the place was packed with well-dressed folks sipping wine who all seemed to be out for a night of upscale-casual dining. It just didn't seem like the place to whip out a honkin' SLR. Plus, the lighting was not conducive to a pizza porn shoot.

Anyway, I'll just say it: I didn't find the pizza that inspiring at Nostrana. We ordered a Margherita pie as a benchmark. I had intended on getting a second pie—something with a little more personality—but based on the plain pie, I stopped short. The crust was bland. The sauce, while a fresh-tasting San Marzano tomato concoction, could have benefited from some extra seasoning. And fresh mozzarella is fresh mozzarella—mild and delicate by nature. Without a flavorful crust and a more spritely sauce, here it just added to the one-note nature of the pie.

After meeting up at the next pizza stop with an old Portland buddy—the guy who had recommended Nostrana (it's his favorite restaurant in the city)— I relayed my impression.

"No! You have to do pizza as part of the overall experience there," he told me. "My girlfriend and I go and order pizza, appetizers, an entrée—the whole thing. You have to make a night of it."

So the antipasti, primi, and secondi, are the stars of the show, apparently. Not surprising, given that Nostrana executive chef–co-owner Whims spent 20 years at Genoa, one of Portland's most influential restaurants and the go-to place for fine-dining there until the recent restaurant boom gave it some serious competition. (Whims left Genoa in 2002 and started Nostrana in 2005. Genoa itself closed last year, a victim of the economy, competition, and changing dining habits; after finding new investors, however, it will reopen in a retooled format later this month. For further background on Whims, Culinate has a nice interview with her.)

Both magazines are from the same publisher, hence the similar look and food theme for the November issue. Portland Monthly's cover features a Nostrana pie; on Seattle Metropolitan's cover is a pizza from Serious Pie.

After this bit of insight, backed up by a second Portland friend, I thought I had a better understanding of Nostrana with regard to pizza. It just may be less a pizzeria and more a well-regarded Northern Italian restaurant that just happens to serve VPN-certified pies, should you want them. I think it's also telling that when the magazine Portland Monthly issued its Best Restaurants 2009 list with Nostrana among them, there was nary a word about the pizza (despite the fact that the issue's cover photo shows a Nostrana pie coming out of the restaurant's oven).

After the effusive praise my friends gave the place, I'm sure I'll go back with them the next time I visit PDX. And I'll approach it with their M.O., trying all the different menu sections—and maybe the pizza. If I have room.

* No, I'm not talking about the coffee. One of the city's nicknames is Stumptown.

Previous Stops on the Pizza Madness 2009 Tour

Apizza Scholls (Portland, Oregon)
The Amazingly Cool Wy'east Pizza Trailer (Portland, Oregon)
Escape from New York Pizza (Portland, Oregon)
Ken's Artisan Pizza (Portland, Oregon)

Portland, Oregon: Apizza Scholls

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:35:00 -0500

Clockwise from top left: Apizza Scholl's just before 4 p.m. and there's only one person in line; the shop is decorated with pictures of famous pizzerias, including FAMOUS RAY'S!?!; the amatriciana, with pancetta and onion. [Photographs: Adam Kuban]

Apizza Scholls

4741 Hawthorne Boulevard, Portland OR 97215 (at SE 47th Avenue; map); 503-233-1286; apizzascholls.com
Pizza Style: Neapolitan-American—NOT Naples-Neapolitan
Oven Type: Electric(!) Bakers Pride
Notes: Expect long lines/wait time to get in. On the various blogs and boards, people grumble about this consistently. Is it worth the wait? I would say yes, but only you can decide. Tip: Round up a party of 8 to 12 and score the one group reservation Scholls offers each night; bonus is that you can then order a mess of pizzas to share and sample
Price: Apizza 'Margo'rita, $20

The next stop on my whirlwind pizza tour of the western U.S. was Apizza Scholls. Like Ken's the night before, this is one of Portland's top pizzerias, also with a notoriously long line. Fortunately, if you can rustle up a party of eight to 12, you might be able to score a reservation (only one slot available each night), which is what we did on a recent Sunday. And it's a good thing we did: Even though Scholls opens at 4 p.m. on Sundays, an hour I figured was too early for dinner for most folks, the place filled up in a flash shortly after starting service for the day.

Apizza Scholls serves what Ed Levine in his review last year called "Neapolitan-American" pizza, which is fairly accurate. Some people might call it "New York–style," others "Connecticut-style," but whatever you call it, it's instantly recognizable to anyone familiar with East Coast pizza. It has the same DNA as those pizzas made by Neapolitan immigrants as they started adapting their pizza to American tastes. So, yeah, "Neapolitan-American" works as well as anything.

Or, better yet, here's how Scholls owner-pizzamaker Brian Spangler describes it in an interview on Pizza Therapy:

The style of pizza that we do is more of your typical Neo-Neapolitan style pie that hails from the northeast region of the United States from Connecticut through New Jersey, a big 18-inch size pie, minimal topping, baked at extremely hot temperatures very quickly. So, it is the style of pizza that we do produce to have that apizza in our name. [Note: apizza is how folks from Connecticut spell pizza; it's pronounced "ah-beetz." —AK] We do have quite a few East Coast transplants out here and a lot of them even from New Haven, Connecticut. They love it. Essentially, it's the same as the old ma and pa pizza shop. You go in and get great pizza made by the same people every day. Pizza is very simple. Back there the crust was always excellent. It's just the style of pizza that I was essentially weaned on.

Anyway, my only experience with Scholls till this point had been with a pizza that Ed somehow convinced Spangler and his wife/co-owner, Kim Nyland, to make a 2,900-mile FedEx pizza delivery to the Serious Eats office.

Now it was time for me to make the 2,900-mile journey to try the pizza at the source. Here's what we had ...

I found the Apizza 'Margo'rita (above, $20) exactly as Ed described it: "The crust has a crunchy exterior which gives way to tender bread dough. The cheese combination (Grande fior di latte and aged mozzarella) gave the pie just the right blend of creaminess and tang."

Digression: The Apizza Scholls Back Story

The "tender bread dough" thing is due to Spangler's history as a bread-baker. He started out baking bread in a wood oven with his wife, Kim Nyland, in Hillsboro, Oregon, at Olive Mountain Baking Co. just outside the Portland city limits. While running Olive Mountain, Spangler told the website PortlandFood.org, he couldn't find pizza in the area that he loved, so he set out to recreate the pizzas in the vein of New York City coal-oven favorites Grimaldi's, Totonno's, and Patsy's.

Brian Spangler takes aim with his infrared thermometer, which he uses to make sure his electric oven at Apizza Scholls is operating at optimum temperature. [Photograph: Ed Levine]

Those efforts in the bakery morphed into the Hillsboro wood-oven pizzeria Scholls Public House, in 2004. The place became popular enough that the town started complaining about traffic and parking problems associated with it, and Spangler moved the operation to Portland in ~~2007~~ January 2005, naming it Apizza Scholls (the name is a play on words: "A piece a Scholls"), where he now uses, amazingly, an electric oven. That's a bit unconventional among great pizzerias, but Spangler has said in the past that it's not the heat source but the heat. The Bakers Pride oven he uses, he says, does the job.

OK: Back to the Pizza

The Sausage Pie ($20) was essentially the 'Margo'rita with delicious chunks of house-made fennel sausage.

Apizza Scholls's 'Margo'rita comes in for its pizza upskirt shot. Can you believe that char comes from an electric oven? And here's a look at the hole structure:

Mundelein, Illinois: Bill's Pizza & Pub

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:15:00 -0500

Serious Eats Chicago contributor Daniel Zemans checks in with another piece of intel on the Windy City pizza scene. --The Mgmt.

[Photograph: Bill's Pizza & Pub; remaining photographs: Daniel Zemans]

Bill's Pizza & Pub

624 South Lake Street, Mundelein, IL 60060 (map); (847) 566-5380
Pizza Style: Cracker crust and Double Decker
Oven Type: Gas
The Skinny: Classic tavern cut pizza and the innovative Double Decker are served up in a dive bar/family/taxidermy museum
Price: 12" cheese thin crust is $12.75; 12" cheese Double Decker is $16.25
Website: www.billspizzapub.com

In 1957, seventeen-year-old Bill Kwiatkowski opened a pizzeria in a converted garage in the small town of Mundelein, Illinois, a decidedly rural community about 40 miles from downtown Chicago. Over time, Mundelein has become decidedly less dependent on farming, the town's population has more than quadrupled to about 33,000, and the reach of Chicago's metropolitan area has expanded to the point where Mundelein is, if not a suburb itself, at least within the reach of the Chicago metropolitan area. One thing that hasn't changed is the pizza at Bill's Pizza & Pub, which still operates on the same site as the converted garage. The old garage still stands and serves as the base for their carry-out and delivery operations. The restaurant has moved into a large building next door and is run by Bill's kids and grandchildren.

Walking into Bill's is a bit of a surreal experience for the first-time visitor. The place is a cross between a family dining restaurant and a dive bar, with a bit of a hunting lodge thrown in for good measure. It has a large bar, peanuts on every table (and all over the floor), a small arcade, a couple of televisions turned to sporting events, and a wall covered with taxidermy mounts of various animals and fish. Bottles of beer are served without glasses, food is served on styrofoam plates, and, keeping the peanut theme alive, the table tops are covered with peanut shells embedded in some kind of lucite or acrylic.

Bill's serves up two styles of pizza, a thin crust tavern cut pie and a "Double Decker," which is two thin crust pies on top of each other. Operating under the theory that if one is good, two is better, I opted for a Double Decker with sausage and mushrooms. There are a few tricks to making the Double Decker, a style that Bill claims to have invented. First, all vegetables only go on top of the pie. According to our server, Bill learned the hard way that if he put the veggies under the crust, explosions occur. Second, sauce only goes on the bottom crust because the combination of cheese under the top crust and sauce on top of it would be too much for the crisp crust to handle. And third, Bill's adds a large cornicione of twisted dough that holds the two decks of the Double Decker in place.

Like a fresh stuffed pizza, the most noticeable feature of the Double Decker is the massive amount of cheese that oozes out when the first slice is cut. In fact, the Double Decker is, in a way, an excellent combination of two of Chicago's native pizza styles - stuffed and tavern cut. The pie has the heft of a stuffed pie, but the cheese sit between and on top of a crisp cracker crust (times two!) that adds great texture and some nice toasted bread flavor. But to be fair, Bill's Double Decker precedes the introduction of stuffed pizza, so it's quite possible that full credit for this pie goes to Kwiatkowski's gluttonous imagination.

The mushrooms were fresh and had a nice extra bit of chew thanks to sitting on top of the pizza as it baked. The sausage, which had some good fennel flavor, was not particularly good, but it was a step above factory produced sausage nuggets. To the extent I could get a feel for the regular tavern crust while enjoying my Double Decker, Bill's seems to serve up a very good example of the style. I wouldn't say either that or the Double Decker is worth the drive out to Mundelein for city dwellers craving a tavern cut pizza fix, but if you find yourself in the area, whether with drinking buddies, your family, or your hunting party, Bill's is definitely worth checking out.

Pat's Pizza: House-made Sausage and a Perfect Crust Make One Great Pizza
Thin-Crust Pizza in Chicago? Yes, and It's Outstanding at Vito & Nick's
Candlelite: Enjoy the Pizza, Fall in Love with the Garlic Fries

Openings: Paulie Gee's, Greenpoint, Brooklyn

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:45:00 -0500

This has been in the works for some time, but it's now official: Paulie Gee (aka Paul Gianonne) has signed the lease on the former Paloma space at 60 Greenpoint Avenue in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and is hoping to open Paulie Gee's by December.

Anyone familiar with the Paulie Gee mythos won't find it surprising that his place will be a wood-fired Neapolitan-style joint. The oven is being built in Naples now and will be shipped over soon.

Gianonne says he'll be the sole pizzaman at Paulie Gee's but will have an assistant trained and ready to step in at anytime in case of an emergency. As of now, Gianonne says hours will be Tuesday through Thursday, 5 to 10 p.m.; Friday, 5 p.m. to 1 a.m.; Saturday, 11:30 a.m. (brunch) to 1 a.m.; Sunday, 11:30 a.m. (brunch) to 10 p.m.

View Larger Map

Look for pies such as:

Arugula with olive oil, lemon juice, and shaved reggiano—with and without prosciutto di Parma
Margherita with and without prosciutto di Parma
Soppressata picante
A classic bianco
Margherita with speck and red onion ("The Spectacle")
Margherita with hot sausage
Lots of seasonal pies
Guanciale and eggs for brunch, as well as speck and eggs

Says Giannone, "All these pies are tentative but very probable. I'm going to keep the standard pies to a minimum and work with what's seasonal. I will rock the fig pies in summer and kale in winter. I will also have a 'Rooftop Pie' using whatever I get from Ben Flanner at Eagle Street Rooftop Farm when he's opened.

As for nonpizza, Gianonne says he'll serve salads and cured-meat anitpasti and hopes to make a couple of dessert pies.

Full disclosure: Gianonne is a longtime commenter and member of the Slice community and a friend. As such I am preemptively removing myself from any reviews of the place or any nonobjective news reports on it.

Paulie Gee's

60 Greenpoint Avenue, Brooklyn NY 11222 (Franklin/West streets; map)

Street Food Profiles: Wy'east Pizza, Portland, Oregon

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 10:30:00 -0500

Another installment from my recent pizza tour of parts of the western U.S. Here, a pizza report and a Street Food Profile all in one—from perhaps the best city for street-fooding in the U.S.

Wy'east Pizza

3131 SE 50th Avenue, Portland OR 97206 (SE Tibbets/Kelly, parking lot of Ruthie's Weaving Studio; map); wyeastpizza.com
Pizza Style: Thin-crust, almost New York–Neapolitan
Oven Type: Small propane-fired brick oven
The Skinny: Great pizza FROM A TRAILER. Yes. A trailer. Could use a little more flavor to the crust, but the simple and excellent toppings make up for that a bit. Good crisp-chewy crust. Caveat: Get there early. They run out of dough fast. And, because the oven can only do one pizza at a time, there may be a wait
Hours: Tues.–Sat., 4 to 8 p.m.
Price: $12 to $14 a pie, $1 discount for those arriving by bike or foot

After finishing dinner at Ken's Artisan Pizza, my friends Guddy and Belle pointed us toward a pizza joint that made me lose my s**t. Almost as much for the pizza—which was good but could have used a little more flavor in the crust—as for the digs in which it's made.

Check out that camper above and tell me that that is not one of the coolest street-food vehicles you've seen in a long time. As far as I'm concerned, the New York hipsters rockin' converted mail trucks and quilted-tin carts or the Seattle folks doing it in Airstreams ain't got nothin' on the street-vendin' people of Portland, who seem to have gravitated toward some sort of aesthetic that's more reminiscent of 1970s clandestine weed growers shacking up on federal land than of edibles. Though this might have been one of the nicest corrugated-side Brady Bunch–era campers I saw in Portland, it wasn't the only one. It seems to be the mobile kitchen of choice among the young DIY street-food set in the City of Roses.

But, yeah, anyway, back to the story. We ended up getting to Wy'east Pizza at 7 p.m. on Saturday, an hour before it officially closes. But even with an hour to go, Wy'east was on its last ball of dough. See, husband-and-wife owners Squish and Red only make 22 balls of dough a night, so you have to get there early. We were lucky to have snagged that last dough of the night, but our luck didn't last: Red told us that Squish had had some problems with the propane that fires the oven and on top of that he had been slammed with numerous dinnertime orders.

It would be at least an hour and 15 minutes, Red said. Fine with us, we had to digest our Ken's food, anyway, and Guddy lives a few blocks from Wy'east, so we just went there to hang after putting in an order for a half-Margherita, half-pepperoni pie.

When we finally got our pizza, I was surprised to find it was more a larger, sort of thin-crust New York–style rather than a small Neapolitan-style pie. That surprise was mostly for the fact that the oven in the trailer is REALLY small. In fact, it can only do one pie at a time, which is a factor in some of the hold-up you might experience if you've got people in line in front of you.

Wy'east gets the "pizza upskirt" treatment.

But the crust was crisp-chewy, nicely browned, and the toppings and sauce were top-notch. If the crust would have had just a bit more flavor, I would have been completely blown away by the quality of the pie as opposed to very much impressed. Because, yeah, this is some good pizza coming from a really crazy outlet.

Red and Squish, making the most of a very small working space.

But anyway, I had talked to Squish and Red a bit while we were waiting for our pie, and then I did a follow-up with Squish via email. I'm just going to let the questions do the rest of the work here ...

When did you start selling pizza? And what were you doing before?

We opened the cart on July 1, 2009, so four months now. I worked in a handmade tile factory, and my wife, Red, worked for a nonprofit organization.

Where did you learn to make pizza?

Experiments in dough and pizza-making happened in our home kitchen for 1 1/2 years, during this time I was reading Raymond Calvel and anything by Peter Reinhart. I also got a chance to fill in at Apizza Scholls for a little while and work with the owner, Brian Spangler.

Did you have any pizza role models or style of pizza you were/are shooting for?

I'm interested in affordable, healthy, thin-crust, minimal-topping/maximum-flavor pizza.

I think you said you make the dough by hand? In the trailer? Do you make the dough same day or is there a slow rise?

All dough is made by hand in the Wy'east camper. The preferment starts the night before and goes 12 hours, then the final dough is mixed and ferments for another six, for a total of 18 hours.

The "hole structure" or "crumb" of a Wy'east crust.

Didn't you say you kept it in a Coleman cooler? Is that your proofing box?

We are longtime campers. You gotta have a Coleman cooler! Strict temperature controls happen in the cooler—either ice packs in the summer or hot water bottles in the winter.

You get the pepperoni from Otto's, I know, but what about the cheese and tomatoes?

The cheese comes from Wisconsin (our home state!) and Italy. The tomatoes are hand-selected in California.

Besides your own pizza, of course, what's your favorite pizza in Portland? What about favorite pizza EVER?

Like most things, "the best" is contextual. I like places that feel comfortable and welcoming and play good music. It's hard for me to separate the "pizza" from the environment. We are lucky people and are passionately preserving the time-honored traditions of pizza-baking here in Portland.

Now, the trailer. It's really cool. Did you have a hard time finding it? I noticed a lot of PDX vendors are using those old-school camping trailers. Are they still easy to find? Why use that instead of, say, a dedicated food truck?

Campers like ours are not difficult to find. Converting them to a working kitchen takes time and meticulous planning. The average dedicated food truck costs around $20,000. We got ours for $650. Many of our decisions were based on the fact we were working with a very limited budget. We had to do a lot of research about what the trailer needed to pass health codes, zoning codes, and fire codes. It's important to note that in a food cart situation you can not be hooked up to the sewer. You must aquire your fresh water and dispose of your waste water. We have no heat, (except for an 800 degree oven) or no air-conditioning. This can make dough production quite challenging.

You recently ramped up to 22 doughs a day from 13. First: Why the odd numbers? Why not, say, 14 or 15 doughs or 25 doughs? Second: Do you plan on making more daily doughballs or are you limited by your production method?

The numbers are just what the recipe turns out, and we are slightly odd people. Being open for four hours a night allows us to make 22 pizzas. We think we may have reached our max already without compromising the quality. Our goal is to make it through the dark, rainy season and then brainstorm how we might be able to tweek the business hours a bit in the spring to increase production.

OK. That's all the pizza-specific questions I have for now. Here are ... THE USUAL QUESTIONS ...

Are you on Twitter? If so, how has it affected business?

No Twitter. We have a Facebook page one can access through our website.

Why a mobile business over brick-and-mortar?

Money. We want to see how this works without a huge financial commitment. We believe in "micro-economics."

Who are your typical customers? Any special regulars?

Bicyclists and bipedals receive $1 off each pizza. We offer this discount to discourage automobile dependency and believe it is establishing the neighbors, bikers, walkers, and public transporters as our regulars.

Describe a typical day from start to finish.

My typical day looks like:

9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.: bike to camper, make dough, prep all toppings, fill propane tanks (oven), fill fresh water tank, empty waste water tank
4 to 8pm: make pizza
8 to 9:30pm: clean up, inventory, bike home

How would you define "street food"?

Fast, cheap, fresh, unique.

The best street food city and why?

Portland! It's the only one I know.

Your comfort food after a long day?

Beer brewed in Oregon.

Advice for aspiring vendors?

It's a great affordable way of getting started in the food service business.

A Pizza-Eating Feat for the Ages

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 13:30:00 -0500

Stronger than ever as the month comes to an end [Photograph: Ron Kaplan]

Just three weeks ago, I introduced you to a man who was a week into his effort to complete what might be the greatest pizza-eating feat in the history of humankind. Thanks to an article in the Chicago Tribune, we now know the man's name is Craig Scharoff, he has a remarkably forgiving palate, and that if he made it through the entire month of October eating no food other than sausage pizza (with optional additional toppings), he stood to make a four-figure sum.

Well, October has come to an end and Scharoff can expect a check from his business partner, Ron Kaplan. To anyone who followed the thread at LTH Forum about Scharoff's quest, his success is no surprise. The man made it clear by the middle of October that he was an unstoppable pizza-eating force. He happily wolfed down pies regardless of their origin, seemingly getting as much pleasure from concession stand slices as he did from meticulously crafted high-quality pies.

Scharoff claims the challenge was easy. When asked if there was ever a point that he thought he might not make it, he said "not even close" and that he could do another 30 days if not for all the pictures and documenting he had to do. Both here and on the LTH thread, people questioned the effect of the challenge on Scharoff's health. Not only did he eat absolutely no vitamins or take any aids in the vein of Metamucil, but he never felt sick the entire month and, as of October 29, he lost 6 pounds since the challenge began.

At 4:00 this morning, Scharoff ate some of his wife's homemade wild rice soup. That was to be followed by a wide array of foods while tailgating before this afternoon's Bears game. Tonight, this great man, this pizza-eating machine, this hero to us all...tonight, he plans to eat pizza.

[Update, 11/2/09 at 1:20 pm] It turns out that Scharoff had a lot of leftovers from his tailgate, so he did not return to pizza last night. Too bad for him as it turns out the human digestive system can get used to eating nothing but pizza and does not react well to a return to a varied diet. Finally, Scharoff had a change of heart and instead of demanding the $2,000 payment from Kaplan, the pair decided to donate the money to the Northern Illinois Food Bank. Kudos to them both!

Portland, Oregon: Escape from New York Pizza

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 13:43:29 -0500

[Photographs: Adam Kuban]

Escape from New York Pizza

622 NW 23rd Avenue, Portland OR 97210; map); 503-227-5423
Pizza Style: New York–style
Oven Type: Steel-deck gas oven
The Skinny: A stand-up stand-in for a New York–style slice — but in Portland!
Price: $2.95 for cheese (plain) slice; $3.50, pepperoni

It's long, narrow, and often crowded. The folks behind the counter are reputed to have a bit of attitude but are actually pretty nice. It's cash-only and is open late. Sound New York enough for you yet?

Well, the slices deliver on the promise implied in this joint's name.

Yes, Escape from New York holds up surprisingly well against a typical true slice from New York. It's thin, crisp, cheesy, and greasy. It's not the best New York–style pizza I've ever had, but it's notches better than many of the honest-to-goodness NYC-based slices I've eaten.

Oh, and it has the price to match: $2.95 for a "cheese" slice (that's a "plain" slice for our New Yorkers in the audience) and $3.50 for a pepperoni slice. Actually, that's even a bit pricey (or "spendy," as Oregonians would say) for New York. These folks have balls.

Which is, again, very New York authentic. [After the jump, the upskirt and crumb shots.]

Escape from New York Pizza gets the upskirt treatment. This photo, when I posted it on my Flickr account, prompted normanhathaway to say, "When are they going to cook it?" But there's one Yelper who apparently digs it this way: "Best pizza in Portland. Simple affordable and good. Thankfully not artsy with burnt crust, no cheese, and no sauce like so much Portland pizza...."

And here's what the hole structure looks like.

Other Portland Pizzerias You May Enjoy

Ken's Artisan Pizza
Apizza Scholls: One of the Top Five Pizzerias in the U.S.

What Other Folks Are Saying

Extra MSG
Portland Pizza Review
Yelpers
Portland Mercury
Gayot
Lizzy Dishes Portland
Homebased Portland

Portland, Oregon: Ken's Artisan Pizza

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:35:00 -0500

You're probably wondering why it's been a bit quiet around here around Slice lately. Well, I'm on a crazy mission. I'm eating pizza in various western states this week on a whirlwind trip of five cities. Seriously, it's been nonstop travel with barely time to offload pics from my cameras. I'm just now catching up.

Ken's Artisan Pizza (top) is in a quiet residential neighborhood in Southeast Portland, a couple blocks south of Burnside and the more hoppin' part of SE 28th Avenue. That doesn't stop people from lining up before the place opens for creations like the Bacon Pie (above). [Photographs: Adam Kuban]

Ken's Artisan Pizza

304 SE 28th Avenue, Portland OR 97214; map); 503-517-9951; kensartisan.com/pizza.html
Pizza Style: Artisanal. Somewhat Neapolitan but not really.
Oven Type: A massive wood-burning beauty
The Skinny: Ken's Artisan Pizza is the outgrowth of weekly Monday pizza nights that baker Ken Forkish used to do at Ken's Artisan Bread in Northwest Portland. So popular, he opened a pizzeria

Lines, lines, lines. I've stood in them at Frank Pepe's and Sally's Apizza in New Haven, Connecticut. I've frittered away countless hours of my life waiting for Di Fara's Dom DeMarco, in Brooklyn, to do his thing. The Grimaldi's under the Brooklyn Bridge is famous for its line. This is all somewhat understandable; all these pizzerias are in cities known for the cheesy pies they produce.

So the thought of Portland, Oregon, having not one but two line-worthy pizzerias flummoxed me. See, I lived in Portland in the late '90s, and back then, there was no wait-worthy pizza. But I'd heard in various pizza circles and from my new friend, This Is Pizza's Adam Lindsley, that you'd better get to Ken's Artisan Pizza shortly before it opened if you wanted to be in the first seating of the night. (Yes, I mentioned there being two places; I'll post about the second one in a future entry.)

And so, I found myself once again, after a nine-year absence, on Southeast 28th Avenue, a strip that was at once familiar and quite a bit changed by the real estate boom of the early aughts-zeros.

I arrived at Ken's at 4:45 p.m. (it opens at 5 p.m.), and there was already a mini line consisting of a young couple and toddler and some other dude. Within the next five minutes, it was around the corner and past the windows you see on the left of the building.

The place filled up fast (above), and even though I was third in line, we almost didn't get a seat. This Is Pizza's Adam Lindsley showed up just before opening, but two other members of our party were just a tad late and the hostess put us in a holding pattern, understandably, not wanting to give up a four-top table without everyone present.

But all was fine once my friends showed up. We got a table right by the window with perfect light and ordered the following ...

An arugula pie, at my friends Guddy and Belle's suggestion. I'm usually not into salad on pizza, and I was surprised that Guddy, a hearty Chicago native, recommended it, so I figured it had something going for it. It wasn't my favorite pie of the Ken's visit, but I'd order it again. Plus, as the first pizza stop of this mad trip, I was preemptively trying to get some greens into my itinerary.

Of course we did a Margherita. I want to sample a plain, stripped-down pie at all the places in addition to a pie that is considered the place's specialty. As longtime Slice readers know, I've found the Marghertia or a plain cheese pizza a good way to benchmark a pizzeria's performance. You can more easily taste the flavor of the crust, sauce, and cheese.

And Ken's Margherita didn't disappoint. Befitting its bakery roots, KAP's crust is flavorful, crisp, and chewy. Whereas with many pizzas, you feel sort of an obligation to finish the crust even if it's bland (well, at least I do), you'd have no such problem with Ken's crust. It needs no embellishment, though it doesn't hurt to sop up any fallen sauce with these "pizza bones."

Despite the trend toward "artisanal" pizza, Ken's is one of the few places I've seen use the term in its name. And I soon found out why. Despite the size of the pies and the use of a gigantic wood-burning oven, Ken's really is less "Neapolitan" than just plain "artisan" (whatever "artisan" means).

There are little embellishments on the Naples style. Like this: As I had read on Lindsley's blog, the sauce, a tangy swath of orange-red, takes on some heat from a little bit of chile flakes and some added savoriness from fennel seeds.

Here's the Fennel Sausage, Onion, and Calabrian Chile Pizza. With the strong Margherita base topped with excellent sausage and fiery chiles, how could you not love this thing? This was my favorite of the Ken's portion of the evening.

And here's the upskirt. Yeah, it's probably not as "leopard spotted" as some folks would like, but I assure you it was flavorful, crisp, and chewy.

And here's the oven where the magic happens. This thing is gigantic. I've never seen a wood-oven as big as this one.

I'm going to have to cut this report short, as I'm writing from the airport and my plane to my next destination is about to board. I'll be back atcha later today with action from Apizza Scholls.

Pi Pizzeria, St. Louis: Checking Out President Obama's Purported Favorite Pie

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:15:00 -0500

Serious Eats Chicago contributor Daniel Zemans checks in with another piece of intel from the road, this time in St. Louis. —The Mgmt.

Pi Pizzeria

6144 Delmar Boulevard, St. Louis MO 63112 (map); 314-727-6633‎; restaurantpi.com
Pizza Style: Deep dish and thin crust
Oven Type: Gas
The Skinny: President Obama might not be a pizza expert, but Pi has some excellent deep-dish pizza. The thin crust pies, however, do not measure up as well
Price: Deep dish pies start at $12 and thin crust starts at $11
Notes: Second location just opened in Kirkwood; third location in Central West End opening late 2009

The current occupants of the White House have attained an unprecedented level of celebrity for a political family. Clothes and jewelry worn by the First Lady or the Obama children immediately become hot items. And, of course, President Obama's noted love for his BlackBerry made a fortune for RIM. Honestly, some of the reactions to the First Family's consumer choices make sense. The First Lady is fashionable, the kids are adorable, and if a communication device is good enough for the leader of the free world, chances are it's good enough for the rest of us. But there is nothing in the known history of any Obama that suggests they should be trendsetters in culinary adventures, something that is particularly applicable to the skinny man who is going to get me some high-quality health care on the cheap.

Yet I, like everyone else at Serious Eats and many around the country, talk about what the Obamas eat again and again and again. When word got out during the campaign that a place called Italian Fiesta was the Obama family's favorite pizzeria, for the first and last time in the nearly year and a half that I've been writing for Slice, Adam actually requested I review a specific pizzeria. In the course of my research, it turned out that the Obama love for Italian Fiesta was overstated. Michelle Obama was on record for having loved it, but there was nothing suggesting that the arugula-loving candidate cared for the greasy yet delicious comfort pies. Instead, pizza lovers learned, President Obama identified Pi Pizzeria in St. Louis as his favorite pizza. When I heard that, I was skeptical for two reasons. First, then Senator Obama ate pizza from Pi right after giving what had to be an adrenaline-pumping speech to 100,000 people. Second, Missouri was a swing state and Obama had to know picking St. Louis over Chicago in anything would go over very well. But having doubts and knowing he was playing politics are two different things, so on my recent trip to St. Louis, I went to Pi for some pie.

It's impossible to know just how much of Pi's success is due to President Obama, but it's clear he had a big impact. Not only did his praise bring in pizza tourists like me, but after word got out about Obama and Pi, residents of that that provel-loving town (they still choose Imo's as their favorite), happily waited over an hour for a table. Given Obama's stature in Pi Pizzeria lore, I was pretty surprised when I asked my server what pizza President Obama had declared his favorite and she didn't know (Pi had sent 5 different pizzas to the candidate). Knowing about his health-conscious ways, I'm guessing President Barack "What's a Half Smoke" Obama only bothered to try the thin crust. But to be safe, I went ahead and tried both.

The deep dish, which I got with Berkshire pork sausage and fresh mushrooms, was excellent. It's not the best I've ever had, but it's in the top few. The thick, corn meal heavy crust, was crisp, but not crumbly. It held up well, literally and in terms of taste, to the impressive amount of cheese, toppings and sauce. The rich, well-seasoned sauce was packed with nice bits of tomato. The only flaws in the pizza were the sausage and the overuse of oregano. Too much oregano is a forgivable, easily correctable error. But the choice of sausage, small bits of crumbled sausage, made no sense at all on a deep dish pizza. When you cook tiny pieces of sausage, you cook out more of the fat. When sausage loses fat, it gets dry and loses flavor. If the pizza is particularly thin and the sausage has a really good flavor, that can still work. It does not work on a deep dish pizza.

Most of the specialty pies at Pi are named after neighborhoods in St. Louis and San Francisco. St. Louis because that's where the pizzeria is located and San Francisco because that's the location of Little Star, the pizzeria Pi paid for use of its recipes. For the thin crust, I went with The Hill, named after the old Italian neighborhood in St. Louis. The Hill comes with pepperoni, salami, onions, green bell peppers, kalamata olives and banana peppers. This pie, which looked so good on paper, disappointed me.

The crust had some corn meal, but not nearly as high a corn ration as the deep dish. It had a good flavor and the texture, which was appropriately crisp and chewy, was right on. The mixture of flavors were a good idea, but the execution fell short. The salami was very good, but was completely overwhelmed by the pepperoni. The vegetables were all fresh but, as was the case with the meat, there was just too much for the cheese, sauce and crust to handle. Not a bad pizza by any stretch, but not one to go out of the way for.

So is President Obama's proclaimed love of Pi genuine? And, more important, is it worthy of our respect? On the first question, the fact that the White House had the people at Pi bring some pizzas to D.C. long after the election when buttering up Missourians was necessary suggests that Obama really did like Pi. On the second question, I don't have enough information. If the deep dish was what he loved, then it's a respectable choice. I can name five places in Chicago I think are better (Lou Malnati's, Pizano's, Pequod's, Burt's and Caffe Florian), but not by so much that someone liking Pi more is ridiculous. But if President Obama was speaking of the thin crust, then the man needs to broaden his pizza horizons.

Lou Malnati's: Home of Flawless Deep Dish
Pizano's: More Greatness from the First Family of Chicago Pizza
Pequod's: Come for the Carmelized Crust, Stay for Great Pizza
Burt's Place: Home of the Pizza King of Chicago
Caffe Florian: A Tourist-Free Gem in Hyde Park, Chicago
Italian Fiesta Pizzeria: The Obamas' Chicago Pizza Favorite, Reviewed

Enjoy Them. Oh, Yes, Enjoy Them While They Last

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 06:30:00 -0500

[Photograph: Adam Kuban]

I post this from Portland, Oregon, where I've seen this pizza box a few times now.

"ENJOY YOUR DELICIOUS MOMENTS," people.

Bloomberg's Pizza Money

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 11:06:24 -0500

From the Washington Post:

The bulk of Bloomberg's spending has gone into television, radio and Web advertising, it said.
But some of the money has trickled down to recession-hit small businesses, including Goodfellas Brick Over Pizza on Staten Island and in the Bronx. The Bloomberg campaign has so far forked over $8,892 for pizza at Goodfellas alone.

[Hat tip to Will F.]

From Serious Eats Talk: 'Pizza, a Cure for the Blues?'

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 18:59:09 -0500

On Slice parent site Serious Eats, dhorst asks, "Perhaps it's because it's rainy and cool here, or maybe the fact that he turned 45 last night and the kids did nothing but bicker throughout dinner, or maybe that he has to work all weekend, but for whatever reason my husband is feeling blue. Not mad, not grumpy, just blue. I mentioned that it's pizza night. A spark, a little grin, the man loves his pizza ... he'll be deciding just what he wants on his pizza and what kind of pizza he would like through out the day. I'll make it every night this weekend if it helps to cheer him up. So what do ya say? Does pizza cheer you up? What is it about pizza that seems to comfort you? What other food lifts your mood?" Slice and dice here »

Video: 30 Rock's Devon Banks on Cold Pizza the Morning After

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 13:20:33 -0500

On 30 Rock last night, Devon Banks (Will Arnett) returns to plot his revenge against Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin). A heated(?) exchange ensues about cold, morning-after pizza and hot, hot pizza:

Devon: You know, revenge is a dish best served cold, Jack. Like sashimi ... or pizza.
Jack: You prefer cold pizza?
Devon: The morning after? It's the best.
Jack: Better than hot pizza? That's insane.
Devon: You don't tell me what kind of pizza to like. You don't tell me anything anymore, Jack!

Another weird TV pizza reference: Doctor Who Tries to Call U.N.I.T., Dials Pizza Geronimo by Mistake

Whoa, Nella: Grassano's Return to Chicago's Pizza Scene Is Imminent

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 11:40:00 -0500

[Photographs: Franco Grassano]

Nella Pizzeria Napoletana

2423 N. Clark Street, Chicago, IL 60614 (map); 773-327-3400; no website yet
Getting There: #22 Clark Street bus to Clark and Fullerton, walk ½ block north
Pizza Style: Neapolitan
Oven Type: Wood

Since Spacca Napoli opened in early 2006, it has been, hands down, the best Neapolitan pizzeria in Chicago. At some point in the next few weeks, I predict that will no longer be the case. The reason: Nella Grassano, Spacca Napoli's original pizzaiola, the woman who taught most of Spacca's staff how to make pizza, is opening Nella Pizzeria Napoletana.

To say that Nella Grassano has pizza in her blood would be an understatement. She is a third-generation pizzaiola who has been involved in the pizza-making process since she started doing pizza prep work as a 6-year-old in her father's pizzeria in Lecco, a town about 30 miles from Milan. While two of her brothers and multiple cousins have gone on to open pizzerias, when they were all kids, Nella was by far the most passionate of the bunch when it came to devotion to pizza. Her father was happy to encourage her, and by the time she was 13 or 14, she was working as a pizzaiola in his pizzeria. [Photos of the oven build-out, after the jump.]

The new restaurant, which Nella is going to run with her husband, Franco, as well as Scott Harris of Francesca fame, is going to have 23 pizzas on its permanent menu as well as some specialty pies. In addition, Nella will serve up at least three additional members of the pizza family. There will be two or three different calzone fritos, which are fried calzones, more commonly known in this country as pizza puffs or panzerotti. Nella is also going to make meza luna, which is a cross between a Neapolitan pizza and a calzone. And finally, she will introduce Chicago (and perhaps the country?) to the Vesuvio, a Neapolitan version of a stuffed pizza that will have a bottom and top crust, sealed together. When the plate arrives at the table, the server will cut out a piece of the top crust, at which point eager diners will be treated to an eruption of cheese and sauce.

The oven itself is a point of personal pride for Grassano. Through her father, she reached out to three oven builders in Naples, a 70-year-old man and his two nephews, and brought them to Chicago to build an oven out of tufo, an Italian brick made from volcanic ash, and volcanic sand. Grassano is particularly proud of the fact that the dome was built right in her shop, brick by brick, which is apparently pretty rare in the brick oven pizza world as the domes tend to be built separately and then added onto the base.

The current plan is for Nella Pizzeria Napoletana to open in the first or second week of November. When it does, Nella will cook every pizza served for lunch and dinner seven days a week, making pies for the 120-130 people the restaurant will hold. There will be no delivery, but carry-out will be an option, though if one opts to take their pizza to go, they will be encouraged to try a bite in the restaurant so they can see what the pie is supposed to taste like.

South siders who don't want to go up to Lincoln Park for their Neapolitan fix need only be a little patient. The Grassano/Harris team are so confident that the Nella Pizza Napoletana will be a success that they are already working on their second location, which will be on Taylor Street in Little Italy. No pizzaiolo/a has been hired for that location yet, but Nella hopes to keep it in the family by getting one of her cousins to leave Italy for Chicago.

French in a Flash: Pizza Savoyarde

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 17:30:00 -0500

From Recipes

[Photographs: Kerry Saretsky]

Previously

Sorrel Shrimp Rissoles with Artichoke Aïoli »
All French in a Flash recipes »

When you think of Savoy, think of the Alps. There is something about the chill of a mountain that encourages you to eat your way into a pot-bellied stove, as if eating the food will lend you the experience of baking with it in a very warm and cozy place. Perhaps that is why anything "savoyarde" seems to contain three very comforting ingredients: gooey and smelly Reblochon cheese, potatoes, and ham—like tartiflette. It's hearty and perfect for winter.

Ironically, my first taste of Savoy was in a small seaside town in Provence called Cassis during the height of summer. I parked myself at a little crêpe establishment, and after some consideration, ordered the crêpe savoyarde. The crêpe was stuffed with running Reblochon cheese and potatoes, and on top of the envelope-fold of crêpe was placed a drape of jambon cru, like prosciutto. It was rich and wholesome and far too heavy for summer, so that I staggered back up the hot, hot hill to my house, feeling more like I resembled a snowman than a girl. But the crêpe's flavors worked so well together that I thought to myself instantly, "I want to make this into a pizza."

And sure enough, fresh off the plane, I started reconstructing my pizza savoyarde, crusting the pizza dough with scales of paper thin-sliced potatoes and planks of Savoy cheese. When they were crusty and crisp, I saddled the pizza with an avalanche of arugula and a blanket of Jambon de Bayonne. It was perfect—a mix between the very rich and the very fresh. It had heft, it had bite, and it was unusual: a white pizza with the unmistakable flavor, and odor, of France.

I was thrilled to share my original masterpiece with you all. But when I went to Google "pizza savoyarde" earlier today to refresh my grammatical memory as to the gender of "pizza" in French, I saw millions of pizza savoyarde recipes pop up on the screen! Turns out this week's recipe is more authentic—and less inspired—than I originally thought. Where others put crème fraîche, I put arugula, just to gently lighten the load. But be careful: as with tartiflette and crêpe savoyarde, it's a slippery Alpine slope to finding you've eaten the entire thing.

About the author: Kerry Saretsky is the creator of French Revolution Food, where she reinvents her family's classic French recipes in a fresh, chic, modern way. She also writes the The Secret Ingredient series for Serious Eats.

Pizza Savoyarde

- serves 6 -

Ingredients

1 1-pound ball of pizza dough
1 tablespoon olive oil, plus extra for drizzling
1/2 pound Reblochon cheese (if you can find it), or other washed-rind cow's milk cheese (extra points if it's from Savoy)
1 large Yukon gold potato, sliced 1/8-inch thick on a mandolin
1 scant tablespoon melted unsalted butter
6 slices jambon cru (Jambon de Bayonne or Prosciutto)
2 cups baby arugula
Salt and pepper

Procedure

1. Preheat the oven to 500°F.

2. Using some bench flour to prevent sticking, roll the pizza dough out to a 16 by 14-inch rectangle. Brush the dough with 1 tablespoon of olive oil, and season lightly with salt and pepper.

3. Cut the cheese into thin slices, and scatter them over the dough, leaving a 1-inch border as a crust. The cheese slices won't touch each other.

4. Arrange the potato slices so they overlap all over the surface of the pizza, again respecting the 1-inch crust. Brush with the melted butter, and season with salt and pepper.

5. Bake in the oven at 500°F for 15 minutes, until the potatoes are tender and starting to go golden, and the crust is puffed and crisp and cooked.

6. Arrange the jambon cru on the bias over the top of the pizza. Scatter with arugula, and drizzle with a touch of olive oil. Cut into squares, and serve.

Village Voice Responds to the Slice 'Flame'

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 12:34:01 -0500

Oh, wow. Village Voice food critic Robert Sietsema responds on Fork in the Road to the stuff I wrote yesterday in response to the Voice's Best-of picks:

And now, I have a new response:

A) Minor distinction: It wasn't a "flame," it was the Truth Hammer. Flames are done in spirit of meanness. That was not.

B) Sietsema has some good points ...

He brings up a really interesting one about how "Neapolitan" pizza has been bastardized in the U.S.:

New York pizza parlors that claim to make Naples-style pizzas are a joke on several levels, though sometimes they partly succeed in making crusts that taste somewhat like those of Naples. But then they totally fuck the rest of it up....
Here, Naples pizzas got all pretentious and weird, and hoisted prohibitive pricetags. And despite the superficial resemblance of the pies in some cases, the whole tradition has been totally betrayed on these shores. Here, the pies are often priced in the $15 to $20 range for a single small pie. In Naples, you choose your strew of toppings from a very limited list. Here, in response to what the owners cynically feel the public wants, pizzaioli throw all sorts of crap on their pies, stuff that doesn't belong there.

Honestly, I've never been to Naples. (And some of the first glimpses Slice readers got of the place were thanks to Robert — thanks, Robert!). It's one of the major holes in my pizza game. So I'll take Sietsema's word for it that we in the States are putting weird shit on pizzas that shouldn't be on there. To someone really versed in true Naples pizza, I'd imagine that would be akin to Americans' reaction to seeing Japanese shrimp-and-squid-and-corn pizza. But if crazy toppings disqualify a New York–based, Naples-leaning pizzeria from being "Naples-style," then shouldn't Roberta's get the boot, too, since its killer Cortes pie is as crazy (good) as all get-out? So the next question becomes ...

So why did we pick Roberta's as our favorite Naples style pie of the year? Because, in its vibe, genuine goodness, size of the pie, choice of local ingredients (very, very local), it comes closer than Keste or La Pizza Fresca or Motorino to capturing the spirit, and part of the taste, of Naples-style pizza.
Actually, come to think of it, Totonno's Pizzeria Napolitano come closer than all those places to the true spirit of Naples pies, in everything but size.
Rebecca Marx has just emailed me on the subject of the Slice flame: "I think it's funny that his refutation was about three times as long as what you guys had originally written. He says we're trying to spike readership and blog hits, but posts like his are written solely to accomplish the same goal."

Oh, touché on that last sentence! (Actually, I did fear that my contrarian take on the Voice's take would be construed as so much linkbaiting. But I did write that screed as a sincere observation. When we're going for link bait at Slice, we do shit like Top 10 Crazy Asian Pizza Crusts or who knows what else. And I won't pretend that we at Serious Eats don't try to do posts we think will get a lot of attention--our best-of posts are as much about finding the best XYZ as they are about generating discussion about those items.)

On Authenticity

Anyway, this all becomes a very interesting discussion about Naples vs. Naples-style vis-à-vis "authenticity" and bastardization, etc.

I've never been one to bow to the strictures of "authenticity." If Neapolitan pizza means a limited choice of toppings, then I'm all for bastardization--especially if it gives us Roberta's Cortes or Roberta's (apparently now gone) Da Kine pie or Motorino's brussels sprouts–and-pancetta pie.

Video: 'Naturally Risen' Redux

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 12:21:19 -0500

Yes, you may have seen this video by Michael Evans last month, when it was accidentally leaked on pizzamaking.com. Just wanted to let you know it's now embeddable and officially ready for prime time. If you didn't watch it then, watch it now. You will dig.

San Franciscans, take note. A preview of what's to come in the Ci-tay by the Bay. Whoa, oh whoa oh whoa.

Video: Pizza Party by Rachel Morrison

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 11:47:44 -0500

Remember that Pizza Party! video screening event we told you about back in July? Here's a video by Brooklyn artist Rachel Morrison that's intended as an intro for it. [via UO Blog]

Related: Wolf Choir's VIDEO PIZZA »

Pizza Hut Asking You to Come Up with 'Twintern' Job Title

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 10:57:32 -0500

Remember how Pizza Hut selected a "twintern" to tweet for them this summer (@pizzahut)? They were so impressed with Alexa Robinson that they've hired her on full-time. But now they need to give her a new title. They're asking Twitteronia for ideas and will award a prize (free pizza for a year) to the person who comes up with the winning title, which Robinson will choose. Suggestions can be found by searching the hashtag #pizzahuttitle. (My favorites so far are "Tweetza Chef" and "Pie Piper.")

K.C. Pit Master Making Smoked Pizza

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 10:29:52 -0500

The Wilmington Star News reports on a recent WTF pizza moment at the Currituck BBQ Classic in Corolla, North Carolina:

When I heard [Chris] Marks say that at the recent Currituck BBQ Classic in Corolla, I thought, "He's smoking something." But Marks was serious. The owner of Kansas City's Three Little Pigs BBQ & Catering told me he simply places rolled-out pizza crust directly on the smoker grate, adds sauce, cheese and toppings and then bakes the pizza for about 45 minutes at about 275 degrees. The crust, he says, comes out cracker crisp, the pie smoky and flavorful.

Roberta's the 'Best Naples-Style Pizza'? Really, Village Voice?

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 17:38:10 -0500

[Photograph: Robyn Lee]

The Village Voice has named Roberta's in Bushwick 2009's Best Naples-Style Pizza.

Look, I'm going to say it: Roberta's makes inventive pizza. Roberta's makes great nonpizza food—amazing nonpizza food, even. Roberta's laid-back atmosphere makes you feel at home. But Roberta's does not make the best Naples-style pizza in the city.

The sustainorganica thing? Very cool and laudable. The beer garden and the shipping-container radio studio and the rooftop garden? All really, really cool. I love the atmosphere of the place and its vibe.

But I think all that other stuff has distracted them from their pizza game. When I first visited earlier on in Roberta's life span, I thought the pizza was good but had room for improvement. The crust was flavorful but was too chewy and often crunchy rather than perfectly crisp-pliant. It remains so to this day.

It seems that rather than concentrate on the pies, the owners have chosen to expand in all directions.

Which is fine. As Ed Levine mentioned in his review of the place, "Roberta's varied and decidedly nontraditional toppings are where this place makes its mark in New York's hypercompetitive pizza scene."

Pizzas like the improbable Cortes (chorizo, crema fresca, jalapeño, shaved radish, pickled red onion, and cilantro) are confounding in theory and awesome in reality. But the crust at Roberta's is more a vehicle for delivering these unique flavor combos to your mouth. You would be hard-pressed to put a Roberta's Margherita or a Roberta's RPS (roasted red peppers and spicy soppressata) up against their counterparts at Motorino. The puffy end crust, crisp-chewy overall crust, and airy hole structure of Motorino is just not there in the Roberta's crust. And no matter how inventive the toppings, without a great foundation, you can't call it the best.

Best-of Lists Predictably Unpredictable

See, it's because best-of lists are a yearly trope with alt-weeklies and local magazines in every city. And unless there's a lot of openings and closings or a serious attempt at betterment on the part of a restaurant/pizzeria or a disastrous drop in quality, the best XYZ is pretty much going to remain the same from year to year.

So to introduce some variety into the annual dog-and-pony show, publications have to get all "unpredictable," picking a seemingly nonintuitive place to fill the top spot. Hence you get Mister Softee named Best Soft Serve and a pork bun named Best Hamburger.

It's become even more important in recent years to do this sort of thing, since you can pretty much go on any social-web review site and get an idea of the top spots are in the popular imagination. Also because, with a shrinking readership of the print product, you want to get a hundred and one blogs writing screeds decrying your picks.

Like I'm doing now. D'oh.

Blah blah blah. So in short, Roberta's is awesome on many levels, but best Neapolitan pizza joint in the city? Naw, sorry.

Jim Lahey Pontificates on Pizza

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 15:55:25 -0500

[Photograph: Adam Kuban]

Noted no-knead breadman and Co. Company founder Jim Lahey discourses on pizza as he sees it (even lapsing into the third person) on The Atlantic Food Channel:

I sought to open Co., to create this organic place. What I mean is, I don't ask my kitchen staff to manipulate ingredients to fit some pre-exisiting ideal of how a pizza should look. We don't place each piece of cheese perfectly on a pie--where it lands, it lands. Our menu tells guests: "Our Pies are Not Always Round." It's a joke but it isn't. People expect pies to be round. They expect each slice to have 3.5 pieces of pepperoni. I'll never serve what people think is a pepperoni pie....
Forcing a pizza, or anything, to fit into a perfectly round circle takes away from the pleasure of cooking. It compromises the integrity of the ingredients. While my roots are in Italy and the Roman and Neapolitan styles have influenced me greatly, that's not what I want Co. to be. My pies are my bread. Co. is Jim Lahey's version of the modern day global pizza parlor, not a modern day Italian pizza restaurant. But as Co. grows and I grow to create a full cyclical menu with seasonal pies, I think the guests of Co. will begin to understand what we are.

[Hat tip to Daniel Z.]

Co. Company

230 Ninth Avenue, New York NY 10001 (at West 24th Street; map)
212-243-1105; co-pane.com

Video: Crispycones Pizza Cone on 'Colbert Report'

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 12:45:00 -0500

Crispycones appeared on the October 15, 2009, Colbert Report. Stephen gives it both a Tip of the Hat and a Wag of the Finger for being too easy to eat. The cone-shaped treat solves an age-old problem—namely the difficultly inherent in eating a slice of pizza.

And, hah! The Crispycones website has embedded the Colbert video. [via Eat Me Daily]

Pizza Cones Ad Nauseam
Pizza in a Cone: Crispycones
Pizza in a Cone: Kornet Pizza
Pizza Cones Make U.S. Debut in K.C. Mall

Thai Pizza Co in St. Louis: Testing the Universality of Pizza

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 10:30:00 -0500

Serious Eats Chicago contributor Daniel Zemans checks in with another piece of intel from the road, this time in St. Louis. —The Mgmt.

[Photographs: Daniel Zemans]

Thai Pizza Co.

608 Eastgate, St. Louis, MO 63130 (map); 314-862-4429‎; patsthairestaurants.com
Pizza Style: Thin crust
Oven Type: Gas
The Skinny: A noble but unsuccessful attempt to expand the pizza world
Price: 9" pizzas are $8 each
Notes: Closed Wednesdays

On a recent trip to St. Louis, I was wandering down Delmar in the Loop, when neon lights a few doors down a side street called out to me. I ran over to see if my eyes were telling the truth and was ecstatic to discover a restaurant called Thai Pizza Co. The restaurant is owned by Supatana "Pat" Prapaisilapa, who deserves credit for being one of the first and most successful people to bring Thai food to St. Louis. Thai Pizza Co. is one of six Thai restaurants run by Prapaisilapa in St. Louis. The company's website actually gives Prapaisilapa credit for introducing Thai food to St. Louis, a claim whose veracity I cannot confirm or disprove. As he built up his empire, he stayed focused in the same neighborhood, which sits on the border of St. Louis and University City, very close to Washington University.

Thai Pizza Co. started serving up pizza in 2004, when the space that formerly housed Thai Seafood, another Prapaisilapa venture. The concept is pretty straightforward—take Thai food and put it between a pizza crust and some cheese. Other than the sandwich, there may be no type of food more adaptable to different cultures than pizza. But after my experience eating Korean pizza at Cheogajip and now this one at Thai Pizza Co., I'm starting to question the universality of pizza because this one did not work for me at all.

There really isn't much worth reporting on the actual pizza. There are twelve different options for toppings and two different crusts, one thin and one thick. I opted for a thin crust with green curry, which included chicken, mushrooms, onions, green peas, fresh basil, coconut milk and bell pepper. The virtually flavorless factory made crust was neither remotely crisp nor pleasantly chewy. The cheese, listed on the menu as mozzarella but actually a combination of mozzarella and cheddar, was the best part of the pizza. That blend, which is standard at The Pizza Company, the biggest pizza chain in Thailand, could work, but here served to completely overwhelm a relatively bland and completely sauceless green curry chicken.

Part of the conflict between the cheese and the toppings was due to the sheer quantity of cheese, but I can't help but wonder if there are parts of the globe where people have a problem merging their cuisines with a good crust and appropriate cheese (I'm looking at you, East and Southeast Asia). I suppose it makes sense that people who do not ordinarily incorporate cheese into their cooking would have trouble merging the flavors they normally put out with cheese, but it still pained me to discover that the Thai Chicken Pizza at California Pizza Kitchen is leaps and bounds better than the pie I had at Thai Pizza Co.

Despite my experience at Thai Pizza Co. and Cheogajip, I'm holding out hope that either there is East or Southeast Asian pizza that will either shock me with their deliciousness or at least have a taste i can learn to love. Slice readers, I ask you: Have you ever had pizzas you really enjoyed that featured foods from places that don't normally use cheese in their cuisine?

Top 10 Crazy Asian Pizza Crusts
Peking Duck Pizza at Costco (in Taiwan)
Saag Paneer Pizza: Why Not?
Gyro Pizza at Chicago's Italian Express
Paula & Monica's, Chicago: When an Italian Beef Makes Love to a Pizza

Date Artichoke's Sal Basille

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:45:09 -0500

From a Time Out New York slideshow of single chefs and food-industry types. Sal Basille of Artichoke Basille's is slide No. 8.

Deal: Any Pizza, Plus 2 Beers, $22.50 at Emporio

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:19:33 -0500

The EaterNY blog brings word of a deal Monday nights at Nolita's Emporio. Any pie on the menu, plus two beers, for $22.50. Choose a high-priced pie, and you'll have yourself a good deal. 231 Mott Street, New York NY 10012 (Spring/Prince; map); 212-966-1234; auroraristorante.com

Mobile Wood-Fired Oven Now at Bethesda Central Farm Market

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:27:30 -0500

[Photograph: Washington Post]

What a difference a little more than a year makes. After first IDing the mobile-pizza-oven trend in June 2008, we're seeing wood-fired-oven trailers popping up everywhere. The latest, in the D.C. area, is being called Wood-Burning Pizza On the Go and makes appearances at the Besthesda Central Farm Market in Bethesda, Maryland.

The Washington Post has the story here:

Market co-manager Mitch Berliner says plans are afoot to fire up custom-order breakfast pizzas and more starting next week, using produce, eggs and charcuterie from the market ($8 and up).

The market is open Thursdays and Sundays. Locations and hours here: bethesdacentralfarmmarket.com.

Pizza Deal: $5 Margherita Pizzas at Williamsburg's Fornino

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 12:29:09 -0500

From an email from Fornino's Michael Ayoub: "Slice is not the only one with an anniversary. Fornino is celebrating its fifth anniversary on October 20... I am offering $5 Margherita pies for five days, beginning October 19. Available for lunch and dinner, in the restaurant and for pick-up." 187 Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn NY 11211 (at North 7th Street; map); 718-384-6004; forninopizza.com

Nomad Pizza Co. Photo Gallery

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 23:13:59 -0500

[Photographs: Adam Kuban, except where noted]

A few weeks ago, a pizza field trip essentially organized itself in the comments of a post about Nomad Pizza Co. On Saturday, the field trip finally happened. Among those on hand: Famdoc, Philip Given, Jason IDOP, Stacey Snacks, Ciao Chow Linda, Nick Sherman, Scott Wiener, Sean Taylor, Paulie Gee, Brownie, and Cary and Lillian Steiner. (Wow. Did I get everyone with a URL?) Slideshow photo gallery, after the jump.

Pics, Finally, from the Pieman's Craft Event

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 12:00:00 -0500

[Photograph: Adam Kuban]

Well, it only took me a week, but I've finally processed the photos from last Saturday and Sunday's Pieman's Craft events. You'll find the slideshow after the jump.