Potato Pizza

I've recently made a discovery: New York Pizza has started to stink. Sure sure, there’s still that place around the corner you love, or that one place you know out in Brooklyn, but I tell you this, that place used to be on every other block. I’ve heard theories ranging from the water to the mob, and am not wholly convinced about any of them. Personally, I blame the tourists for not knowing any better. They’ll eat slices from Famous-Original-First-Ever-Whatever-Adjective-We-Use-To-Describe-Ray’s-Pizza and then take pictures of the store-front and tell all their friends about the great pizza they ate in midtown. Because of this, the pizza joints don’t really have to try so much any more. And it’s not just in midtown.

It was with this in mind that I began, call it… a quest. I need to find pizza in New York that I know as my own. Since then, I’ve been sampling just about any pizza I can find. There are qualifications. 1) A New York Slice is thin, not too little cheese, not too much. 2) There is a decent amount of sauce on the slice, but not so much as it overpowers the rest of the meal. 3) The slice should not cost more than two dollars. And finally, 4) You can get a slice at the counter, and walk out eating it.

I have tried many of the pizza places in New York, but I have not yet found my perfect slice. The closest I’ve come is Nina’s Pizza on Meeker Ave off Sutton in Greenpoint. It fulfilled all qualifications except for the crust, which was thicker than a traditional New York slice. I no longer live in Greenpoint, and Nina’s is a ways off the L train, so it’s not really in the running for me anymore anyway. So I’m still looking for my slice again. Still, while I’ve been looking, I have found a number of extremely wonderful alternatives.

My current favorite is the potato pizza from the Sullivan Street Bakery on 47^th between 10^th and 11^th. For those of you who hear “potato pizza” and quiver, you have no idea what you’re missing. Sullivan Street’s potato pizza has a very thin crust, covered in scalloped potatoes. There’s perhaps half an inch of potato on top of the crust. There’s no sauce, no cheese, just crust and potato. The slices are small, but heavy. It’s three bucks a slice, but if you eat two that’s a decent meal, and in midtown, a six dollar meal means a lot.

The pizza itself is absolutely fantastic. It’s served room temperature. The crust is very moist where it touches the potatoes, but crunchy just underneath. I think there’s some onion in there, but that might just be me trying to figure out how to make it. The pizza is well spiced, a bit of rosemary is in there, good amount of salt and pepper. I have no idea if it actually is healthy, but I know that at the very least, it tastes that way.

Anyway, even if you’re not so into potato pizza (which you really should be, I mean, it’s potato, and it’s pizza – there’s nothing NOT to love), you might still want to check out the Sullivan Street Bakery. The bread’s outstanding, and they’re known for having some of the best sandwiches in town. I haven’t tried them. My buddy James has, and though he didn’t agree with “best sandwiches in town” he did like the sandwich. Also, there are another four kinds of pizza. There’s the mushroom, which I won't eat because I can't stand mushrooms. A friend of mine tried it though, and proclaimed it the best mushroom pizza he'd ever eaten. There’s one with just a tomato sauce on top, which I thought was decent, but inferior to the potato. Also, they have a plain crust which I have no interest in, and a zucchini which I haven’t gotten up the nerve yet to try. What can I say? I work in midtown, and I need to be able to find food cheap that I will want to eat!

So if you find yourself in the forties with nothing to do, I’d take the hike out to 10^th and check out the Sullivan Street Bakery. And if you find great pizza for less than two bucks, I’d appreciate a shout.

Eating in SpaHa (First in a series)

It's been about three weeks since I moved to Spanish Harlem and I've finally started to get out and eat here.

Patsy's Pizzaria
1312 2nd Ave

Like a first kiss, Patsy's will always have a special spot in my heart. Their 69th and 2nd restaurant was the only place I'd eat when I came to New York City before I lived here. The copper ceiling, the same eastern European waitress every time, the crispy, crunchy, basil and mozzarella-covered paper-thin pies.

Anyway, I never thought I'd have cause to go to the 118th and 1st Avenue location, but now that it's 3 minutes away I imagine I'll be going frequently. This Patsy's, I discovered is different from the others.

It's a lot more like a regular old pizza place than the downtown Patsies. No copper ceilings, no eastern European servers, no basil/mozz; just plain old awesome pizza. It was fitting that I went to this Patsy's with Marc, the guy who introduced me to Patsy's in the first place all those years ago.

The pies are $11, which puts them about $3 to $5 cheaper than the other Patsy's locations, so we started off with some absolutely killer calimari (note: on a subsequent trip with Amy, they were even better). The thin, crispy crust exhibited slight floppiness.

Haven't tried the real food yet but I will. Oh will I ever.

Orbit
2257 1st Ave

This one came highly recommended by our broker and our first almost-landlord and Liz and I decided to go there for her birthday. Relaxed, dark atmosphere, good waitstaff, standard cocktails.

I got the Chicharron de Pollo (chicken marinated in Rum and garlic then fried in a light batter) and it was dry and unimpressive. The sweet plantains and corn and even the broccoli were, on the other hand, quite good.

Liz ended up choosing penne with a spicy vodka sauce, which she loved.

For dessert we got a bomba (molten chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream) and bread pudding. I was skeptical of the latter and Liz outright said that after her summer in the deep south knew she wouldn't like it. The only other choice on the dessert menu was an apple crisp. Anyone can make a decent apple crisp and it tastes, well, like an apple crisp, so we boldly tried the bread pudding.

The apple-studded dulce-de-leche drizzled bread pudding rocked my world and molten chocolate cake, lived up to its gooey, chocolatey potential.

I'll go back.

Many thanks to Slice over at flickr for the pizza. They have a popular NY pizza blog too.

Review: Pala

I'd been reading about Pala's pizza since it opened up this past winter. After some mixed reviews (Eater said Pala is "the newest best thing to happen to NY pizza" and The Girl Who Ate Everything gave it an enthusiastic review). So, needless to say I was excited about eating there.

My dad and stepmother came into the city to belatedly celebrate my birthday and after walking around for 7 or 8 hours, it was 10pm and we needed to eat. In my food blog readings, I'd seen a lot of ink on the Rivington/Stanton area, so we took the J (oh god) up to Essex.

The area around this stop isn't merely unphotogenic and almost completely devoid of food, the whole place smelled like dead fish. We were happy to leave it as we got closer to Riv/Stanton. I kept trying to pry out preferences from them, so we'd know what we wanted when we got there, but they finally told me that because it was my special day, I could choose whatever restaurant I wanted. Thirty seconds later, we came upon Pala.

They were surprised and, audibly disappointed that I'd chosen a pizza place. We were seated immediately and ordered some antipasti: marinated eggplant, artichokes, and baked fennel. Each of us were excited about one particular antipasti, mine was the artichokes, but the marinated eggplant was the overall, phenomenal, winner. Eggplant is a hard sell with me, but these guys made the most tender, pleasant eggplant I've ever eaten. The fennel was much better than I'd expected, as the cooking reduced the intensity if its black licorice taste. Aand the artichokes were dry and uninspiring.

Then on to the pizza. The pizza at Pala comes by the foot and is made to order, with a 20- to 40- minute wait. One foot per person is about right for most normal people - we had to leave one lonely piece at the end. Our orders were the Bufala Cruda (buffalo mozzarella, cherry tomato sauce, fresh basil, and olive oil), Mediolanum (gorgonzola cheese, asparagus, fior di latte mozzarella, and tomato sauce), and the Ubriaca (ubriaca cheese, pancetta, fior di latte mozzarella, parsley).

Bufala - standard, needed more cheese
Mediolanum - great but a bit dry
Ubriaca - nearly perfect in every way. The saltiness of the pancetta really added a punch.

The best part of these pizzas, as most reviewers will tell you, is the crust. It's apparently made with 12 different flours and is left to stand for 24 to 60 hours to develop the flavors. It comes out tasting wheaty and yeasty; excellent mouthfeel, which to me means tender with a moderate amount of chewiness; and about twice as thick as the standard, thin, New York crust (which is to say up to a 1-inch thickness).

The wines, we got an Albarino from Rias Baixas, Spain, hit an awesome price point, with most bottles going for under $40 (low end was mid-$20s, I think).

Overall, Pala is an amazing place, though not somewhere to go if you're in a hurry.

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