| 7 March 2006
Talk Pizza To Me
 I've gotten some quality responses to my pizza post.....
Michael Martin writes:
Best pizza ever in my life was someplace in Manhattan--a little hole-in-the-wall that we happened upon by accident back in '00. Probably people in NYC know the the name of the joint--I recall there was a photo of Paul McCartney on the wall, and something or other about how he loved their pizza so much that he had it flown over to him on the Concorde.
But gawd, so fooking good. It was "NY" style--meaning thin white crust. Wish I knew the secret, but everything--flavor, texture, overall pizza aesthetics--the best ever. For me, thin crust rules. Chicago style much too doughy.
Agreed about the thin crust. Hate thick, spongey crusts. He's not too keen on Hawaiian pizza though:
Pineapple on pizza is so gay.
Philistine. Michael recommends porter or shiraz as his favoured pizza beverage.
Tony from Melbourne:
We have, in my opinion, the best and worst pizza shops in Melbourne within 5 minutes drive of my place.
Best: Sergios, High St Ashburton.
They have one of those hi tech conveyor ovens, so they always come out well cooked. Generous with toppings. Low fat cheese. High turnover so fresh toppings.
Clean amenities, which I use as a proxy for general standards of hygiene. Fantastic coffee. Not much in the way of ambience.
Only negative? Crap service. Been going there 15 years, they don't know my name or Jill, my partners.
I always take one beer and a bottle of red (gotta love BYO don't you) and every fucking time we sit down, they bring over a glass for my beer, (and we are talking once a week for fifteen years here) and every time I say "no glass thanks" 'cause I think it makes my beer go flat. Every week.
Tony, apart from telling us to avoid a Melbourne pizza joint called 'Sofias', also brings us a pizza horror story from the USA....
I was in Chicago late last year, and had Friday night free with my boss. So, we decided to go score a cheap Italian and then go to a couple of blues clubs I had been told to check out.
So I asked the doorman at our hotel "where do you go for a good "locals" style Italian meal?" And he sends us to the place that sells the best pizza in chicago. His words, And says, you must try the deep dish house specialty.
So, we get there, queue for nearly an hour. You then have to order, then go to the bar and have a few drinks. They eventually call your name and take you to a table, and they bring out your food.
I should mention the oven. A huge carousel thing about 20 ft long that rolled not unlike an escalator. They just kept on putting pizzas on the steps, which rotate back and up into the oven, with cooked pizza returning at the end of the loop. Must have held 200 pizzas. No kid.
Anyway, I am starving by this stage.
My boss & I work out they just keep the pizza on standby till your table is available, which means its overdone in our case by the time it arrives.
So, out comes my medium size pizza. It's 18 inches across for starters. The crust is ½ inch thick on the bottom and about 1 and ½ " high on the sides. The "topping" goes in first, on the bottom.
The whole pizza is then covered with ½ an inch of cheese. The cheese is then covered with ½" of tomato paste. So my pizza PIE is about two inches thick. Hmm, I thinks, well I am hungry, so....
First mouthful and all I can taste is salt. So much salt you literally could not taste anything else. Just fucking disgusting.
Meanwhile, at the table next to us, two locals (about the size of a house each) were going into a feeding frenzy with two family size salt flavoured pizzas (after having entrees) literally grabbing slices with both hands and just stuffing them down like the proverbial last meal. No wonder they are all so fat over there. I am surprised they live long enough to get fat, with all the salt they put on everything.
Anyway, our two inedible pizzas cost us (with drinks) eighty five plus tip.
.....thus proving one of my laws of pizza: the more expensive the restaurant, the worse the pizza is. There are exceptions of course, but it's a useful rule of thumb.
Future Canadian PM Damian Penny throws in his two cents:
"Gourmet pizza" is an oxymoron, like "democratic socialist".
Amen brother. Sadly, Damian likes thick crusts, but he's a genius when it comes to pizza toppings:
MEAT, MEAT, MEAT.
Hmm, not quite enough meat for me, but it's close. Like me, Damian likes Coke with his pizza and reckons his midget burg of Corner Brook has two of the best pizza joints on earth. He also says pineapple and egg on pizza are for idiots. Stoopid canuck.
Former blogger Sasha Castel weighs in with the following pizza manifesto:
As a native New Yorker, I've got a soft spot for the large, NY style pizza served by the slice.
Sal's and Carmine's at Broadway and 102nd street, makes my favorite, although Broadway Pizza and Pasta at 231st in Kingsbridge is a worthy contender as well. Slices are to be eaten folded, in a paper plate, with a napkin tucked into the crease to catch the dripping oil. A paper plate under the slice helps guard fingers from burns. I have never tried the "double": two slices atop one another and then folded, in the manner of John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever.
New York also has many great pie palaces where one orders entire pizzas.Tops among these are Totonno's, Patsy's, Nick's and Giovanni's on Arthur Avenue. Many of the best are made with fresh mozzarella and basil, and the crusts are bubbly and charred from the brick oven. Charcoal- and wood-fired ovens are best, but satisfactory results can be obtained from gas ovens. It is permissible to eat this pizza with a knife and fork, at least for the first few bites.
The ideal pizza should have a crust that is flexible enough to fold easily, yet not soggy, and crisp enough to offer a bit of tooth-resistance but not break when folded. If a knife and fork are needed, the crust is just not right. Sauce should be a thin layer, just enough to marry the cheese and crust. Excessive drippiness/goopiness of sauce is very unappealing.. The sauce should be a simple smooth puree of tomatoes and the tiniest pinches of salt, sugar and herbs. Excessively sweet, chunky or herbal sauces are bad. Straining is a necessity... bits of tomato peel or seed are distracting and yucky. The cheese must be mozzarella, period. None of this abomination that the Australians call "tasty" cheese. It does not melt properly and becomes disgustingly greasy and rubbery. The mozzarella can be fresh or aged, and should be a light even layer on the pizza. Not so much that it weighs the pie down, but not so little that you leave "bald spots".
As to the thorny subject of toppings: I am a fan of the unadorned "plain" or "cheese" pizza but I also love pizzas made with good-quality meats: sausage, salami, ham or pepperoni. Personally I don't care for vegetables on my pizza, but onions, olives, mushrooms and the like are acceptable. Hard-cooked eggs or pineapple have no place on pizzas.
I have not had much experience with Chicago-style deep-dish pizza, except at the wildly variable Pizzeria Uno chain. Certainly I'm not prepared to concede pizza superiority to the Windy City.
There is an excellent blog devoted to New York pizza, www.sliceny.com, which is publishing excerpts from food guru Ed Levine's new book, Pizza: A Slice of Heaven.
Dominos and Pizza Hut are barely acceptable subtitutes for real pizza, if you're starving and need a grease fix. However, one cannot hope to achieve true pizza gestalt with these products. Likewise, supermarket frozen pizzas are for emergency situations only.
The best pizza I've had in Australia is served at the Cork Street Cafe in rural Gundaroo, NSW.
Feh. "Tasty" cheese works quite well thank you.
Thankfully, there are sane Americans who appreciate the finer things in the universe of pizza. Dave Schipani describes his conversion to the Dark Side of Pizza (ie. pineapple n' ham):
No rational person would put a sweet fruit on a pizza. It couldn't possibly work. When my buddy insisted I try it, I knew it would taste like shit and prove he's as big an idiot as I thought.
It was heaven. I'll have no other pizza now.
It shouldn't work, and it's one of life's beautiful mysteries that it does. And the fact that a Muslim will never savor it makes it all the sweeter.
Indeed.
Andrew Collins - another blessed thick crust hater - has a strange affection for seafood pizzas:
I grew up in San Francisco (I'm 51) and it has been the only place where I could find a clam and garlic pizza (always ask for extra garlic - the waitress will think you're a
stud). This remains my favorite pizza.
Hmm, I'm not too keen on seafood on pizza, but Andrew chimes in with some more interesting pizza talk:
Leftover pizza, cold out of the reefer, is a completely different food. But a good food. Pizza doesn't let you down.
My brother built a brick oven next to his barbecue pit and we've been working on perfecting pizza recipes (dough, timing, heat, etc.). This is a fine excuse to drink beer and simultaneously hone ones culinary skills, outdoors, no less.
Unfortunately, these experiments may take years. And years. We will persevere but I do think we could use some help on this from our Australian brothers and sisters. Let me know if you want me to send you plans for a simple outdoor oven. The gospel needs to be spread.
Interestingly, the consistently "best" pizzas I've ever had were in Copenhagen.
Heh. And yeah, please send me plans for your outdoor pizza oven.
Derek from Canada adds his thoughts:
The WORST pizza I have ever had was undoubtedly in Italy. Crap so
absolute, it cries out for a new level of descriptive taxonomy, and legal
sanctions. Among it's many transgressions in the domain of Pizza Law, this
particular vendor made a version with an entire intact fish, laying jelly
like in repose amid the cheese and pepperoni. Give me a break. If I was
inclined to eat a fish... would I eat a pizza?
No shit. He continues.....
The BEST pizza is a tie. First: a first class little steamy curbside
pizza vendor in St. Louis. A sort of stop- the- cab- on- the- way- home from
the Irish bar near the Arch. While it remains a possibility that the actual
memory of the slice was colored by the excesses of to many Killkennys, it
remains lofty in the brain records of great pizza I have had. It was a
conventional cheese and ground beef experience (and had a few ((And FEW is
the key)) chopped onions on it). It was sublime, thin crust and all. Second:
I had a pizza in Singapore (Canadian Pizza) that was memorable in the
extreme. They use these little scooters to deliver and I had been seeing
them all over town for about a year before I actually ordered one. And it
was divine.
Singapore? That's a surprise. They seemed unable to cook anything remotely western when I was there.
Derek finishes off with some fine wisdom:
There are some things that are just against the laws of the universe with
respect to Pizza.
* Deep dish: Just cheap American marketing nonsense to revitalize a
flagging junk food.
* Cheese actually inside the crust: Does this nonsense actually
require a comment?
* Thick crust: Never understood the need to eat pounds of dough in
order to get at the real essence of the Pizza. Lets keep in mind the simple
engineering of the pizza: the dough is designed as a vehicle to support the
business end of a pizza, not form a substantial portion of the overall mass.
As an example of my capacity to adapt, should you accuse me of being to
staid in my thinking, I have come to love the use of pineapple and ham on a
pizza. Done well, it can be hard to beat.
I had a roommate in university, who was allergic to cheese. We had the
dubious pleasure, of a Friday nite, to order a cheese-less Pizza. This
actually has to be tried to be adequately evaluated. Mere description of the
process fails to bring one a taste of the pointlessness of the exercise. It
is sort of like a dough deli tray.
Amen, amen and amen.
Jason is another who recommends the virtues of a proper pizza ovens:
If you have the space and the means get yourself a wood fired pizza oven. If you rent, “portable” ones are available. I use the term portable loosely as the things are made from cast iron, stainless steel, internal firebricks and a large cooking stone. I strongly recommend them as they also make excellent large ovens for cooking exceptionally large pieces of critters of all kinds.
Former New Yorker Michael Fisher likes his grease:
As a former resident of NY state, I am obviously an expert on pizza. The crust doesn't matter much, it's the toppings and, most importantly, the sauce. Never, ever, ever, ever put sugar in any kind of tomato sauce, much less for pizza.
In the Wash DC area, there's a pizza chain, Poppa John's, that has very good crust (not too thin, not too thick, nice fluffiness where there's no toppings), great toppings (they use some fine cheeses and really good meats, they have the best sausage topping in this area) but they put sugar in the sauce. I will never order another one. If I want sweet, I'll have dessert, thank you very much.
Domino's is one of the worst pizzas out there, except for all the rest outside of NY and Chicago. I order Domino's regularly when I'm not in NY, never in NY. That's like going to Venice, Italy and eating at the Pizza Hut there.
In the US pretty much only the northeastern part and the Chicago area know how to use grease properly. I think it's because of Greek and Italian immigrants (I'm Italian). Most nationalities just really don't understand good grease. You never, ever, ever let soap touch where you are cooking grease. At most, you spray water on it when it's hot and scrape older accumulations off.
I'm not saying that greasy pizza is good or that grease is good, I'm saying that to make good pizza you need to understand grease. In NY, every other diner is Greek, every other pizza place is Italian. They just understand good grease.
Mmmmm......grease......
Ozblogger Patrick Hawke reckons he's got the best pizza in his own home:
My Mrs. makes the best Pizza in the cosmos. The crust has olives embedded in it, and the topping has Italian sausage, hot Hungarian Salami and all sorts of good shit on it. No anchovies though. Obscenities that they are.
She bakes it on an outdoor grill on a Pizza stone. The thing is near two inches think before it's baked. Before that, I had never had anything like it.
PS. I used to like pineapple on Pizzas but I can't imagine it fitting in with all the hot and spicy stuff I now enjoy.
Sounds great, though I can't stand olives.
More pizza porn in tomorrow night's update. Stay tuned.
Mmmmm......pizza.....
And another thing....
Attention Americans: a whole pizza is not a "pie", it's a fucking pizza.
What, no Highlander 2???
EW lists the worst sequels of all time. Other than the glaring omission of the aforementioned catastrophe, it's pretty spot-on. And finally, someone gets it right about Godfather III: yes, Sofia Coppola was bad, but she's nowhere near the worst thing about that abortion.
Springfield in 3D
How cool is this: the opening theme of the Simpsons, recreated in the "real" world.
Thanks to reader Laura W. for the link.
My review of The Oscars
Oh, who cares. I'd rather catch herpes.
A new one for the glossary
FamilyGuyDisintegration - a TV show that makes you laugh a few times, so it takes you a while to realise how crappy it is.
Back to greenies
Our local pro-totalitarian Greenie Idiots are in fine form this week:
- Hamas are champions of democracy and gender equality.
- Cuban government statistics prove the US is the world's No.1 human rights violator. Still waiting for them to release statistics on how many political dissidents the Cuban government has shot.
- John Pilger is having another spazz attack over the non-existent crushing of dissent under the Howard regime. He also praises islamist terror-loon David Hicks as an old-fashioned Australian folk hero:
In Howard's Australia, the ultimate “no-hoper” is a sick, terrified, deeply troubled and abused young man called David Hicks. Hicks was a drifter, which was once an Australian type known as a “swagman” and a “larrikin” and lauded by our bush poets and balladeers. In the 1990s, Hicks became a Muslim and drifted through Kosovo, then on to Afghanistan, where he was kidnapped by the US military and sent to their concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay.
"Drifted"...um, yeah, that's what he did.
- Capitalism is a big, furry monster that eats children!! Ye gods!! Can this be true?
- The alarming news that voluntary unionism kills homosexuals. You learn something new every day, don't ya?
Richard Neville's nice friends
Herbally enhanced media commentator and "futurist" Richard Neville sure has some interesting methods of collecting information. So determined is he to rescue the sheeple from the clutches of the evil Murdoch/Packer/Bush/Howard information cartel, he lists this 9/11 conspiracy page amongst his recommended links. I guess one can safely conclude that Richard believes the WTC was destroyed by a controlled explosion.
This is the man frequently employed by the Australian media as a credible commentator.
Stupid guy need big heap help
Attention Antony Lowenstein: Islam is not a 'race'. Criticising Islam is not 'racism'.
Having your tongue perpetually crammed up the arse of every Islamofascist and screaming about 'zionism' doesn't make you an independent thinker Antony, merely a paranoid, self-hating terror-apologist.
Lowenstein is the kind of arseclown who, if he was alive in WW2, would probably have blamed the invasion of Poland on "Zionist provocation".
Fucking cock-knocker.
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