slkinsey

The "Big 5" are: Di Fara (done) Grimaldi's (done) Lombardi's Patsy's East Harlem Totonno's Coney Island So far, I think we seem to be in agreement that it would be more fun to wait until it's warmer to hit Totonno's, since that offers us the chance to explore Coney Island after lunch and maybe head over to Brighton Beach for a Russian dinner after working off the pizza. That leaves Lombardi's and Patsy's. I'm think it would be interesting to visit Patsy's next, because of the connection between Patsy's and Grimaldi's. But if someone really wants to do Lombardi's first, I'm hip to that too. Especially if we have someone who has been there a lot, knows the ropes and would be willing/able to lead the group like Joe did so ably with Grimaldi's. Really, although I made the first post and have blabbered on about a few of my pet topics, I don't really want anyone to be "in charge" of this -- least of all me. That's why I like the idea of different people "sponsoring" the pizzerie with which they are familiar and think are worthy of note, and taking the lead in this thread by organizing a trip. Joe's experience at Grimaldi's really demonstrates how valuable it is to have the inside scoop. If I had been putting that trip together we might have gone at 2:00 or something, and the result would have been very different.

Thanks! Perhaps we can persuade you to join us for the next outing? Don't make me e-twist your virtual arm, now. One project that might pique your coal oven interest is my thought of doing a "Patsy's tour" once we've hit the Big 5. I think it would be enlightening to start off at Patsy's in East Harlem to have just enough pizza for everyone to have one slice and then proceed directly to some of the other coal-oven Patsy's establishments, like the one on the UWS, for similar samplings. This way we could see how the quality of the pizza changes in less expert hands as well as which desirable elements of the "coal oven effect" are still apparent and to what extent, while keeping the technology and quality of ingredients more or less the same.

Okay, I'll weigh in with my impressions and respond to a few points raised upthread. We showed up at around 11:55 and Joe and I ducked our heads into the empty restaurant, upon doing which we were immediately greeted by a surly chorus of "we're not open yet" from a group assembled near the oven. After Joe explained who we were and that we had telephoned the previous day, they loosened up a little bit but no one made any overt effort to welcome us and show us around or anything (which I thought was a little odd, considering that the restaurant was empty and most of them were just standing around). Anyway, Joe was eventually able to engage one of them with some interesting questions about the oven and the coal, etc. Somewhere in there I snapped a picture of the oven and was told "no pictures of the oven" by the oven man. It was hard to tell whether this is a policy of the restaurant or whether the oven man just didn't want his picture taken. In any event, most everyone seemed in a distinctly unfriendly mood for 12:00 on a Sunday. Right around that time Chris, the guy we were told would answer all our questions, showed up and began demonstrating a thorough disinterest in answering any questions or showing us around beyond a curt "if the oven man told you 'no' that means 'no.'" At that point, customers had begun to stream into the restaurant and, sensing that we had worn out our welcome, we retreated to our table. I guess that, to a certain extent, they are getting their comeuppance now that this attitude is described in the pages of a widely read food oriented web site. While I don't think it's necessarily an excuse, since the comparison has been made, I think there are things that help explain the difference in attitude between Grimaldi's and Di Fara. While Di Fara is growing in reputation and becoming more widely known among Internet food-types and food writers, it is still fundamentally a small neighborhood place that does not attract a great deal of tourism, etc. Indeed, Di Fara is still relatively unknown among New Yorkers. Grimaldi's, on the other hand, has a reputation that is known much more widely. For example, Japanese tourists are frequently seen there laden with cameras and with guidebooks in hand. It's a much larger operation, and they bang out more pizza between 12:00 and 2:00 than Di Fara does in an entire day. What this means is that they undoubtedly have to deal with people who want to ask the same old questions and take their pictures and think they are deserving of some special attention on a daily basis. This kind of thing gets tiring awfully fast, and can definitely lead to a certain attitude -- especially when they know they don't have to rely on repeat customers to stay in business. In contrast, this kind of attention and inquiry is still a relatively rare occurance and a special surprise for Dom at Di Fara, who has also developed a personal style one would expect from someone who had cultivated the repeat business a neighborhood pizzeria needs to stay alive for so many years. Without a doubt, the atmosphere figures into the experience at Di Fara in a way that it is not at Grimaldi's. Anyway, on to the pizza... This pizza was closer to the way I prefer it, which is to say that it was mostly about the crust. Michael, Joe and I had a brief but interesting conversation about the different ways one can approach certain elemental foods like bread and pasta. For some people, pasta is mostly a vehicle for the sauce. They tend to prefer their pasta dishes with the sauce playing the primary role, and if there is a tasty sauce they would prefer to have plenty of it. For others, pasta is mostly about the pasta and the sauce is merely a condiment. This is not to say that the sauce isn't important, but rather that the most important thing is that one is able to taste the pasta itself. Needless to say, this second group tends to prefer a lot less sauce on their pasta. I definitely fall in the latter group, and this also happens to be the Italian aesthetic. For me, the best pizza is all about the crust and the other toppings are there to complement the crust. In that sense, I felt that Grimaldi's pizza approached my own ideal in that the toppings were understated and few. As Joe pointed out, the sauce was little more than filetti di pomodoro, salt and a little evoo. No herbs, no garlic, no extras. The toppings were applied with a very moderate hand, and there was usually a nice expanse of unadorned crust around the edge -- my favorite part, as I remarked a number of times. What I really prefer, and what one finds in a good pizza Napulitana, is when the ingredients are applied so sparingly that there are expanses of bare crust throughout the pizza interspersed with a dab of tomato here, a piece of cheese there, a little sausage over there, etc. Michael remarked that he preferred a "tastier" pizza with a more emphatic flavor from the toppings, which puts him in the opposite camp from mine, but it's still a legitimate view to take. For me, as much as I enjoyed tasting the more extensively topped pizze we had (sausage and peppers, olives and onion), I felt that even the small addition of these ingredients tended to detract from the main event and the crust suffered somewhat in both execution and importance in the overall pizza. The plain margherita and the sausage pizze were, in my opinion, the stars of the afternoon. While I am on the subject of crust, I'd like to point out one important benefit of a super hot, coal fired oven. If you look at the crust, you can see that the "oven spring" created by the hot oven floor "blew up" the little pockets of air in the dough at the same time it was crisping the bottom. This creates a small zone of flexible, extensible, soft crust between the crisp bottom and the toppings. The example below shows the edge of the crust where it is most apparent, but the same phenomenon is present throughout the crust to various degrees. Because the pizza cooks so quickly, this intermediate layer also retains a certain amount of moisture, which contributes to the morbidezza and flexibility of the crust. This is simply not possible in a gas oven. The pizza must cook a lot longer to achieve a crisp bottom, which means that most of the moisture is cooked out, and the lower temperature doesn't produce the same oven spring. The inevitable result is that that the intermediate layer is lacking, and along with it the contrast/complement effect of a pizza that is both crisp and soft, firm and flexible. The other unique effect is the all-important char. For a crustophile like me, there is nothing like the smoky bitterness imparted by a slighty charred crust. The ingredients are also cooked on the crust (i.e., the sausage is raw) by the intense heat, which causes their essential flavors to inhabit the entire pizza regardless of whether one is actually eating a bite of the olive, pepper or sausage. For both of these things we have to thank Grimaldi's "sponsor" for this outing, Joe Bavuso. I was interested to see what the pizza would be like there, because I had heard a lot of mixed reviews about Grimaldi's -- especially about the crust, which some people said was great and others found fairly pedestrian. Well, as it turns out Joe learned something very important about Grimaldi's after going there a number of times: it's very important to go early while the oven is still really hot. As the lunch or dinner hour moves on the oven begins to give up its heat and the crusts start to suffer. Perhaps this has to do with their practice of firing the oven only half an hour before service and only stoking it significantly once a day, right before dinner? Or maybe the oven itself is simply not all that massive and doesn't hold all that much heat? Regardless, it would seem that it's crucial to go for an early lunch or dinner in order to catch the oven while it is still at maximum heat. All in all this was a fun trip, and an interesting one. I think we should probably hit Patsy's in East Harlem next, since the two establishments are so closely linked (they even detail the lawsuit on the placemats!).

Nope, it's the mined fossil fuel variety rather than coarcoal, which is made by burning wood in a low oxygen environment. Probably anthracite coal, as I assume bituminous would burn too dirty. They burn the stuff right in the oven where the pizze are made. Ok, but.. this certainly needs more explanation. As most anthracite coal is mixed with different additives to make stuff like Kingsford, which never burns very hot. I'll look around, but accept your explanation, for now. The kind of coal they use in NYC coal-fired ovens is the exact same kind of coal people used to use to heat their houses. Big, shiny, black rocks the size of an extra-large russett potato. Looks like this It is definitely not charcoal. According to The Clean Coal Technology Compendium, anthracite coal burns very hot.

Nope, it's the mined fossil fuel variety rather than charcoal, which is made by burning wood in a low oxygen environment. Probably anthracite coal, as I assume bituminous would burn too dirty. They burn the stuff right in the oven where the pizze are made.

We're running out to C46, so I'll post more detailed comments later. For now, some pictures: Here's the oven. We were told "no pictures of the oven." Oh well... Here is our "reference standard" plain cheese and tomato pizza: Plenty of char on the underside: Here is a look at the interior of the crust, showing the effect of a hot coal-fired oven: Next was a sausage pizza: A slice of sausage: Roasted red peppers: A slice with peppers: An onion and olive pizza:

I totally agree. I had noticed that the GTC is usually really good in some of the Chinese places in my 'hood, and then will be awful when ordered as delivery from the same place. Of course, this means that I hardly if ever eat GTC, because I always order delivery unless I am going out to a special Chinese place like C46 or Grand Sichuan -- in which restaurants ordering GTC should be punishable by flogging.

This is a really cool thread, guys. Not only for the interesting look into something we just don't have in the States, but also for things we don't hear much over on this side like this: "young luvvies and half-luvvies and friends of luvvies, listening to that rocky rolly music."

Oh, hell yea! This grinder kicks ass! Here it is from the side: More: A better look at the business end: The grinding parts: Tried it out for the first time last night... it blew through a whole chicken, bones and all, like it was a piece of Wonder Bread. So worth the money. To give an idea of how the experience differs from using the KA grinder attachment: Before 8:00 - Cut up chicken. Take all meat off bones. Chop bones into small pieces. Set up KA with grinder attachment. 9:00 - Start grinding bones and move on to the meat. Stop every so often to clear grinder when it jams up. Stop several times to allow the KA to cool down. The bones must be double-ground. Sounds like this: grrrr grrrr grrrr grrrr grlrl grlrl grlrl grlrl... grlrl... rlrl... rl... <gonk> (then I have to clear the stuck grinder and start over). 10:30 - Start cooking the chicken and cleaning the grinder. 11:00 Get in argument with bergerka about how there are tiny bits of raw chicken strewn all over every surface of the kitchen. Put cooked chicken in metal refrigerator container. 11:30 Kitchen is now clean. 12:00 Go to sleep alone on couch in living room. After 8:00 - Cut up chicken into large chunks. Whack pieces with heavy knife to break up bones. Set up grinder. 8:10 - Fire up grinder and start feeding through large pieces of chicken. Sounds like this: hummmmmmmmmmgerzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzoooooooooooooorchhummmmmmmmmm. 8:20 - Start cooking chicken. Take apart grinder and wash parts in sink. 8:40 - Put cooked chicken in metal refrigerator container. Wash Le Creuset cooking pot. 8:50 - Play with ferrets, etc.

This sounds very interesting. I'll definitely try to check it out.

Casa Mono and Bar Jamon are reviewed in the March 01, 2004 issue of New York Magazine. A small excerpt:

Absolutely . . . if I ever had a big dinner party and needed really good veal for a dozen people I'd consider putting in a call and making a pickup. When you two get back, we're putting this idea to the test, my corpulent friend!

alacarte, haven't you been to a real butcher shop? All butchers use a band saw these days... probably have done so for at least 50 years, if not longer.

This seems very strange to me, as there are plenty of excellent French restaurants that are not staffed nor overwhelmingly frequented by French people. I mean, whatever floats your boat, of course... but I certainly wouldn't make the presence of a bunch of French-speaking people a prerequisite for my enjoyment of a bistro in New York City.

Dude... go easy on the eye of newt. Unless it's really fresh, it can add an astringent, bitter aftertaste.

Just got back from Pam Real Thai where we had, among other things, the anchovy rice with pork. Very tasty! bergerka declared herself a convert... we'll see.

Admin: Thread retitled so people who might like to participate can tell what's being discussed in here.

From what I can see in the (excellent) pictures, it looks like the "Bronx chop" comes from the pelvis side of the hip joint and that the "socket" part of the joint is cut away with the band saw. Is this more or less the case? Is the bone that remains in the cut the pelvis bone?

Hmmmm... I wonder if we could get them to sell us a few racks of veal?

Have you ever tried any of the funky offal tacos? Tripe? Brains? Tongue? Ear?

Brooks, when should I expect my first live shipment of Louisiana crawfish? Do you need my address?

Hmmm... Hard to say. In general, I look for the salt preserved variety in a glass jar. Failing that, I usually get marinated anchovies from the preserved fish counter in Fairway (right next to the appetizing counter). I can't say that I have any anchovy brand awareness at all.

well, at 12midnite, mama mex is open & noche mex is closed - what difference does it make??? & btw, noche mex is a storefront, atmosphere? hard to see thru the steel gird. i'll pay the xtra $2 & take mama's Noche Mexicana is a tiny little hole-in-the-wall place, but they do come to your table and take your order, etc. Seating for maybe 20. I've dined there a handfull of times, but usually order delivery as I live only a few blocks away. As I said before, I think their food is an order of magnitude better than Mama Mexico. I would gladly pay more for Noche Mexicana's food than Mama Mexico's. YMMV, of course. If I was looking for Mexican food at midnight I'd probably walk up to the taco truck on 104th and Broadway before I'd go to Mama Mexico (this is not an indictment of Mama Mexico... the taco truck is good). But, if I'm hungry and out on the street at midnight, I tend to gravitate towards a shawarma and falafel sandwich at Jerusalem Caffe.

I wouldn't worry too much about the interior membane. The easiest way I know to de-skin peppers is to use a blowtorch. This method allows the ckin to be charred off with practically no cooking of the flesh. As for the inner membrane, you could quarter the skinned peppers and take the blowtorch to the interior as well. Really, though, if you puree an exterior-roasted pepper and pass it through a fine sieve, you should end up with something a smooth as silk.

That is just a bizarre way to look at meat. The only thing tenderloin has going for it is that is extremely tender at its best. But it's hardly beefy at all. Even prime tenderloin doesn't have that much flavor. I would have to question the palate of anyone who would call a ribeye a "disgraceful, scrappy, chewy, over-rated meat" and I would suggest that any meat is cheap if bought in sufficiently low quality. Dry aged prime ribeye is just as expensive as any other premium cut of meat. Personally I prefer strip steak, but I'd take a ribeye over a tenderloin any day. Tenderloin is the "king of meat and no other cut can get close to toppling its crown"??? I hardly think so.