PIZZA CLUB 2005!

[Jeff L]

Man, you guys are slacking. 

Almost 24 hours after the kickoff and no posts.

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Maybe they aren't back yet.......

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Here's a post for ya:

The pies at De Lorenzo's are a transcendent experience. Completely worthy of their legendary status. The plain tomato was my favorite (big chunks of tangy tomato -- I think most pizza sauces are too sweet for me) but they use quality sausage, and the white clam is nice and garlicky. I'm going back as soon as humanly possible.

Top Road and Conte's were nice, but not in the same league (although others thought differently).

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I assume you mean the Delorenzo's on Hudson street Diann

[herbacidal]

We gotta do another Brooklyn trip.

DiFara's and L&B Spumoni/Totonno/Patsy's.

[Mummer]

Pizza Club 11/19/2005 - Delorenzo's on Hudson Street.

The gang out front. Delorenzo's doesn't need to open promptly at 3:30. Katbert, Capaneus, Diann, Gary, Casetta (T), cdh, Casetta (A) and KatieLoeb.

This establishment is older than me!

Clam pie! Mmmmmm!

Sausage Tomato Pie! Best sausage of the day, too!

[shacke]

Sausage Tomato Pie!  Best sausage of the day, too!

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Ooh. I spy the Campillo 96. That must have been good with the pizza.

[cdh]

I've got no pictures to share, but will comment on the various pies we devoured:

Delorenzo's of Hudson St:

1. Plain tomato pie: perfect thin yet airy crust, beautiful crispy crunch. The sauce was the famous chunky stripped down to the essentials tomato and not much else. Included in that not much else was the salt, which I missed.

2. Tomato and Sausage pie: crust- check, sauce- check, sausage- mmm! Don't know whether the big chunks of fennel-seedy sausage contributed the right salt balance, or if this batch of sauce got a heavier salting, but this pie was perfectly balanced.

3. White Clam: nothing like it anywhere else. Buttery, oceanic, garlic, herbs. This pie alone is worth a trip to Trenton from where ever you find yourself.

Top Road:

1. Plain tomato pie: crust is a step away from Delorenzo's... same thickeness, but less air... a more solid crust, but with a more distinct flavor than Delorenzo's. Maybe that is a function of the salt in the sauce... while Delorenzo's sauce was a little shy of a perfect seasoning, Top Road's sauce was a little past the minimum required salt content. Not too salty, but you could taste the salt in addition to the flavors it brought out.

2. Veggie pie: pretty, but too vegetal for me. Great heapings of brocolli, mushrooms, onions, and lots of other stuff that katbert's pictures will show, on a slightly thicker crust to hold it all. The veg could have stood a bit of herbal dressing or something to perk it up a bit...

3. ? Don't recall the third, so it must not have made an impression either way.

Conte's:

1. Mushroom and Onion: Conte's crust was the densest of the bunch. Very few bubbles in the dough here, so a much more solid feeling bite. The sauce was very well balanced, and the toppings fit right in. yum.

2. Sausage: more fennel flavor and more assertive spicing in the sausage. Some complained that it was less pory-k than the Delorenzo's sausage... but I found it more assertive.

3. The Special: lots of meat and vegetables crowded on top of a fine pie. Quite good.

[Mummer]

I'll add some pizza porn to cdh's notes about Conte's:

Conte's:

1. Mushroom and Onion: Conte's crust was the densest of the bunch.  Very few bubbles in the dough here, so a much more solid feeling bite.  The sauce was very well balanced, and the toppings fit right in.  yum.

2. Sausage: more fennel flavor and more assertive spicing in the sausage.  Some complained that it was less pory-k than the Delorenzo's sausage... but I found it more assertive.

3. The Special:  lots of meat and vegetables crowded on top of  a fine pie.  Quite good.

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Sorry, nothing in my camera from Top Road.

[KatieLoeb]

OK - everything was good. Some pizzas were more better than others. DeLorenzo's Tomato Pies pretty much sets the standard for a pizza on this side of the Atlantic. Tacconelli's, DiFara's in Brooklyn and the oft disputed Sally's/Pepe's in New Haven are the only competition I can think of. It's just the best pizza you can eat. Period.

Top Road and Conte's were both pretty good, but definitely a step below. I wouldn't drive an hour to go eat those pies of and by themselves. If I'm driving that far for pizza I'm heading to DeLorenzo's. No contest.

My favorite beverage of the afternoon was the real birch beer on draught at the Top Road Tavern with a shot of Old Grandad in it. Yee-hah!

On a separate note, I had dinner at Mama Palma's tonight (yeah - I didn't eat enough pizza this weekend ) and the special pie we had comprised of chicken, spinach, roasted garlic and roasted peppers on a whole wheat crust was pretty good too. My friend had a four cheese pizza that had the bite of gorgonzola going on and that was excellent too. Not in the same league as DeLorenzo's, but damn fine pizza for downtown Philly.

[katbert]

Next time I'd use some flash for the food pictures. I'm just learning how to use my camera, new toy, sorry about the shake. Pretty much what you see in my pictures is how dimly lit it really was in Top Road and Conte's (and I don't have a dSLR which would make up for low light, but the next time I have $700 lying around...). The pictures uploaded with the most recent first, so start at the end if you'd prefer chronologic order.

As a slightly less painful alternative to ImageGullet, I put <a href="http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=r1k9cln.7g5v945b&x=0&y=-z6ikdz">the same photos into this kodakgallery album</a>, does not require sign in (just clicky the link towards the bottom on the right side that says something like view without signing in...)

<a href="http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?act=module&module=gallery&cmd=user&user=8386&op=view_album&album=2092">Pizza Club takes Trenton album (ImageGullet)</a>

gah, ImageGullet isn't really built for looking through a pile of pix. And the <a href="http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?act=module&module=gallery&cmd=slideshow&album=2092">slideshow </a> is another kind of horrible, at least on my computer.

foodwise, we started at the best and ended with the least best. Delorenzo's is worth going out of the way for, seconded by the dozen or so other people patiently waiting at not quite 4ish on a Saturday afternoon- not when you expect a lot of people to be eating. Too late for lunch, too early for dinner. The plain was fabulous, the sausage even better for carnivores, and I'll leave the clam for other people. I like seafood, and the clam pizza wasn't bad; I just didn't love it.

Also, I'll be passing on birch beer in the future. I love root beer, but birch beer veers into medicinal for me.

[Rich Pawlak]

Oh God, killer pies!

Looks like I missed a great outing. Wow.

Looks like you all had a serious sausage jones on Saturday.

[GregD]

So if you were going to be in Trenton on a Monday when DeLorenzo's is closed, which would you aim for? Conte's or Top Road?

[katbert]

So if you were going to be in Trenton on a Monday when DeLorenzo's is closed, which would you aim for?  Conte's or Top Road?

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Top Road- Conte's is in Princeton. (Be prepared for leftover smoky barness permeating your clothes.)

kt

[Jeff L]

So if you were going to be in Trenton on a Monday when DeLorenzo's is closed, which would you aim for?  Conte's or Top Road?

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Another suggestion here would be to go to the other Delorenzo's on Hamilton Avenue. While not as good as Hudson street, better I think than Top Road and no smoke.

Really the best suggestion is to not be in Trenton on a Monday and go to the real deal.

[GregD]

Is the other DeLorenzo's open on Mondays? I thought they were both closed on Mondays? I agree, if I could avoid being in Trenton on a Monday, I would.

So if you were going to be in Trenton on a Monday when DeLorenzo's is closed, which would you aim for?  Conte's or Top Road?

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Another suggestion here would be to go to the other Delorenzo's on Hamilton Avenue. While not as good as Hudson street, better I think than Top Road and no smoke.

Really the best suggestion is to not be in Trenton on a Monday and go to the real deal.

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[Jeff L]

Is the other DeLorenzo's open on Mondays?  I thought they were both closed on Mondays?  I agree, if I could avoid being in Trenton on a Monday, I would.

So if you were going to be in Trenton on a Monday when DeLorenzo's is closed, which would you aim for?  Conte's or Top Road?

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Another suggestion here would be to go to the other Delorenzo's on Hamilton Avenue. While not as good as Hudson street, better I think than Top Road and no smoke.

Really the best suggestion is to not be in Trenton on a Monday and go to the real deal.

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Yeah right both Sunday and Monday. Top Road is it

Jeff

[GregD]

Decided to try a non-boarders' rec of Papa's in Chambersburg ("the place we went on Mondays" is what she said) and ordered their tomato pie (1 sausage, 1 meatball.) Fun, fairly small family pizza shop. Good crust and tomatos. Not going to be knocking Pepe's off the top of my list but a good solid pie. Looking forward to DeLorenzo's next time.

[Mummer]

Further east from the other Delorenzo's on Hamilton is Massimo's Restaurante Caffe, a full service byob.

They make nice pizzas from their wood fired brick oven.

[Rich Pawlak]

From today's Trenton Times:

Pie Eyed: The Movie

It's the movie for us!

[Mummer]

From today's Trenton Times:

Pie Eyed: The Movie

It's the movie for us!

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And to think that I didn't use the same restroom as Louis Prima (or Keely Smith) at DeLorenzo's Hudson Street.

Zooma Zooma!

BTW, I had a couple-a gourmet slices from Two Red Boots on Chestnut for lunch today. Pretty good stuff.

[KatieLoeb]

From today's Trenton Times:

Pie Eyed: The Movie

It's the movie for us!

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Awesome! Too bad it's filmed already. We have an entire cast of extras for the pie eating scenes lined up.

There are two other places specializing in Tomato pie we haven't tried yet mentioned in the article - Papa's and Palmero's. Sounds like another Trenton road trip in the making.

Rich - can you do the reconaissance mission for us on that?

[Lisa1349]

BTW, I had a couple-a gourmet slices from Two Red Boots on Chestnut for lunch today.  Pretty good stuff.

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I've been meaning to ask what 'Louisiana style pizza' is - the statement on their sign. So you were down the block and didn't visit the aisles of balsamic here? Hmpf.

[mrbigjas]

pizza club colleagues, i realize this is not about philadelphia, but as a note for when you travel: any hype you hear about two amy's pizza in northwest DC near the national cathedral is COMPLETELY JUSTIFIED. i had a pizza down there this past weekend and i'm telling you it's totally the shiznit, full-on neapolitan DOC-qualifying wood-fired buffalo mozzarella plain tomato thin-but-not-crackery INSANELY GOOD PIZZA.

if you guys care about pizza, and you're in DC and you don't go, you're cheating yourself.

[Rich Pawlak]

pizza club colleagues, i realize this is not about philadelphia, but as a note for when you travel: any hype you hear about two amy's pizza in northwest DC near the national cathedral is COMPLETELY JUSTIFIED.  i had a pizza down there this past weekend and i'm telling you it's totally the shiznit, full-on neapolitan DOC-qualifying wood-fired buffalo mozzarella plain tomato thin-but-not-crackery INSANELY GOOD PIZZA.

if you guys care about pizza, and you're in DC and you don't go, you're cheating yourself.

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I had the great good fortune of having lunch there last winter, and it's totally the shizzle, as is Matchbox at 9th and F. Two Amys is arguably the best pizza in DC, the Delorenzos of the District.