Hangin' with the peeps

[LaNiña]

If there's a pizza field trip in the offing, may I ask to be included?

Has anyone ever had pizza in Italy? The current Gourmet reviews an Italian restaurant in LA (LA!) where the proprietor is said to make real Roman pizza, without saying what that is. To me, it's a very long, thin-crusted rectangle light on tomato, cut into smaller rectangles or squares, or it's "pizza bianca" - just cheese -  often baked in the same way. The technique for stretching the dough into the long rectangle is tricky.

Pizza outing, pizza outing! Any time. It'll be the 2, 586th pizza outing I've done at DiFara.

I've eaten tons of pizza in northern Italy, over my whole lifetime (our closest family friends live about an hour north of Milano). Thin crusts, individual pizzas, about 12" in diameter, and my absolute favorite is quattro stagione - 4 sections, one each of: prosciutto, artichoke, cheese, mushroom.

[LaNiña]

I don't like anchovy pizza. I find the flavor of the anchovies overwhelms the subtleties of the other ingredients.

No, unfortunately, DiFara's is not air conditioned. These days, I go in, get a couple of slices, and I'm outta there. Maybe an outing should wait, so we can get pies and pastas and sit and drink, etc.

[Fat Guy]

Nina, are you saying Di Fara typically uses buffalo mozzarella on pizza?

[LaNiña]

Absolutely the case. I've opened packages of it for him, and eaten many hunks of it just like that. He uses two kinds of mozz on every round pie - buffalo and regular. The buffalo one is imported from Italy, and he gets new stuff every day from his importer source in Brooklyn.

FatGuy, if you go there and he's not too busy, Dominick will give you a lecture and demo and talk to you about every tiny detail to your heart's content. Especially if you mention my name

If his daughter Maggie is there, she'll do the same back in the kitchen.

[LaNiña]

Have I mentioned lately that I grew up in New Haven? Just clarifying my pizza cred.

[=Mark]

I've read through all 5 pages of this thread and still for the life of me can't figure out what in blazes it has to do with peeps.

[Bux]

For those travelling abroad, it's generally easier to get luncheon than dinner reservations, and there's often a luncheon menu which is substantially cheaper. In toffee-nosed tourist meccas I sometimes go for lunch in order to avoid the clientelle who come in the evening and make their presence so ostentatiously evident.  

Alas, like the bargain priced oranges at the store next door to the one with the high priced oranges, the luncheon menu that's less expensive is often far cheaper in terms of quality or "bang for the buck" than it is less expensive. While I can't say that's always the case with great conviction as I've only had both the the degustation and "bargain" luncheon menu at one restaurant in Paris, I can say that although the prix fixe lunch was less than half the price of the degustation, it had about half the number of courses and little of the finesse or pizazz of the high priced meal. I thought most of the bargain price went towards covering overhead and I've been less than keen on those bargains since. I wonder if they're not best left for the tourists who are more interested in saying they've been there than in actually enjoying the chef at his best.

On the other hand, many years ago, we had a superb prix fixe lunch in Nice that was easily worth twice what we paid at the Chantelcler. I suppose we will always get in trouble making hard and fast rules about this sort of thing.

[Fat Guy]

Nina, Mr. Di Fara has told me categorically on two occasions (once when I wrote about the place, and a second time when a reader challenged that he didn't use fresh) that he uses only low-moisture -- and not fresh -- mozzarella on the pies, and that the fresh is only used in salads. So I don't know what's up with that.

[LaNiña]

Nina, Mr. Di Fara has told me categorically on two occasions (once when I wrote about the place, and a second time when a reader challenged that he didn't use fresh) that he uses only low-moisture -- and not fresh -- mozzarella on the pies, and that the fresh is only used in salads. So I don't know what's up with that.

There is no Mr. DiFara. His name is Dominick DeMarco (not sure of the spelling). DiFara was two names put together - his, and a partner who is long gone.

He uses buffalo mozarella, which is imported from Italy, and one other (not fresh) on the pies, EXCEPT on the occasions when the buffalo mozarella is not available. I have only seen this myself twice - I mean, when he couldn't get the imported buffalo mozarella that he likes, so he "resorted" to using fresh on the pies.

Watch him make a pizza - you'll see him using two kinds of mozarella every time.

[Fat Guy]

Nina, next time you go, do me a favor and double-check all that information for me (except for his name, which I know), including those cheese sources. If it's correct, I'll amend my Fat-Guy.com write-up to indicate this two-cheese approach. I'd do it myself, but I'm not likely to make it out there until autumn at the earliest. Also, to your knowledge, in any of the write-ups of Di Fara (Asimov, the EGG, any others) has any of this been mentioned? If not, what's going on here? Is he deliberately hiding the ball, or is it just that nobody is asking the right questions?

[lxt]

Tell me, do you really think you'll just hum a few bars of Que Sera Sera, and carry on as usual. Or, do you think you'll make sure that every plate that heads to that table is not the best goddamn plate you've ever assembled. I'd say the latter.

The question is how great a gap is there between the chef’s ability to present a dish exclusively for a VIP order and his daily performance? How better can one get if he is a lousy chef? Assuming the chef’s performance for a special order is superb, wouldn’t it be a good indication that a restaurant has some potential, which you, as a reviewer, would’ve otherwise missed had you not disclosed your identity? However, my main point was that I would not condemn restaurants for trying their best for special guests and that this is as natural as for any of us when presented with similar life situations, i.e. a job interview etc.

P.S.

The subject of reviewer anonymity was discussed at length in a prior thread. We may both find it interesting to visit Compromised food critics.

[lxt]

The “An All-American meal for the masses” article by Renee Kientz highlights certain points Steve P. suggested in regard to the role of the burger as a joining force of commonality in a multi-cultural American society. It also tries to answer the question of who was the one who invented the “American burger.”

Here is the excerpt:

“Before hamburgers, Hogan wrote in his now out-of-print 1997 book 'Selling 'Em by the Sack,' we were a nation of diverse ethnic groups, speaking different languages, eating our own homegrown cuisines. The burger was a bridge; almost everyone liked it. The sandwich, along with the car and galvanizing events such as World War I, helped forge a common identity: American.”

An All-American meal for the masses.

[Bux]

The burger may have helped forge a common identity and the export of MacDonald's franchises may be part of that identity, but one shouldn't overlook the infiltration of ethnic foods in our culture. In many parts of the world they crave New York pizza, not Italian pizza and I've heard of a few Italian restaurants in Spain that make the connection to NY's Little Italy rather than directly to the big boot across the Mediterranean. I'm not sure if this makes a point and maybe that all American burger is just a German Hamburg steak on a bun. I guess it's the bun that makes the frankfurter an American hot dog as well. Maybe deepdish Chicago pizza is like pizza on a bun. The Earl of Sandwich might roll over in his grave if he thought I was suggesting that adding bread, made it American.

[John Whiting]

I suppose we will always get in trouble making hard and fast rules about this sort of thing.

I keep my rules soft and slow.

[LaNiña]

Nina, next time you go, do me a favor and double-check all that information for me (except for his name, which I know), including those cheese sources. If it's correct, I'll amend my Fat-Guy.com write-up to indicate this two-cheese approach. I'd do it myself, but I'm not likely to make it out there until autumn at the earliest. Also, to your knowledge, in any of the write-ups of Di Fara (Asimov, the EGG, any others) has any of this been mentioned? If not, what's going on here? Is he deliberately hiding the ball, or is it just that nobody is asking the right questions?

You got it. I'll also ask if it was always thus.