→ May 1, 2025
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Atlanta & Tuscaloosa eats.

One of my last draft scouting trips of the spring brought me to Atlanta for the weekend with a detour to Tuscaloosa, my first-ever first to Alabama’s home stadium as they’ve generally been one of the weakest SEC teams for draft prospects.

In Atlanta, I hit Varuni Napoli, which would now make my top 50 pizzerias list if I revised it today. It’s Neapolitan pizza but just stretched a little differently, so the pizzas are larger with less of a puffy exterior ring, while they still have the wet centers that are the hallmark of the style. I went with their sausage, mushroom, onion, and red pepper pizza, a standard option that happens to be one of my favorite combinations as is. The dough was still airy around the edges, and the sausage, which is sliced like pepperoni so it cooks more quickly, had a peppery kick and strong fennel-seed note. The sauce was excellent, slightly sweet and slightly tangy. I haven’t been to Antico in a decade or more, so it’s tough to say truly that this is better … but I think it might be.

Buttermilk Kitchen showed up on some list of the best brunch spots in Atlanta, and I saw they 1) had homemade biscuits and 2) promised they made everything from scratch while using local ingredients where possible, which, coincidentally, are my two main criteria for breakfast when I’m in the south. The biscuits are enormous drop biscuits and very, very buttery, while also a little sweet even before you try the blueberry-basil jam it comes with. One of those and two eggs probably would have been a full breakfast for me on any day, although this was Sunday and I knew this was essentially breakfast and lunch in one, so I ordered the daily special omelet with butternut squash, onions, and fontina, along with hashbrown fritters as the side. The fritters were more like little knishes than hashbrowns, with the center more akin to mashed potatoes. The omelet was a gamble because I don’t normally care for butternut squash, but it looked like the best choice to get some vegetables without resorting to the lunch part of the menu (it was 10 am, I can’t eat “lunch” at that hour, it’s uncivilized). I wouldn’t have even thought to put winter squash in an omelet. It worked, though, I think because the eggs were so fresh and there was so much cheese that the squash was a supporting player in the whole dish. That had to be at least three eggs’ worth of omelet, and it was seasoned perfectly as is. I ordered a cortado, which is on their menu, but they seem to think that means a full-sized latte instead. I will caution you that parking there is complicated, although on weekends they share some of the neighboring lots – check their website for specifics.

I met some board-game world friends for dinner at Miller Union downtown, not too far from Georgia Tech, for a meal that reminded me in the best possible way of FnB in Scottsdale, one of my favorite restaurants in the Valley. The menu was heavier on small plates with a small number of larger entrees, and the smaller plates weren’t all that small, anyway. The smoked trout with spaetzle and mushrooms was the consensus winner at the table, with the pasta (it’s pasta, I know it’s not Italian, so what) a sponge for all of the umami coming from the other ingredients, and the smoky notes from the fish well-balanced by other flavors so it didn’t overwhelm the dish. The farm egg with celery cream is apparently a longtime standard, and it’s definitely one of the weirdest things I’ve eaten in some time: it shows up in a soup bowl with the yolk barely set in a pool of what looks like a latte, and you break the yolk and swirl it into the cream before dipping the crusty bread into it or spooning it on top. It’s good, just unusual; I kept expecting a different flavor profile, because I’m used to dipping bread into a pasta sauce, while this is rich and more muted. The butter-poached shrimp with English peas, salsa macha verde, and benne (sesame) seeds was on the quieter side, with delicate flavors even in the sauce, with particularly sweet peas since they’re in season now. I had the duck breast entrée, which was cooked medium rare (as it should be) and remained tender, with a blueberry mostarda, creamed greens (spinach and maybe mustard greens?), and corn pancakes. That last bit wasn’t great – they were dry, and there wasn’t anything for them to sop up elsewhere on the plate – although that’s nitpicking. I had two cocktails since I wasn’t driving, first a Last Word and then their gin-lemon-thyme syrup cocktail, which one server said was their riff on a gimlet, but a gimlet is gin/lime without sweetener so I don’t know if that’s apt. I was afraid a second Last Word (does that make the one before it the Penultimate Word?) would put me on the floor, so the latter drink was a sound compromise and much lighter on the palate. They have an enormous wine menu, if that’s your beverage of choice.

I had coffee at Spiller Park the other two mornings I was in town, visiting their newest location in Midtown and the Moores Mill store, so I’ve now been to all four spots. The biscuits at Midtown are solid – that’s a rolled biscuit, so very different from Buttermilk Kitchen’s, and while I like both varieties I’m definitely in the rolled camp (think Biscuitville or Cracker Barrel’s kind). The Moores Mill shop offers bagels; I had the Controversial Vegan, with mashed avocadoes and sumac onions, which was very sharp and highly spiced with sumac.

I only ate one meal in Tuscaloosa, and that had to be Dreamland BBQ, which scouts have been telling me about for years. I’d been to the Birmingham location, but I’m a believer in trying the original whenever possible, and it’s better in terms of the food and the atmosphere. The ribs were solid but a little tougher than I expected; the smoked sausage, though, was fantastic, perfectly moist, smoky, just faintly spicy, no sauce required although I did as I was told and tried the dipping sauce it came with (I wouldn’t bother). It’s a bare-bones menu – ribs, sausage, pulled chicken or pork, with platters or sandwiches, and just four sides: cole slaw, potato salad, baked beans, and mac & cheese. I picked the first two, because I was already out on a ledge eating that much pork, and believe it or not, the cole slaw was excellent. It’s so often an afterthought at barbecue places – sometimes it’s a goopy mess, sometimes it’s clearly not that fresh and so it has no crunch, and sometimes people put weird shit in there – that it was a delight to get a very basic, straightforward version that was fresh and not overdressed. Also, if you get the sweet tea, be prepared for a sugar rush. It was all great but I don’t know that I’ll go back, just because I don’t eat like this any more and certainly shouldn’t eat like this any more at my age.

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→ April 25, 2025
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Top 50 pizzerias, 2025 update.

Jeez, it’s been seven years since the last time I ranked pizzerias; the pandemic really just took the wind right out of my sails on this one, and then I kept putting it off because it seemed like a way bigger undertaking than it actually was. I’ve been to around two dozen more Neapolitan or Neapolitan-adjacent pizzerias in that span, excluding ones I’d already tried and have revisited. Fitting them into the old ranking was tricky just because of the time elapsed here – there are places on this list I haven’t visited in a decade, and some I went to within the last year. I’ve also included two spots on the top 50 that serve something other than Neapolitan-style pizza, but which I thought belonged here for the sake of completeness.

Links go to the blog post where I originally reviewed each place. As far as I can tell, all of these places are still open, but please throw a comment in if you see I’ve included any spots that closed. We lost a few off the last update, including Co. and Nicoletta in Manhattan, plus the New York location of Via Tribunali.

1. Pizzeria Bianco, Phoenix

2. Kesté, New York

3. Pizzeria Sei, Los Angeles

4. Mission Pizzeria Napoletana, Winston-Salem

5. Motorino, New York

6. Roberta’s, Brooklyn

7. Una Pizza Napoletana, New York

8. Delancey, Seattle

9. Razza, Jersey City

10. Garage Bar, Louisville

11. del Popolo, San Francisco

12. San Matteo, New York

13. Pizzeria Mozza, Los Angeles

14. Pizzeria Lola, Minneapolis

15. cibo, Phoenix

16. Lucali, Brooklyn

17. Frank Pepe’s, New Haven (New Haven style)

18. Atmosphere, Sarasota

19. A Dopo, Knoxville

20. Pizzeria Vetri, Philadelphia

21. Pizzeria Stella, Philadelphia

22. Spacca Napoli, Chicago

23. Paulie Gee’s, Brooklyn

24. Don Antonio by Starita, New York

25. Pizzaiolo, Oakland

26. Ribalta, New York

27. flour + water, San Francisco

28. 2 Amy’s, Washington

29. Federal Pizza, Phoenix

30. Antico, Atlanta

31. Totonno’s, Brooklyn

32. La Piazza al Forno, Glendale, AZ

33. Via Tribunali, Seattle

34. Bricco, Haddon Township, New Jersey

35. ‘Pomo, Phoenix

36. Settebello, Las Vegas

37. Pizza Rock, Las Vegas

38. Pizzeria Virtu, Scottsdale

39. Pizzeria Beddia, Philadelphia

40. Il Cane Rosso, Dallas & Metroplex

41. Ravanesi, Concordville, PA

42. City House, Nashville

43. Desano, Nashville

44. Jon & Vinny’s, Los Angeles

45. Di Fara, Brooklyn (Sicilian)

46. All-Purpose, Washington, DC

47. Renzo, Charleston

48. Rubirosa, New York

49. Apizza Scholls, Portland, OR

50. Toro, Durham

Some honorable mentions, all places I’d recommend but that just didn’t make the cut, by location:

Austin: The Backspace

Charlotte: Inizio

Chicago: Piece (New Haven style), Pequod’s (deep dish … I’m not a fan of the style but this is the best I’ve had)

Los Angeles: Stella Bara

Northern New Jersey: Emilio’s (Nutley)

New York: Zero Otto Nove (Bronx & Westchester), Joe’s (NY style, various locations in the city)

Orlando: Pizza Bruno

Philadelphia: Barbuzzo, Stina

Phoenix & environs: Fabio on Fire (Peoria), Craft 64 (Scottsdale), Il Bosco (Scottsdale), Forno 301 (Phoenix), Grimaldi’s (Brooklyn coal-fired)

San Juan: Verace

Wilmington, DE: DiMeo’s (NY style)

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→ April 9, 2025
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Nashville and Knoxville eats, 2025 edition.

The last two weekends saw me head to two different spots in Tennessee, so here’s my food roundup, starting with Nashville…

Rozé Pony is an all-day restaurant, café, and bar maybe ten minutes southwest of downtown Nashville, and it was packed with day-drinkers when I was there, including one very large party there for some sort of celebration. I had just come from Florida, where eating reasonably healthy food is a challenge, so I ordered a fish sandwich with a side salad. The sandwich was called, unfortunately, the sloppy salmon. (They can’t stop you from ordering a glass of water.) It was tremendous, with salsa negra, a lemon mayo (aioli, whatever), and charred or roasted peppers. It was pretty sloppy to eat, but I inhaled the thing, and the leaves in the salad looked and tasted extremely fresh.

Maiz de la Vida is a food truck turned high-end Mexican restaurant in the South Gulch neighborhood; what I had was very good, but I really wish 1) I’d ordered differently and 2) I could have tried some of their cocktails, but I never drink before games, obviously. I tried the chips with three salsas at my server’s recommendation, and two of the three salsas were excellent, especially the salsa norteña with habaneros; the chips were house-made, but some were too thick or just otherwise greasy and not that pleasant to eat. The duck breast in mole was outstanding, perfectly cooked, with a rich, smoky, just faintly spicy mole negro, served on a very small bed of diced sweet potatoes with a dry cracker made from egg whites and sesame seeds. On its own, it is delicious, but the dish needs something else besides the meat – I expected more vegetables/starch on the side of it, and had no idea that’s all I was getting, or I would have ordered something else. It’s not how I prefer to eat, and because of my metabolic disorder it’s not great for me to eat a meal that’s very high in protein relative to everything else, so it’s a me problem, not a Maiz problem. I’ll go back, after a game, and I’ll order a bunch of different things.

Little Hats pitches itself as an Italian market & deli, and they do have the dry goods you’d expect, but the sandwich I got was all wrong. They have a prosciutto, fresh mozzarella, tomato, and basil sandwich, a combo I usually can’t resist, as it’s basically a caprese salad on bread with a slice or two of prosciutto crudo, which adds salt and fat to the equation. Little Hats’ version treats the prosciutto like it’s deli ham, stacking it over a half-inch thick, so it overpowers everything else on the sandwich, and it’s also really tough. Prosciutto crudo, which is cured for months and never cooked, is sliced extremely thinly because the extensive dehydration from the curing makes it tough to chew if it’s thicker. I couldn’t even finish this, which seemed criminal.

I resisted the urge to go to Barista Parlor as I usually do, meeting a colleague at Steadfast Coffee instead; it’s a local roastery that appears to be mostly wholesale business (at least based on their site), and unusual for a third-wave (or -adjacent) shop in that they offered free refills on drip coffee. Unfortunately, I didn’t write down what blend they used that day, but it was pretty balanced, medium-bodied trending towards the lighter end, without any really distinctive notes.

Attaboy is a second outpost of the speakeasy-ish cocktail bar of the same name in Manhattan, founded by Sam Ross, creator of the paper plane and penicillin cocktails; and Michael McIlroy, creator of the greenpoint cocktail. You have to knock on the door and someone will take you in if there’s room, although there’s no secret password required. The bar has no menu; your bartender will ask what sort of spirits or drinks you like and will make or create something for you. I had two different bartenders and tried two different drinks. The first was a rum-based drink with an amaro that was like Averna, but not actually Averna, and the drink ended up a little too sweet for me. The second was a riff on the last word, one of my absolute favorite cocktails, called a Wordsmith, made with rum rather than gin, and in this case using an aperitivo called Doladira that has rhubarb in place of the green Chartreuse. I’d drink that every day until my liver gave out.

The following weekend found me in Knoxville, where I got to walk around downtown for the first time even though I’d been there twice before. It’s a great and booming downtown core, with quite a few restaurants, a ton of coffee shops (I counted six within a two-block area, I think), and bars.

Kaizen was on Eater’s list of the dozen best restaurants in Knoxville, but it was really disappointing. The menu is great, and I ordered three items since I hadn’t had lunch while traveling, but the best of the three was actually the salad: arugula, beets, carrots, a soft-boiled egg, with a sesame-ginger dressing. I tried one of their steamed buns ($3.50 a pop), with fried chicken, but it was really chewy, and the kimchi smeared on it didn’t add any flavor at all. The duck leg fried rice seemed so promising, with duck confit deep-fried till crispy, an over-medium egg, and the rice, but the rice was DOA with the cause of death drowning by soy sauce, and they fried the duck for too long so it started to dry out. Great concept, poor execution.

Stir is an all-day restaurant, at least on the weekends, and their brunch came recommended by multiple people. I’m definitely less adventurous first thing in the morning, but also, seeing Waffle Houses everywhere made me just want a waffle, and not one from a Waffle House (or, worse, a hotel lobby one). Stir’s are good, clearly just made, pretty tender, although it’s odd that it came with the syrup already on it. I got the version with eggs and potatoes, rather than the version with fried chicken, and the over-medium eggs were spot on. The potatoes were nicely crisped but could have used more salt.

For coffee, I hit up Awaken, which is also downtown, around the corner from Kaizen and Stir. They use coffee from Quills in Louisville, a good roaster albeit not my favorite up there (that’s Sunergos). Cute space, solid espresso, credit to the barista for asking if I liked more foam in my macchiato (it was just right).

I stopped at The Vault, a cocktail bar downstairs from the restaurant Vida, where I’d eaten last year, and ordered a Last Word … and that was enough for one night, as it was larger than I expected and a second might have knocked me out. Their house versions of classics all contain too many extra ingredients, though; you don’t have to modify the Negroni or the Manhattan with three more spirits, they’re classics for a reason. It’s a cool space and I was disappointed it wasn’t busier on a Saturday night, when you’d think more people would be out and might appreciate a higher-end place to drink.

I also returned to A Dopo Sourdough Pizza, since I loved it last year; I changed it up a little, going with their “rucchetta” pizza, with arugula and Parmiggiano-Reggiano on a margherita, and added prosciutto crudo. Believe it or not, there was way too much Parmiggiano on it to the point that I scooped some off with my fork because I couldn’t taste anything else. It may be the king of all cheeses, but it’s also basically a salt-fat-umami bomb, and I could barely make out the other flavors. It’s such an odd thing to do because that’s such an expensive ingredient, too. The dough was outstanding, though. I skipped the gelato this year, as I’ve kind of been off desserts while traveling now.

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→ March 29, 2025
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Florida eats, 2025 edition.

Atmosphere Pizzeria is located in a strip mall in Sarasota and looks like absolutely nothing from the outside – I wasn’t sure I was even in the right place – but this is real Neapolitan pizza. They ferment their dough over three days, and the oven is right there in the front of the bare-bones restaurant. The menu has a variety of red and white pizzas; I went with the red one with mozzarella di bufala, mushrooms, basil, and prosciutto di Parma. The dough and the prosciutto were the stars here; there’s a ton of air in the dough and the texture is almost exactly what you’d find in Italy, while the prosciutto is sliced to order and is almost translucently thin. The pizza itself actually needed a little salt, and I think it was because the mushrooms weren’t seasoned – they were clearly cooked before they went on the pizza, as they have to be, since the 90 seconds or so that it takes to cook a Neapolitan pizza isn’t enough to extract the water from a sliced mushroom, let alone cook it. Whenever I go back, I might just go for the margherita and let the dough carry the day.

Sage Biscuit Café seemed to be the best-regarded breakfast spot in Bradenton, and, I mean, it has “biscuit” in the name … but I can make a better biscuit than that. This was more like a scone, really, crumbly and dry. I give them credit for cooking the eggs somewhere close to over medium and erring more on the easy side than the overdone side.

Orange Blossom Café looks like a disaster for coffee, since you walk in and it seems to be about everything but coffee. They use beans from Banyan Roasters, however, which is probably the best local roaster in this part of Florida, and have two varieties available in airports, a medium roast and a dark one. Banyan has a shop here but it was well out of my way, the opposite of the way I needed to go on my way to IMG.

Indigenous comes up on any list of the best restaurants in the Sarasota area, and they’re particularly known for their fresh fish dishes, which change daily based on what comes into the kitchen; their parmiggiano beignets; and their mushroom soup. I ordered the beignets, and then chose the lentil-mushroom Bolognese with pappardelle after asking the server whether she’d go with that or the red snapper. The beignets were excellent, if a touch greasy, but the Bolognese was disappointing on two levels. The obvious one is that the pasta was overcooked. The pappardelle itself was rolled too thinly, but it was well beyond al dente, to the point that the ribbons were coming apart as I picked them up with my fork. The less obvious one is that, at least in my opinion, pappardelle isn’t ideal for a chunky, heart sauce like Bolognese – real, which would contain pork and veal, or imitation like this one. Thick ribbons can stand up to the thickness of the sauce, but the ribbons aren’t really capable of picking up all of the bits in the sauce, whether they’re lentils and finely diced vegetables or ground meats. I haven’t made the dish in ages, but I’d opt for something like rigatoni or conchiglie, something that can trap the sauce so you can easily get both pasta and sauce in each bite. That’s not a universal opinion – pappardelle with Bolognese is a common combination – and maybe I wouldn’t have minded if this was thicker and not overcooked.

ofKors is a Ukrainian-owned bakery in downtown Sarasota that serves filled crepes, bagels, and a massive assortment pastries along with espresso drinks. The bagels looked promising – obviously looks can deceive, even in food, but you can usually spot a round-bread imitation with a little experience – and this was about as good a bagel as you’re going to find outside of greater New York. They cook the eggs to order on the crepe maker, which was kind of mesmerizing to watch (I was sure it was all going to run off the sides, but I shouldn’t have doubted the woman working the station, she’s a professional). I don’t know where they get the smoked salmon, but I’m guessing it’s a local vendor – it was excellent, with a soft texture and pronounced smoke flavor. I didn’t get coffee there because I wanted to go back to Perq, where I hadn’t been since before the pandemic; they were clearly understaffed that day, so it wasn’t quite up to my memories of the place, but the coffee itself is still excellent. I’m usually a macchiato fan, but I wanted to stick to the listed options because they were so harried (I wonder if someone called in sick), so I ordered a Gibraltar, which is basically a cortado but British.

Pangea Alchemy Lab is a tiny cocktail bar accessible from an alley just south of Main Street in Sarasota, and it’s fantastic, exactly what I want in a cocktail bar – it’s small, intimate, with a small menu of custom cocktails and riffs on classics, with a well-stocked bar of liquors and liqueurs. The custom cocktail list changes seasonally; when I visited, there were two rum drinks on the menu, and I tried both, naturally. The first had Brugal 1888, a double-aged rum (meaning it’s aged in two types of casks) from the Dominican Republic, with Licor 43 and cocoa bitters. The second was their riff on a Maitai, but much less sweet, thank goodness – I don’t think I could drink an actual Maitai any more unless I was on a tropical beach somewhere. It also had Brugal 1888, along with yuzu liqueur, demerara syrup, and orange juice.

Moving on to Fort Myers… Shift Coffee is a tiny spot in an apartment building in the northern part of town, and it’s legit, with beans from two small roasters, one from Florida and one from New York, available as drip coffee or espresso. The blend they were using the day I was there was better as espresso, at least. The space is small, with three two-tops and a couch.

McGregor’s is a perfectly fine breakfast spot that cooked the eggs I ordered perfectly to over medium, but everything else was kind of meh. The server – who saw me doing the Spelling Bee and couldn’t wait to tell me about how she does Strands and Wordle but the Connections puzzle is too hard – recommended their biscuits, which they make from scratch every morning, but that was a hard miss. It was drier than a scone, and I do not understand how so many places fuck up a simple southern biscuit. Alton Brown’s got a great recipe. So does my employer’s Cooking site, although I think biscuits are best with a shortening/butter mix. Just don’t overcook them.

Backyard Social is a great concept for a space – there are eight food trucks ringing the building, which is open on all sides, with a huge bar in the middle and some games for families to play, although the crowd definitely leaned a little older given all the alcohol involved. I got a blackened grouper sandwich at Atlas Dock Company; the fish was fantastic but for some reason they sliced the fish instead of serving the whole fillet, which meant it was constantly falling out of the sandwich. I don’t know if it just fell apart on the grill and they were trying to salvage it; it tasted great but I must have looked like a lunatic while trying to eat it. (I’d read that Dixie’s was the best fish spot in Fort Myers, but when I called before driving down that way they said the wait was an hour and a half.)

Cubans Be Like is hidden in an outdoor mall, tucked back off the main walkway, and there are enough empty storefronts there that I’m impressed they get any business at all. I saw they had lechon asado (Cuban roast pork) on the menu and I hadn’t had that in years, so I figured I’d give it a shot, and the plate easy had two servings’ worth of pork on it. I am not a large man and I don’t eat a ton of red meat any more, so maybe my scale is different, but that was a ridiculously generous portion. It was well cooked, but oddly a little underpowered; the pork is marinated in a garlic-citrus base and tends to be sharp, tangy, and salty, but this lechon was the mildest thing on the plate – I got the black beans & rice and sweet plantains as sides, and those were both much more flavorful. I’ve had much better.

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→ March 21, 2025
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Arizona eats, March 2025 edition.

The best thing I ate at any new (to me) restaurant this week was chicken, oddly enough. Mister Pio is a small Peruvian chicken spot in Arcadia that has a barebones menu: half chicken, quarter chicken, chicken sandwich, fries, drinks. The chicken comes with a side salad and aji verde sauce. The chicken is really incredible; I read online that it’s dry-brined with a mix of 21 spices (and then some) for two days, then it’s cooked for an hour and a half on a rotisserie over coals, but man, it’s just about perfect. It’s salty and deeply savory, and any fat under the skin has long rendered out, so the skin itself is paper-thin and just covered in flavor from the dry rub and the smoke, while the meat itself is extremely tender and juicy. The fries are fried to order (or at least mine were) and they’re properly salty. Mister Pio is only open noon to 8 pm, Tuesday through Saturday. Make a point of going if you’re anywhere in the vicinity – they’re less than 15 minutes from ASU’s park and not that much farther from Scottsdale.

Mensho Ramen is a Japanese chain that has three locations in California and now two in the Valley, one in Phoenix (where I went) and one in Mesa. Their menu is very simple, with just two broth types, one from chicken and one vegan, although the predominant protein across the entire menu is beef, specifically A5 Wagyu. I had their signature ramen, replacing the Wagyu with extra duck, although the pork was the best of the three proteins (there’s also chicken). This is really about the broth, which is as rich and savory as a typical tonkotsu broth, and the noodles, which are a little thicker than you might normally find, and are truly al dente. There’s less extra stuff in the bowl unless you chose more add-ins, but it doesn’t need anything more than the noodles and broth if the goal is flavor – and I say that as someone who likes all of the stuff you can typically add to ramen, like fish cakes or mushrooms or bamboo shoots. This is just exceptionally good, umami-rich broth, and I would guess it’s hard to mess up when you start with a base that good.

Uchi recently opened an outpost in Scottsdale, the seventh location of the award-winning sushi & Japanese restaurant by Beard winner Tyson Cole, whose first location is still going in Austin. (Now-disgraced Top Chef winner Paul Qui got his start there as well.) It’s a splurge meal to put it mildly, but this is some of the best raw fish I have ever had anywhere, and the best dishes I had during the omakase were generally the simplest. Highlights included the flounder, the Tasmanian ocean trout, the New Zealand king salmon, and their signature dessert called “fried milk,” which has a dark chocolate ganache, sweet cream ice cream, chocolate wafers, and little fried orbs that taste of coffee and whatever cereal they use that day as the coating. The worst dish was the grilled hamachi collar, which was an enormous portion but slightly overcooked and lacking much flavor on its own. It’s one of the most expensive meals I’ve ever had, so even saying “it was worth it” seems hollow, but at the least I can say that you are getting exceptional quality of ingredients for the cost.

Sfizio Modern Italian Kitchen is up north on the 101 just off the Tatum Road exit, run by a Calabrese chef named Rocco (of course). They make their pasta in house, so even though the pizzas looked good (baked in a giant oven right off the dining room), I had to go with the rigatoni alla vodka, which was delicious and different than any version I’ve had before. The sauce was extremely light in color and totally smooth, so I assume it used tomato paste or passata, and had no pork in it, coming with a dollop of fresh ricotta on top. I make it with onion, pancetta or guanciale (or bacon), hand-crushed tomatoes, and basil, so it’s a chunkier sauce with more texture. Vodka sauce isn’t a traditional Italian dish, and there’s a dispute over whether it’s even Italian in origin, so there’s no “right” or authentic way to make it. As long as you don’t overdo the cream, I’m probably going to like it. My friend and I split the focaccia starter, which comes with a delicious pesto-ricotta blend, but the focaccia itself was obviously made that day and served its primary function, sopping up some of the sauce that remained when I finished the pasta. The chef more or less forced me to try the tiramisu for dessert, and I appreciated the fact that it was less sweet than most varieties, with a little more kick from the rum. I do want to go back to try the pizza, though.

The Nach is a food truck parked inside the patio at the bar Sazerac downtown, around the corner from Futuro Coffee and the original (ish) Matt’s Big Breakfast location, serving al pastor, chicken, and shrimp street tacos, burritos, and quesadillas with a few additional items and sides. The chicken was better than the shrimp, with much more flavor to the meat itself, and I would definitely get the $2 guacamole as an add-on, which is more than enough to add to all three tacos and maybe have a little left over. The chicken was salty and slightly tart from its sauce, while the shrimp was perfectly cooked but under seasoned.

Beginner’s Luck is a new all-day outpost from the folks behind Citizen Public House and the Gladly, and eater.com recommended their breakfast in particular. I had their breakfast sandwich, as the server wavered when I asked whether she recommended that or the shakshuka, and it was fine, a good breakfast sandwich, a better iteration of the kind you get at First Watch or the like. I want to try a different meal there before coming to any real judgment but this wasn’t worth returning for breakfast beyond the cool space tucked in an alley just around the corner from Old Town.

I did play more of the hits, so to speak, returning to some old favorites. I went to Citizen Public House for the first time at least since before the pandemic; the menu has changed – the crispy salmon was outstanding, especially the sherry beurre blanc, and they still make the best Negroni for whatever reason – but the vibe is the same. Tacos Chiwas still has the best tacos I’ve had out in the Valley, but I went to Cocina Chiwas again and was disappointed in the food this time around. The menu is more beef-centered than I remembered, and the more vegetable-forward dishes I ordered were underpowered. Pane Bianco is now serving New York-style pizza by the slice, although the day I got there they had already sold out, so I had to suffer through their focaccia-style pizza, which was outstanding as always. Pizzeria Virtu was solid, although everything was maybe a half-grade down from the first time I went there. was I stopped in to Los Altos Public Market for one of their giant shortbread cookies and an agua Fresca, something I haven’t done in years but that I used to do every visit when I first went to ESPN and started coming to Arizona once and then twice a year. I did breakfasts at the Hillside Spot, Crèpe Bar, and Matt’s, as usual. I had coffee at Cartel (twice), Futuro (once, great space but you get some characters in there), and Giant (once), which is my favorite space to sit and write anywhere in the Valley, and Giant’s now using their own beans after they’d switched to ROC, a local roaster that goes darker than I like. I didn’t get to Valentine, which was recommended to me by two different baseball people, but that’s on the hit list for the next trip.

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→ November 13, 2024
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NYC eats, November 2024.

My work trip to New York didn’t quite go as planned, but I did eat well. My first stop was at San Matteo, a pizzeria on the Upper East Side that I found because my mom emailed me this Italian list of the best pizzerias in the U.S. (with other lists for other regions/countries plus a global one). I don’t agree with a lot of the list – excluding Pizzeria Bianco yet including Pizzeria Pomo is inexplicable – but I’ve been to 15 and all of them are at least a 55. I’ve got my work cut out for me, though. Anyway, San Matteo looks completely ordinary, like your typical New York Italian-American restaurant, with a massive menu that only gets to pizza on the last page. I got the porcini tartufo pizza, a white pie with fresh mozzarella, porcini mushrooms, Parmiggiano Reggiano, and truffle oil, as none of the red pies was especially grabbing me, although it didn’t matter – the star of this show is the dough, one of the lightest I have ever tasted on any pizza of any style. It is Neapolitan, recognizably so at the edges and with a damp center, but this dough was as airy as a meringue. It’s not that it has giant air bubbles; the whole texture is pillowy soft, yet doesn’t lose the slight tang you get from long fermentation. The porcinis were excellent – I’m glad they used those rather than cremini, as porcini have a ‘meatier’ flavor thanks to their high concentration of glutamates – and while truffle oil is generally a big meh for me, it was definitely good quality olive oil. They also make a very solid Negroni, still among my absolute favorite cocktails. (I’m becoming a Manhattan guy, though. I think it’s age.)

So by sheer coincidence, my sister, who lives in northern Virginia, was also in Manhattan for a meetup with some friends, and she texted me the pin of her hotel … which was at the same intersection as mine. There are over 100 hotels in Manhattan, and we happened to end up at two hotels located at literally the same pair of cross streets. Anyway, we had a lovely lunch on Saturday at Aragvi, a Georgian restaurant, by which I mean the country in the Caucasus, not the American state, although both seem to have a desire to roll back civil rights. Aragvi’s menu comprises traditional Georgian classics, and I think we ended up with three of the big ones, acknowledging that I’d never had Georgian food before and actually did a little reading before we went so I might know what we were eating. We started with a plain cheese khachapuri – extremely similar to the Turkish dish peinirli if you’ve had that – which is a baked bread bowl that had three cheeses melted in the center along with an egg yolk and a small knob of butter. I only knew one of the cheeses, feta, but the combination reminded me of a mixture of mozzarella and ricotta salata, and I think it’s an enriched dough given the texture and outside color. I’d eat this every day if it wouldn’t kill me. We also got a plate of cheese khinkali, which are Georgian dumplings akin to pierogis, shaped like giant xiao long bao – sorry, I’m not even sure what to italicize any more – with what I can only describe as ricotta inside. They were fantastic but absolutely enormous and our best efforts only got us through three of them. The final dish was chicken mtsvadi, and you’re god-damned right I copied and pasted that word from their website, grilled chicken thighs with the texture of smoked meat, served with pickled cabbage and fresh onions and parsley on one bit of lavash bread and a red sauce of unknown origin. (I think it was adjika, although it was a 0 on the spice scale.) This was a welcome change from all of the cheese we’d been eating, although I wish they’d brought more lavash or other bread to make eating the meat with the toppings easier. All told, though, I am now a fan of Georgian cuisine. They do also have a list of Georgian wines, and I got a white that, like Michael Scott, I couldn’t name for you. It was medium-bodied and kind of crisp, better than the full-bodied one the server had me try that had an overwhelming green apple flavor.

Moving along rapidly … Saturday dinner with a grad school classmate (wu-hoo!) came at Abbey Tavern, which is his favorite spot in Manhattan, and they do Guinness properly – it wasn’t too cold, so I could really taste the beer. Guinness is one of the only mass-market beers I would actively choose to drink, because I think it tastes good – it is more than an alcohol delivery device. And it goes well with fish and chips, which was my order, and which was also really solid, with my only real complaints being that 1) it was way too much food and 2) they didn’t bring malt vinegar, although to be fair I didn’t ask because we were busy talking. I hadn’t seen this friend since our 20th reunion back in 2019, and I missed the 25th because it was the weekend of my daughter’s prom, and while I was super bummed to miss the reunion I made the right choice. Back to the food, I demolished the fries, and ate two of three very generous fillets of cod, super crisp and well seasoned, as well as extremely hot when they hit the table.

Sunday morning was the day of the one game I went to, so I loaded up by walking the 15 minutes to Tal’s Bagels on the east side, which was on my employer’s recent list of the best bagels in the city, of which I had been to exactly none. (Zucker’s was my favorite to this point, and might still be.) I figured I likely wouldn’t get lunch at the ballpark, so I went all out with an egg, bacon, and hash brown sandwich (no cheese) on an everything bagel. You probably only care about the bagel, and the truth is it was fuckin’ awesome. I would eat that bagel every day. This is why I love New York – you eat stuff there that makes you think the rest of your life is being frittered away on subpar food. I don’t know if this is the best bagel in New York or Manhattan or in Midtown, but I know it satisfied my innate need for a real New York bagel. Also, not to get too far afield here, but I generally don’t ‘combine’ starches – potatoes on pizza is almost as much of an abomination to me as pineapple is – yet this one absolutely worked. The crispy hash browns offered a textural contrast to the soft interior of the bagel. Win.

My last meal before leaving the city came at Empanada Mama on the west side, and the company was Joe Sheehan, whom I’ve known for twenty-plus years but hadn’t seen since before the pandemic. Joe mentioned this is a longtime favorite of his, and as you may have figured out from reading me for years or just from reading this one post, I will eat almost anything if it is somehow wrapped in dough. I tried three different varieties and my favorite was the Bombay, a wheat-flour empanada filled with curried chicken and chickpeas. The curry flavor was light, clearly there but more of a supporting player, and the chicken and beans were balanced too, which is what I wanted since I also got the very meaty Reggaeton (filled with pernil, a form of roast pork). The corn flour-based rice-and-beans missed the mark a little because of the crust – the filling was fine but the texture of the crust was off for me. I was also pretty full before I even started that one, so keep that in mind.

For coffee, I went to two longtime favorites, Culture Espresso and Blue Bottle, the latter because I think their espresso is still a pinnacle of the form, with an inherent sweetness to their beans that few others can match. (Archetype in Omaha has hit that mark too.) I was a little disappointed at Culture, where the barista spooned foam into my espresso macchiato rather than pouring it – I know that’s almost a religious debate at this point, but I think you always want pourable foam. I’ve only seen the spooned foam as standard when I was in England and Wales in 2022, but to me a macchiato means poured foam. I suppose that’s more preference than anything else. Blue Bottle nailed it, of course. I’ve truly never had a bad shot at any of their locations in any city.

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→ August 27, 2024
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Outer Banks eats.

We spent last week in the small town of Corolla, North Carolina, at the northern tip of the Outer Banks – beyond Corolla, there are houses, but the roads aren’t paved, and you may wake up to find a wild horse hanging out in your yard. It’s very quiet, which was wonderful, but also has enough amenities that we could get whatever we needed, which also meant we could cook in the house we rented or head out to eat. So while this is probably the most obscure place for which I’ve ever written up restaurants, here’s the rundown of everything we ate on the trip.

There were two restaurants I’d recommend regardless of where they were – they weren’t just Corolla good, but legitimately good. Mama Easley’s is a fried seafood place with a solid beer selection, and the seafood was superb across the board. We were down there with another family of four, so I got to try a little of everything – the fried shrimp were the best item, but everything was fried perfectly, with no excess oil anywhere. The French fries were too spicy for the kids, with something Old Bay-like but without that odd stale flavor of actual Old Bay (sorry, Marylanders, I just think it’s overrated), while the hush puppies were a hit. My wife got the grilled bay scallops, the one non-fried item we had, and they were cooked just the way I like them, which is just the hotter side of rare – I know scallops are usually just seared so that the center is still slightly translucent, but I like it pushed a touch farther than that so they’re hot through but still tender. I ate way too much fried stuff that night, and drank a local beer (I don’t remember what sort), so I didn’t exactly feel great the next morning, but I have no regrets.

Agave Roja was the other big hit, a Mexican restaurant in a strip mall (across from the Food Lion) that goes upscale from typical Mexican restaurants in that area. We ordered take-out, so we probably missed out on a little of the experience, getting four different types of tacos – fried shrimp, fried fish, carne asada, and pollo asado. I skipped the steak, but the other three were all excellent and the shrimp was not spicy despite what was supposedly a mango-habanero salsa and chipotle aioli. The fish and shrimp came on flour tortillas, while the other two came on corn; the latter should have been doubled as they fell apart almost immediately. There was a ton of flavor on all of the tacos, both in the protein and the various toppings, although I’m not sure what was listed on the menu was exactly what we got on top of each taco.

I grabbed lunch one day at Sooey’s, a barbecue spot in the same strip mall as Agave Roja, and it was perfectly average BBQ. I got a half-rack of ribs, which the host said was her favorite item on the menu, and some collard greens and fried okra, because I was in the south and I love both of those things. The ribs were smoked properly, with a visible ring and the meat coming free from the bone, and had enough flavor on their own that they didn’t need the sauce (which was not that interesting anyway). The collards were the best item of the three, while the okra needed more salt.

We tried two pizza places in Corolla, with Corolla Pizza (located at the northern edge of town) the better of the two; it’s pretty close to New York City pizza but the crust needed to be cooked just a little more, as it had zero color on the under side. Giant Slice’s pizza was cooked more, but the toppings were nowhere near the same quality and the sauce was too sweet.

For coffee, I would suggest seeking out The Kind Cup, which is in Corolla Village, the closest thing there is to a town center here, and a short walk from the lighthouse and museum. The Kind Cup roasts their own coffee to a variety of levels, with a medium-roast for their espresso; I was a little bummed that they didn’t have any light roast on drip or for sale as whole bean that particular day, as they do roast and sell some single origins. The building is also a small art gallery and craft shop, and it’s across the street from a modest, well-curated bookshop called The Island Bookstore. I also tried the coffee and gelato at Doppio, with the gelato very good (I had the dark chocolate) and the coffee darker than I like it. Our friends got a bunch of pastries from Northern Lights Bakery & Coffee; I don’t even usually like sticky buns, but theirs was outstanding. Apparently there’s a line out the door most mornings within an hour of them opening, according to the locals.

Beyond food, Flying Smiles Kites is in the same shopping center as Northern Lights, and they sell an impressive selection of board games – they had Trio, Castles of Burgundy, Scout, Carcassonne, and more beyond the games you’d find at Target. We ended up buying a kite … and, most fittingly, they also had the real-time game Kites in stock. They do ship games, too, so if you wanted to pick up Trio from a friendly local game shop, it’s here.

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→ July 9, 2024
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Chicago eats, 2024, part one.

I’d been to Little Goat at least three times over the last ten-plus years, but had never eaten at Top Chef winner Stephanie Izzard’s flagship restaurant The Girl & the Goat … until now. I kept it pretty simple, with some advice from the bartender, ordering the sautéed green beans, the wood-fired broccoli, and a brand-new item at the time, the strawberry salmon poke. The green beans have been on the menu since the doors opened, or so I was told, and come with a fish sauce vinaigrette and a lot of cashews. The vinaigrette seemed more like an aioli, but regardless of the actual recipe it was the best part of the dish and something I’ll try to replicate at home. There were, however, too many cashews. I know that’s an odd comment, especially since I love cashews, but the ratio of beans to nuts was too low and I ended up with a lot of the cashews in the dish. The wood-fired broccoli came with a harissa dill vinaigrette that was an actual vinaigrette and a Moody Blue labneh underneath. Moody Blue is a smoked blue cheese from Wisconsin and very mild for a blue; the labneh here tasted pretty much like a labneh with a little smoke flavor, but even that could just have come from the broccoli itself, which had a nice level of char from the grill. The star of the three dishes was that ora king salmon poke, featuring maybe the best raw salmon I’ve ever had, just incredibly tender and, I hate to use the hackneyed term, buttery. The poke also had strawberries, cherry tomatoes, avocado, and chili crunch sprinkled on top. It shouldn’t work, but it does – it was perfectly balanced in every way, faintly sweet, just acidic enough, plenty of fat from the salmon and the avocado, and exactly the right amount of heat and salt from the chili crunch. They appear to do a salmon poke riff at least every summer, so you may not get the same version I did, but damn this was spectacular in every way. For a cocktail, I did their house version of an old fashioned, which was just average and came with a glass full of small ice cubes rather than one large one; I should have asked for it neat. I didn’t get dessert, as the menu was actually kind of unappealing – there was a chocolate and ginger concoction, two great tastes that do not taste great together, and a hazelnut thing, and nothing I wanted for $15 a pop. I walked across the intersection and got some gelato at BomboBar instead.

—

The food at Rose Mary was rich, and in pieces it was very well executed, but both savory dishes I had were a little overdone. The radiatore cacio e pepe had too much black pepper, and way too much sauce; the pasta itself was excellent, perfectly al dente, but there were several tablespoons of sauce left on the plate once I’d eaten the pasta, and that ratio is off. There should be very little sauce left over – my rule of thumb is that there shouldn’t be any more than you can sop up with one piece of bread, and this was several times that. The duck sausage with polenta, giardiniera, and broccolini was also somewhat out of proportion – for one thing, there was too little of the non-sausage bits for the amount of meat on the plate, including a microscopic amount of broccolini; and for another, the sausage itself had too much black pepper. I actually like black pepper and use it liberally at home, but these two dishes overdid it. The meal was salvaged by the chocolate budino with coffee gelato and pizzelle crumble; I would gladly die in a vat of that gelato, which had the flavor of a perfectly made cappuccino. I was a fan of the Giant Orchid cocktail, which I’d compare to a souped-up daiquiri but with a lemon profile in place of lime.

—

I’ve raved about Monteverde in the past, but this was my first visit there post-pandemic, and I’m pleased to say that it remains my favorite Italian restaurant in the country. I danced around the menu a little bit because I wanted to try so many things, and ended up with the Nduja arancini, the sicilian tuna not-quite-crudo, tortelli with sheep’s milk ricotta, and a butterscotch budino. (Yes, I ate too much.) The tuna almost-crudo was really interesting, in a good way, as it had such a broad mix of flavors from the other ingredients – salsa verde, charred olives, celery, capers, mandarin EVOO – but the flavor of the tuna still came through. I might have preferred it totally crudo, but I’ve also never been a huge fan of seared tuna anyway so that’s probably my own bias. The tortelli, like all of the pastas I’ve ever had at Monteverde, was spectacular, freshly made, perfectly al dente, with the brightness of the ricotta balanced by a mint-pistachio pesto. The budino is a can’t-miss, with whipper mascarpone and buttered pecan toffee on top.

To drink, I tried their limonini, a sort of twist on a negroni that replaces the Campari with acqua di cedro, a grappa -based liqueur that uses the peel of a specific lemon to impart a pronounced lemon flavor without the sweetness of a limoncello, along with a white vermouth instead of red; it was exactly what it promised to be, lemony and herbal and pleasantly bitter, but I switched to a traditional negroni for a second drink because I didn’t want that flavor profile with dessert.

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Obélix is indeed a character in the Astérix comics, but also a French restaurant in Chicago with a focus on my favorite protein, duck, so I had to get the duck confit salad lyonnaise, along with the just barely still in season ramp tart, which turned out to be more than enough for a meal. The confit salad came with the confit and crispy skin on top of a mixture of frisée and escarole, with a poached duck egg and duck-fat croutons. The confit meat itself was excellent, tender and flavorful without becoming tough through the reheating, but the whole salad ended up really heavy and the greens couldn’t stand up to the huge flavors of everything duck all at once. The ramp tart was just what it sounds like, with Comté cheese, but was also on the heavy side (less surprising) and I couldn’t even finish it. I did hang out for a while because I ended up in a very interesting conversation with the gentleman sitting next to me at the bar, long enough that I decided to try their house-made ice cream, but it was just okay (I got the crème brûlée flavor) I’d probably skip that given all of the other dessert options around Chicago.

—

La Serre pitches itself as a Mediterranean restaurant, but come on, it’s French, the name is French, the menu is French, the décor is French. It’s a French restaurant. And it’s quite good.

They have several large mains that include various steaks (not for me) and two dishes that are for two people (including a duck dish, which made me sad), so I stuck with the smaller plates, ordering one amuse, one crudo, and one pasta dish. The crudo was tuna with osetra caviar, tomato, shallot, and yuzu, and I’m probably going to sound like a philistine but I don’t think the caviar added anything to the dish but prestige, and, as the clerical workers at my alma mater will tell you, you can’t eat prestige. The tuna itself was exceptional in every way, from freshness to texture to flavor, boosted by the acidity of the three other ingredients and something not listed that gave it a little kick – I think chili oil, but I’m just guessing. It was one of those dishes that I could have ordered twice with nothing else and been totally satisfied. For the amuse, I went with the duck profiterole, a small choux pastry with a filling of duck confit, foie gras mousse, and a sweet earthy sauce that reminded me of char siu marinade (from Cantonese BBQ pork bao). It was two bites’ worth, and delivered plenty of duck flavor, even with the foie gras a threat to overwhelm the duck confit, although I didn’t see or taste any of the duck cracklings promised on the menu.

For the pasta, I was leaning towards the gnocchi Parisienne, and my server recommended it, but it didn’t quite meet up to expectations – or to the same dish at Le Cavalier in Wilmington, which still makes the best Parisian gnocchi I’ve had. This style of gnocchi differs from traditional Italian gnocchi by skipping potatoes, instead using choux paste that’s piped into a line, cut into individual pieces, and then lightly poached. For one thing, these were very dense for Parisian gnocchi, so either they were overworked (creating gluten and removing some of the air in the mixture), or they included potato, or both. For another, they weren’t finished by frying or broiling them to add some texture to the outside; they were served in a basil pistou with “semi-dried cherry tomato” and pine nuts. The basil pistou was just a looser version of pesto with a fancy name, and the whole dish just felt a little flat. I actually enjoyed the very crusty bread they brought me dipped in the pistou more than the gnocchi. That’s not to say these were bad, but I’m holding them to a high standard because I love gnocchi, I’m Italian, and I’ve had this dish done much better.

For drinks, I had a very interesting house cocktail they call the Gold Fashioned, with a brown-butter wash, Old Forester bourbon, Lillet Rouge, and a hint of allspice. It’s less an Old Fashioned than a Manhattan-adjacent drink, as Lillet Rouge is a French aperitif wine that has much in common with sweet vermouth but is more complex. It came smoking, literally, which I always think is just showy, and which disappeared a minute after I got the drink so I didn’t get much benefit from it. The core of the drink was quite good though – I would definitely do a whiskey/Lillet Rouge drink again.

—

The most recent meal on the list was at Aba, which I think one of you recommended back in April, and which I saw last week while eating at La Serre. It’s “Mediterranean” cuisine, because that’s the neutral term for it, but this is Levantine food – the cuisine of Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, and so on. I kept it light this time around, ordering the muhammara; the Brussels sprouts with almonds, cashews, and honey harissa; and, at the bartender’s suggestion, the truffled salmon crudo. Muhammara is a traditional meze made from roasted red peppers, walnuts, pomegranate molasses, bread crumbs olive oil, and some kind of acid; it’s pureed or pounded into a dip, served as you might serve hummus (of which Aba has at least five varieties on the menu). Aba’s muhammara is moderately spicy, and very, very smoky (I think there was smoked paprika in it), with a chunkier consistency than you’d get if you pureed the ingredients. It comes with warm, soft flatbread, not enough because I could eat a pound of that bread at a sitting and still want more. I ate more than half of the muhammara before the spice level started to bother me a little bit, but the dish is meant to be shared, so, you know, FAFO.

The Brussels sprouts were fried, but not greasy in the least, and if anything they were a little dry; the honey was at the bottom of the bowl, which may be to keep the halved sprouts from losing their crunch but did leave the dish lacking something on the palate. The truffled salmon with fried leek, roasted garlic, and cilantro was excellent because the fish was extremely fresh, but I barely noticed the truffle flavor and really don’t know why it was necessary except so they could call it “truffled.” A plate of this same raw salmon with some EVOO and sherry vinegar would have been just as good. Let the ingredients speak!

Also, I liked their “summer Negroni” with peach. I don’t usually do drinks with fruit, but it was a hot summery night and I love both peaches and Negronis.

—

I did eat at Publican when this whole adventure started in April, but I 1) don’t remember a ton of details about what I ate and 2) had a LOT to drink that night, because the bartender offered me a free shot and I’d already had two cocktails, so my memory’s a bit hazy. I remember the bread plate was huge and one of the two breads, the multi-grain one, was delicious; and that I got the swordfish, something I rarely make at home, and loved the fish itself but didn’t care especially for what came with it. Two drinks and a shot is more than I can handle, or probably ever will be able to handle, although I did get back to the hotel in one piece.

—

Bonci Pizza has been lauded by chefs and food writers, but it’s just decent pizza al taglio, a Roman style of pizza that’s sold by weight or by length. The cool part about Bonci is that you can buy just a tiny sliver of something to see if you like it, and get a whole bunch of different slices for variation, but I also found nearly all of their pizzas a little too salty and a little too oily. Good place to fill up for less than $20, but not a destination for me.

—

Finally, a cocktail bar recommendation: Lazy Bird, in the basement of the Hoxton hotel in Chicago, offering a very broad array of classic cocktails done right, with an extensive menu that helps you navigate through the various drinks and see how they’re connected to each other. My bartender was extremely knowledgeable, asking what spirits I preferred and whether I was open to trying a cocktail I’d never had before.

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→ April 1, 2024
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Knoxville eats.

This was just my second trip to Knoxville, ever, since the Volunteers weren’t that relevant for a huge portion of my career, and it’s not as easy to get to some of the other SEC schools. The first time I went was a barely 24-hour trip in 2022, too short for a writeup, and the one meal I had on that trip was at a restaurant that closed last year (Olibea). So this is my first-ever Knoxville post.

Last time through, I wanted to try A Dopo Sourdough Pizza, but couldn’t make the timing work around the game, so this time I was determined to give myself two shots to go but got in after the Friday game, possibly with the last dough of the evening. It is Neopolitan-style pizza in the baking and the thickness, but the dough is different – it is noticeably tangy, clearly made from a sourdough starter rather than commercial yeast as most Neapolitan doughs are. I went with the margherita and added mushrooms, because their white pizzas all have a sauce of mascarpone & cream on them, and that’s more lactose than I really need; the tomatoes were out of sight, blasted with sweetness and just a little acidity, while the mushrooms were mixed wild mushrooms rather than just cremini. I didn’t quite finish it because the menu demanded that I save room for gelato, and I do listen to orders, at least at restaurants. The dark chocolate gelato was not dark in the least, but the texture was excellent. I probably should have ordered the pistachio instead.

Last trip, I tried Remedy, a local coffee shop that served Intelligentsia beans, so I planned to try another coffee shop this year after going for breakfast … and then I went to Paysan, a bagel/bakery window that, I realized as I pulled up, is right next to Remedy. This turned out to be a bit of serendipity, as Remedy now uses Rowan Coffee from Asheville, NC, so I got a chance to try a new roaster. Their Peru San Juan Pueblo Libre was on pour-over, with some raw cocoa and caramel notes. The Remedy space is really great – it was busy but not noisy, there’s plenty of light and seating, and it’s not as sparse as a lot of coffee shops (with no subway tiles). Paysan’s bagel was very good – it’s probably an average New York bagel, maybe a high 45, but on the non-NY scale it’s at least a 55. I actually was more disappointed in the egg on the sandwich, which was a square of scrambled egg that had no taste and a texture that was oddly homogenous. I’d just get something else on a bagel next time.

The best thing at Sweet P’s Barbecue is actually the “greens n’ things,” which is slow-cooked collard greens sauteed with black-eyed peas, carrots, celery, and bacon, although I barely saw any of that last thing. I like collard greens, and if they’re made well I love collard greens, but they almost always have a little bitterness left in them. These had none. It was all of the good of collards, without that bitter note, and because they were cooked and then sauteed they were really tender. The pork ribs were fine, with good bark and a nice salty-sweet rub, although they weren’t as tender as they should have been, and the cole slaw is vinegar-based so it’s a good complement to the meat. It’s fine as Q goes, but I wouldn’t go out of my way for it.

My least meal was downtown at Vida, a cocktail bar and Latin American restaurant, and I am afraid I just ordered the wrong things. I was debating between just getting ceviche and getting two smaller plates; I ended up with the latter because it meant more things to write about, but those smaller plates are definitely better for eating with a group because even two of them didn’t really add up to a meal. I ordered the panko-breaded shrimp and the corn croquettes, each of which was fine on its own, but it was too heavy as meal in total. The shrimp were in a combination of two sauces – a smoky adobo aioli and a sesame-sambal vinaigrette – with what they called a daikon and carrot “kim chi” that I think was just pickled with vinegar. The plus side was that it had a ton of flavor and it all worked well together, with smoky, salty, sour, and sweet elements, and if there’d been more umami from fermentation it would have been even better. It also needed more of the kim chi/slaw, but that’s part of my mistake in getting small plates rather than a more complete meal. The croquettes were extremely soft inside, tasting mostly of Manchego and the cilantro-lime crema underneath with just a hint of corn, and some ‘marinated avocado’ (I’m not even sure how that works, what on earth is absorbing the marinade here?) on top. The food was just okay, but the cocktail I tried was kickass; I asked another served who was picking up drinks next to my seat – sitting at that end of the bar can be great because you can ask servers what they like – what I should get as a rum drinker, and she said the Trinidad circuit race was her favorite. It contains two Trinidadian ingredients – Scarlet Ibis rum, a blend of column-stilled rums from 3 to 8 years old; and amaro di Angostura, a dark, potable bitter liqueur with strong notes of cinnamon and clove, a little like a fancy root beer. These are finished with passionfruit and lemon juices for the fruity Caribbean punch flavor profile, but without the cloying sweetness of more common mixers like pineapple juice or coconut or straight-up sugar in simple syrup or Grenadine. I’d really like to try Vida again and either just get the ahi ceviche or go with a group and try a bunch of smaller things. I’ll get the same drink, though.

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Stick to baseball, 1/26/24.

The top 100 prospects ranking will run on The Athletic on Monday, February 5th, followed by the farm system rankings later that week, and the team top 20s start running on February 12th.

My friend and one-time colleague Chris Crawford has had a tough year, losing his mother and just last week his stepfather while a site for which he was writing & producing podcasts decided to just not pay its people. He started a GoFundMe last week to help cover the mortgage on his parents’ house.

I’ve got a newsletter about 80% written and just need to finish it up this weekend. It’s free and you can sign up here.

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