→ February 23, 2016
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Arizona spring training dining guide, 2016 edition.

I have lots of dish posts on food in the Valley, searchable via the search box above or by location tags like Phoenix, Scottsdale, or Mesa. This is now my fourth edition of the dining guide, and my second since moving back to the east coast last summer; I’ve done my best to keep up with restaurant news from out there, but I’m aware I’m likely falling behind. Nothing’s new in the structure and I’ve left the list of places in downtown Phoenix that aren’t close to any ballpark at the end. A lot of the text is unchanged from last year, so don’t be shocked if it seems familiar.

Scottsdale/Old Town (San Francisco):

* Virtu Honest Craft: Award-winning, including a James Beard nomination for best new restaurant in the country, with reason, as this might be the best restaurant in all of Arizona. Virtu is only a 12-minute walk from Scottsdale Stadium and offers inventive, attractive, and most importantly delicious food that plays with textures and flavors in unexpected ways. I went there in October and wrote up the meal in depth.

* Citizen Public House: This was my birthday dinner spot each of the last two years we were out there, if that gives you some sense of how much I liked it. I love the pork belly pastrami starter with rye spaetzle, shredded brussels sprouts, and mustard vinaigrette. I love the short ribs with a dark cherry glaze. I loved the seared scallops on grits. I loved the bacon-fat popcorn and the chicken-and-waffles starter. The only thing I didn’t love was, surprisingly, the duck breast, which was so rare that I couldn’t cut it. Great beer selection as well as well as the best negroni I’ve ever had.

* FnB: I’ve had lunch and dinner here and never been disappointed at all; it rivals Virtu and crudo for the best restaurant in Phoenix, with a menu of smaller plates that often showcase produce of a quality I didn’t think you could get in the state of Arizona. Chef Charleen Badman was just nominated for the James Beard Award for Best Chef, Southwest, for the second year in a row.

* Pig and Pickle: Just outside of Old Town, and only open since November, they do things with pig and with pickles, like the braised pork belly, yam puree, and brussels sprouts slaw starter that was pretty special, as well as a great selection of cocktails.

* Barrio Queen: A spinoff of Barrio Cafe (reviewed below), Barrio Queen is all about the mini tacos, which you order on a piece of paper like you’d get at a sushi place. They range from about $2.50 to $6 apiece and everything I tried was excellent, especially the same cochinita pibil that is a signature dish at the original Cafe.

* Culinary Dropout: A gastropub of sorts, located right near Old Town across from the Fashion Square mall. Definitely a good place to go with pickier eaters, since the menu is broad and most of it is easily recognizable. The chicken truffle hash and the turkey pastrami are both very good.

* Arcadia Farms: Farm-to-table breakfast dishes and sandwiches. Not cheap, but you are paying for quality and for a philosophy of food. I have been there twice and service, while friendly, was leisurely both times.

* Grimaldi’s: Local chain, related to the Brooklyn establishment of the same name. Very good (grade 55) thin-crust, coal-fired pizzas, including nut-free pesto, and similarly solid salads in generous portions. Not terribly cost-effective for one person for dinner, although they’ve finally introduced a more affordable lunch menu.

* Distrito: Inside the Saguaro hotel is this cool, upscale Mexican place, an offshoot of the restaurant of the same name in Philadelphia, serving mostly small plates at a slightly high price point but with very high-quality ingredients, including the best huitlacoche dish I’ve had, and an excellent questo fundido with duck barbacoa. I also liked their Sunday brunch … except for the coffee, which was like molten lead. I haven’t been here since the makeover, however.

* Cartel Coffee Lab: Best coffee in Arizona. Full writeup below in the Tempe section. This shop is on 5th street right across from Citizen Public House and FnB.

* Los Sombreros: A bit of a drive south of Old Town into the only part of Scottsdale that you might call “sketchy,” Los Sombreros does high-end authentic Mexican at Scottsdale-ish prices but with large portions and very high quality.

* Defalco’s Italian Market is a great spot to grab an authentic Italian (specifically New York-Italian) sandwich while you’re on your way to a game anywhere in Scottsdale. I prefer it to Andreoli’s, which offers a similar menu and is much closer to Salt River Fields.

* I should mention Franco’s Italian Caffe, right on Scottsdale Road, as it’s very highly regarded by locals, but I was very disappointed. Authentic Italian cuisine is light, focused on simple recipes with big flavors but rarely heavy, while Franco’s menu skews toward what I think of as New York-Italian cuisine, with heavier dishes including lots of heavy cream and salt. It’s not my thing, but I won’t judge you if it’s yours. I also tried The Upton, a new small-plates-and-cocktails kind of place just off Scottsdale road south of Camelback, but their execution was very uneven (e.g., the fried oysters’ batter was inedibly salty) and the service was just kind of weird. I ate at EVO in Scottsdale in October and had a uniformly awful experience.

Scottsdale central/north (Arizona/Colorado):

* Soi4: upscale Thai and Thai-fusion, very close to the park. Owned by the same family that runs Soi4 in Oakland. Full review of my first visit. I’ve gotten pad see ew as a takeout item from here a few times and it was always excellent, full of that crunchy bitter brassica (similar to rapini), and smoking hot.

* Il Bosco: Wood-fired pizzas, cooked around 750 degrees, at a nice midpoint between the ultra-thin almost cracker-like Italian style and the slightly doughier New York style I grew up eating. Their salads are also outstanding and they source a lot of ingredients locally, including olives and EVOO from the Queen Creek Olive Mill. I’ve met the owner and talked to him several times, and he was kind enough to give my daughter a little tour behind the counter and let her pour her own water from their filtration machine, which she loved.

* ‘Pomo Pizzeria: This location is in the same shopping center as Soi4, with others in downtown Phoenix and out in Gilbert. Authentic, Neapolitan-style pizza, not as good as Bianco, but in the running for the second-best pizza in Arizona along with cibo. Toppings include a lot of salty cured meats designed (I assume) to keep you drinking … not that there’s anything wrong with that. Full review.

* Press: In that same shopping center is a small coffee shop where they roast their own beans and will make you a cup of coffee using your method of choice (vacuum, French press, pour-over), as well as the usual run of espresso-based options. There’s apparently also a location at Sky Harbor in Terminal 4 by the B gates (USAirways), although I haven’t visited that one.

* Butterfields: The lines are crazy on the weekends, but if you like a basic diner and want good pancakes or waffles this is one of the better options in the Valley.

* Sweet Republic: I actually find this place to be a little overrated, but if you prefer traditional New York ice cream to gelato or custard, then it’s a good bet, and not far north of the park, just east of the 101 on Shea.

* Andreoli’s Italian Market is a decent spot for New York-Italian sandwiches, although I prefer Defalco’s in south Scottsdale.

* Perk Eatery: West of Scottsdale road and the Kierland mall, on Greenway, probably stretching the definition of what’s near Salt River Fields, but Phoenix doesn’t have a ton of good breakfast spots and this is one of the few. It’s a diner by another name, open for breakfast and lunch, with a slow-roasted pork option along with the regular array of breakfast meats, and rosemary potatoes that are a must with any egg dish.

Tempe (Angels):

* Hillside Spot, Ahwatukee (Phoenix). My favorite place to eat in the Valley, right off I-10 at the corner of Warner and 48th. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I recommend the pulled pork sandwich, the chilaquiles, the grilled corn appetizer, the house-cut French fries, the pancakes (best in Arizona), and the coffee from Cartel Coffee Lab. The Spot sources as much as they possibly can from local growers or providers, even providing four local beers on tap, and you can get out for under $15 including tax and tip. I’ve written about it more than once; here’s one of my posts, which talks about that pork sandwich. They’ve also added an evening menu called “Cocina 10,” including (on some nights) a really great take on fried fish tacos. For breakfast and lunch they’re outstanding, but I have found dinner service to be a little less consistent – but still usually great.

* Crepe Bar: Amazing savory and sweet crepes, and expertly pulled espresso shots using beans from heart coffee roasters, one of the best micro-roasters I’ve come across. They use a lot of local ingredients, including produce from Agritopia Farms (which also hosts Joe’s Farm Grill in Gilbert, seen on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Douche), and bake their own brioche if you’re not in the mood for a regular or buckwheat crepe.

* nocawich. Nestled right off University within the heart of ASU is this fantastic sandwich shop serving breakfast and lunch, with the Dolly, a fried chicken sandwich that is so good I’ve scheduled layovers at this airport just to eat it at their Terminal 4 location. (I’ve done the same to get coffee at Cartel, too.) They also offer an amazing patty melt sandwich, triple-cooked fries, and H&H bagels for their enormous breakfast sandwiches.

* Cornish Pasty Company: Just what the name says – large, hearty Cornish pasties with dozens of traditional and non-traditional filling options. I’ve eaten one for lunch and then skipped dinner. Convenient to the A’s ballpark. Second location in Mesa isn’t too far from the Cubs’ park and is bigger with more parking, and there’s one within a mile of the Giants’ place in Scottsdale.

* Four Peaks Brewery: One of the best local microbreweries with surprisingly solid food as well. You’ll see their beers all over the place, but the restaurant is absolutely worth hitting. Parking is very difficult on Friday through Sunday nights, though. Also very convenient to the A’s ballpark.

* Cartel Coffee Lab: Among the best coffee roasters in the Valley, and now in an expanded place that doesn’t feel so much like a fly-by-night operation. They’re also in the C wing of Terminal 4 at Phoenix Sky Harbor, in downtown Phoenix, and right in Old Town Scottsdale near Citizen Public House.

* I haven’t tried Moroccan Paradise yet, where they serve Moroccan (duh) and French food, but it’s garnered some nice reviews, as has BP Street Cafe for its Malaysian food.

Mesa (Cubs):

Most of the places I suggested for Tempe are also quite close to here, including Crepe Bar, Cartel, and the Revival.

* The best smoked brisket I’ve ever had outside of Franklin BBQ in Austin is at Little Miss BBQ on University Avenue in Tempe, right near the airport. If you’ve been to Franklin or read about it, you know what to expect: Get in line by 10:30 or so if you want to eat before 1 pm; they start serving at 11 and they stop when they sell out of meat; and don’t expect a lot of variety. The menu is short but amazing, with all meats smoked over oak and pecan. The brisket is amazing, the sausage is excellent, but everything’s good, and it’s a great place to go with a group because you can only order some items – like the occasionally available smoked lamb neck – by the pound.

* Republica Empanada offers outstanding empanadas, small plates, a few entrees, and beer. I loved everything I tried here but particularly recommend a side of maduros.

* Chou’s Kitchen: Just over the line in Chandler, at the intersection of Alma School (north-south) and Ray (east-west), this hole-in-the-wall place does dongbei cai, the cuisine of northeastern China – what we used to call Manchuria – which is heavy on dumplings, mostly fried and generally delicious, with large portions designed for sharing and vinegar on the table for dipping. I also love their lao hu cai or “tiger salad,” a vinegary mix of shredded vegetables, scallions, cilantro, jalapenos, and peanuts.

* Pros Ranch Market: A Mexican/Latin American grocery store south of the ballpark (at Stapley and Southern) with a large quick-service department offering some of the best burritos (including, hands-down, the best carnitas) I’ve had in Arizona. The enchiladas are solid, my daughter loves their quesadillas, they make great aguas frescas in eight to twelve flavors, and there’s an extensive selection of Mexican pastries. You can stuff yourself here for under $10. There’s another location near the A’s ballpark in Phoenix as well.

* Thai Spices: In a strip mall of Asian restaurants, Thai Spices is among the best Thai places I’ve found around here, just doing a great job with the basics of Thai (or perhaps Americanized Thai) cuisine. I really loved their soups, both tom yum (clear, sour/spicy soup with lemongrass) and tom ka (sweeter, with coconut milk, and also lemongrass), as well as the green curry.

* Tia Rosa’s: A bit east of the ballpark, Tia Rosa’s is a taqueria that offers a few other Mexican dishes in a casual setting; the large, high-end restaurant that used to be here burned down, although they offer that menu at a location way out in east Gilbert.

Maryvale (Milwaukee):

* Life is nasty, brutish, and short. Don’t make it any worse by going here.

(Okay, fine, here’s an actual recommendation for this neighborhood: the Phoenix New Times just reviewed a place called Machete Azteca, which sells the machetes (like giant quesadillas) of the Distrito Federal region of Mexico.)

Goodyear (Cincinnati/Cleveland):

* Ground Control. In the Avondale/Litchfield Park area, but kind of between Goodyear and Glendale, this coffee-shop has upgraded its menu so it’s now a craft-beer paradise and upscale sandwich shop and coffee bar and even gelateria. I’ve been twice; the service can be a little spacey but the food is very good and I even liked the coffee. They do breakfast as well. This place should be so much more popular than it is, given the paucity of quality non-chain options in the area.

* Raul and Theresa’s: Very good, authentic, reasonably priced Mexican food, really fresh, always made to order. The guacamole is outstanding. It’s south of the stadium and doesn’t look like much on the outside, but I would call it a can’t-miss spot if you’re going to a Cincinnati or Cleveland game, since there isn’t much else out here that isn’t a bad chain.

Glendale (Dodgers/White Sox):

* If you’re headed here or even to Goodyear, swing by Tortas Paquime in Avondale. They do traditional Mexican sandwiches, with the torta ahogada – literally a “drowned” sandwich – covered in a slightly spicy red sauce, although that was a little over-the-top heavy for me. Solid aguas frescas here as well.

* For finer dining and good cocktails, try Cuff right in downtown Glendale, which does very unpretentious but fresh, high-quality food, including burgers, sandwiches, and salads that use much better inputs than most places that try that sort of menu. I’m underselling it a bit – it’s basic food, but done exceedingly well.

* You might also try Siam Thai, which is in Glendale on Northern but is at least 15 minutes away from the park, heading east. It is, however, superlative Thai food, perhaps the highest-rated Thai place in the Valley.

* La Piazza Al Forno: thin-crust, wood-fired pizzas that are not as good as Bianco’s or Cibo’s, but are certainly authentic Neapolitan pizzas with the wet center you’d expect. It’s a couple of doors down from Cuff.

Peoria:

* It’s a wasteland of chains out here; the best option I know is the local chain Grimaldi’s, mentioned above.

Surprise:

* I’ve got one good rec out this way, the new-ish Vietnamese place Saigon Kitchen up on Bell Road just north of the ballpark. There’s good Vietnamese food to be had out here if you work to find it, and this is the best, especially in presentation – the menu is familiar, the food is a little brighter and fresher, and the place is far more welcoming. I’ve yet to try Amuse Bouche, probably the best-reviewed restaurant in Surprise, which does a more casual sandwich/panini menu at lunch before shifting to fine dining for dinner.

Away from the parks: Downtown Phoenix and Camelback East

These places are no longer near any ballpark other than Phoenix Muni, which now houses Arizona State but no spring training teams.

* Pizzeria Bianco: Most convenient to Chase Field. Best pizza I have ever had in the United States. No reservations, closed Sunday-Monday, waits for dinner can run to four hours, but they’re now open for lunch and if you get there before twelve the wait usually isn’t too bad. Parking is validated at the Science Museum garage. There’s now a second, larger location just off route 51 in the Town and Country shopping center, serving a few pasta items as well as the signature pizzas. By the end of March, a trattoria serving house-made pastas with locally grown wheat will open in the space next to that Town and Country pizzeria.

* Welcome Chicken and Donuts: Located in a former KFC location, this spinoff of the Welcome Diner serves “Asian” fried chicken, lots of donuts, and not a whole lot else. You can get one of three sauces on the chicken; I don’t recommend the Vietnamese option unless you really love fish sauce. I thought the chicken was plus and the donuts were Hall of Fame-worthy.

* Noble Eatery: Artisan European-style breads from the Noble Bread Company, with 3-4 sandwich options each day in a tiny (“intimate”) cafe. It is truly some of the best bread you’ll ever have this side of Italy.

* Barrio Cafe: About 15 minutes west of Phoenix Muni via the 202/51. Best high-end Mexican food I’ve had out here, edging out Los Sombreros in Scottsdale. Table-side guacamole is very gimmicky (and, per Rick Bayless, suboptimal for flavor development), but the ingredients, including pomegranate arils, are very fresh. Great cochinita pibil too. There’s now a location at Sky Harbor’s Terminal 4, past security near the D gates. Chef Silvana has also opened a cocktail bar with lots of small plates, serving three meals a day, at The Yard in Phoenix.

* The Grind: The best burger I’ve had out here, far superior to the nearby Delux, which is overrated for reasons I don’t quite fathom. (Maybe people just love getting their fries in miniature shopping carts.) The Grind cooks its burgers in a 1000-degree coal oven, so you get an impressive crust on the exterior of the burger even if it’s just rare inside. Their macaroni and cheese got very high marks from my daughter, a fairly tough critic. They have photos of local dignitaries on the wall, including Jan Brewer and Mark Grace, which might cause you to lose your appetite.

* Chelsea’s Kitchen: I’ve only been to the airport location, in the center of Terminal 4 before security, where the food was excellent but the service a little confused. The short rib taco plate would feed two adults – that has to be at least ¾ of a pound of meat. Their kale-quinoa salad sounds disgustingly healthy, but is delicious despite that. Both this and The Grind (and North Fattoria, an Italian restaurant from the Culinary Dropout people) are near Camelback and 40th, about 6 miles/13 minutes west of Scottsdale Stadium.

* crudo: There isn’t much high-end cuisine in Phoenix – I think that’s our one real deficiency – but Chef Cullen Campbell does a great job of filling that void here with a simple menu that has four parts: crudo dishes, raw fish Italian-style, emphasis on tuna; fresh mozzarella dishes, including the ever-popular burrata; small pasta dishes, like last fall’s wonderful squash dumplings with pork belly ragout; and larger entrees, with four to five items in each sections. The desserts, like so many in the Valley, are from Tracy Dempsey, the premier pastry chef in the area. Like the previous two spots, it’s about 12-13 minutes west of the Giants’ ballpark. This is now my go-to rec when someone wants a splurge meal in Phoenix or wants more adventurous cuisine.

* Zinburger: Not the top burger around here but a damn good one, especially the namesake option (red zinfandel-braised onions, Manchego, mayo), along with strong hand-cut fries and above-average milkshakes. Located in a shopping center across the street from the Ritz. Try the salted caramel shake if you go. There are also two locations in Tucson, and two in New Jersey that are licensed but independently owned and operated.

* cibo: Maybe the second-best pizzas in town, with more options than Bianco offers, along with a broad menu of phenomenal salads and antipasti, including cured meats, roasted vegetables, and (when available) a superb burrata.

* Pane Bianco: Sandwiches from the Bianco mini-empire, just a few options, served on focaccia made with the same dough used to make the pizzas at Pizzeria Bianco. My one experience here was disappointing, mostly due to the bread being a little dry, but the cult following here is tremendous and I may have just caught them on a bad day.

* Otro Cafe: The chef behind Gallo Blanco (which is now closed) has a new place, with a very simple menu – a few taco items, a few tortas with the same meats you’ll find on the taco menu, a few Mexican street-food starters, and a full bar. There’s a bit more focus on local fare here, and the guacamole is my favorite in the Valley.

* Matt’s Big Breakfast and Giant Coffee. Owned by the same guy, located a few blocks apart, but not otherwise connected as Matt’s doesn’t use Giant’s coffee. Matt’s is the best pure-breakfast place in the Valley, and one major reason is that they use the black-pepper bacon from Queen Creek’s The Pork Shop. Everything here is good, but the veteran move is breakfast at Matt’s original location with coffee or espresso afterwards at Giant. (Matt’s uses ROC, from Cave Creek, a popular roaster with Valley restaurants but nowhere near Giant’s quality.) Giant uses direct-trade beans for its espresso from Four Barrel and usually has three or four single-origin options for pour-overs. Matt’s recently opened a second location that should take some pressure off the lines at the first spot.

* Federal Pizza. Federal’s was the best Brussels sprout pizza I’d ever tried until I found Motorino in NYC, and even then it was close. I’ve tried a few of their pizzas and their roasted vegetable board, loving everything, and their crust is a great compromise for folks who want more chew and less of the cracker-thin crust of a place like Bianco.

* The Gladly. The second location from the folks behind Citizen Public House, the Gladly’s location and menu are built more around the alcohol – I think the atmosphere they’re going for is cocktail party, or upscale happy-hour, with smart food to go with the booze. I had a mixed experience in my one meal there, loving the chicken-liver pate starter but finding less success with the duck ramen (which I’m told is a dish they frequently tweak). Given their track record at CPH, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.

* Blue Hound. Another great cocktail bar that happens to offer good food, mostly sandwiches and other items you’d expect at a quality bar, although I’ve only been here for drinks and bar snacks (like the tater tots, which I highly recommend).

* Frost Gelato. Located at the Biltmore, right by Zinburger, Frost has the best gelato or ice cream anywhere in Phoenix. The sea salt caramel is their top seller; I suggest you pair it with the dark chocolate. They also have locations in Gilbert and Tucson.

* The larder + the delta, the new place from former Blue Hound exec chef Stephen Jones, specializing in southern cuisine, located inside the Desoto Market downtown.

Some of the places I’m hoping to try on my spring training trip this year: Okra, the new place from the folks behind crudo; Forno 301, serving thin-crust pizzas and salads plus daily pasta specials; Couscous Express, another Moroccan place, this one on East McDowell in Phoenix; Craft 64, serving pizza and beer, which is like the meaning of life; TEN, serving simple, well-done pub food in the Biltmore area; and Ocotillo, a combination coffee bar, beer garden, and restaurant serving lunch, dinner, and weekend brunches.

Feel free to offer your own suggestions for places I haven’t listed or tried in the comments below. I believe everything I’ve listed here is still open, but if you know that one of these restaurants has shut its doors, again, please let me know.

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→ February 7, 2016
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Philly eats, February 2016 edition.

Standard reminder, since I’ve been asked this several times a day lately: The top 100 prospects package starts to roll out on Wednesday, February 10th, with the organizational rankings; the top 100 list itself follows on Thursday, with the org reports (including top tens) posting the following week.

I was both inspired and shamed by Philadelphia magazine’s latest list of the top 50 restaurants in Philly, since I live just 35 minutes away and had only been to three of the entries on the list: High Street on Market, Barbuzzo, and Osteria, which are all fantastic. I’m up to five now and would like to try to get to about half of the entries on the list by the end of 2016 (it’s down to 49 after Il Pittore closed in January), especially Laurel, Zahav, and Vedge, all nationally known establishments that are among Philly’s culinary stars.

Top Chef fans likely remember season 7 winner Kevin Sbraga – whose response to “You are Top Chef” was “I am?” – and his namesake restaurant, Sbraga, made the top 50. The menu is a $55 four-course prix fixe, very reasonable for the quality of food you’re getting, with plenty of options for each course to suit most diets. All meals start with a gruyère popover (outstanding) and foie gras soup (a little strongly flavored for my palate – the taste lingered for much of the meal). The menu changes frequently, but here’s what I had in my meal there at the end of January. For the first course, I got the hamachi crudo, served with thinly sliced honeydew, jicama, and coconut; the fish was as fresh as it gets, although I think it was a bit overpowered by the variety of other flavors on the plate. For the second course, which comprises pastas and a risotto, I went with the gnocchi with sunchokes, Brussels sprouts, and pine nuts, a dish that really worked when I could get every flavor in one bite – the sweetness of the sunchokes (a.k.a. Jerusalem artichokes), the faint bitterness of the sprouts, and the mixture of flavors in the well-browned gnocchi, although they could have been a little lighter in texture.

Course three is the proteins and this was where Sbraga kicked into high gear. I’m ridiculously picky about octopus – more than 90% of the times I’ve had octopus, it has been terrible, but I figured this was the kind of place that would do it justice. It’s cooked sous vide and finished on the grill, so the texture was perfect, and the restaurant’s version of piri piri – a chili pepper and lemon sauce that is kind of like a Portuguese chimichurri – was the ideal complement to the meaty but kind of neutral flavor of the octopus. The dessert option was a no-brainer – the mint cookie has a scoop of chocolate mousse sandwiched between two flat meringue cookies, topped with a quenelle of mint ice cream and a sprinkling of chocolate cookie crumbs. Both of the last two courses were memorable, the octopus for how it was cooked and the perfection of that sauce, the dessert because oh my God it’s like a Thin Mint on PEDs.

Late last week, my daughter and I went on a date to Brigantessa, a Southern Italian trattoria with wood-fired pizzas and house-made pastas in the Passyunk neighborhood of Philly, and another entry on the top 50. The biggest hit of the meal was the cappellaci dei briganti – hat-shaped pasta pieces – made with arugula pasta dough and served with a wild boar ragù that was everything you want a slow-cooked meat sauce to be. My daughter ended up eating about half of my plate, so I shared her margherita pizza (her standard order), which was solid; they’re using really good San Marzano tomatoes, because the sauce was bright and sweet and just a little tangy. I loved my appetizer, charred beets with salsa salmoriglio (which really is just an Italian chimichurri, swapping oregano in for the cilantro), grilled treviso, and toasted pistachios; if I’m really nitpicking, I’d say it could have used a dollop of the sheep’s milk ricotta that was on my daughter’s starter plate. Hers had that ricotta, prosciutto, pepitas, and a roasted and caramelized winter squash puree, but the cheese and squash were underseasoned, probably to compensate for the prosciutto. Even when I tasted everything at once it didn’t quite click, and my daughter, who has never met a cheese she didn’t like, ended up just crushing the prosciutto. As traditional as much of the menu is, the dessert menu is rather untraditional – not bad, necessarily, but not what we had in mind, so we passed. They have a nice menu of Italian beers that you don’t see everywhere else, including beers from Birrificio Italiano, a brewery located north of Milan near Lake Como.

I only managed to take advantage of Philadelphia Restaurant Week once, since I was sick for most of it, meeting a friend for lunch at FARMiCiA, a farm-to-table spot located right across from Menagerie Coffee and around the corner from High Street on Market. Farmicia’s lunch menu (I’m not going to bother with the weird capitalization again) is very straightforward, like diner fare done right, with way better ingredients and attention to detail. The roasted beets and kale salad was calling my name, even with its “veggie ricotta;” I’m not sure what that was made of, but the dressing on the dish was so flavorful that I didn’t mind the intrusion of the soy or nut “cheese” or whatever it was. The turkey and avocado club was enormous and not over-mayonnaised. The fries are freshly cut and properly fried. The desserts appear to have been specials for restaurant week; both my friend and I ordered the apple tart, which was … a good apple tart, although I hate when the pastry chef sneaks raisins into a dish, because, as John Oliver said, “no one fucking wants them there.”

Since I haven’t done a recent Philly eats post, I’ll just mention some of my other favorites that aren’t cited above: Pizzeria Vetri is my go-to date place with my daughter – we went tonight, in fact – and while everything is good, I’m very partial to the sausage and fennel pizza because I’ve never had fennel that good. That’s our favorite pizza in Philly, and Pizzeria Stella is second; Stella has some pasta options if you’re going with some freak who doesn’t like pizza. I mentioned Menagerie Coffee, a very cool space that uses Dogwood Coffee’s Neon blend for its espresso and rotates in various micro-roasters for its pourovers. I also love the local roaster Re-Animator, now with one location near center city plus the original in Fishtown. High Street on Market is still my go-to spot for breakfast or lunch, especially when I want to impress someone; you can’t go wrong with their Forager breakfast sandwich, or just with anything involving their amazing breads. El Vez tries a little too hard to be hip, but I was impressed by their guacamoles, both the variety and the freshness. I’m sure there’s better Mexican to be had – everyone raves about Lolita, which is owned by the same team that runs Barbuzzo (get the gnocchi and the salted caramel budino), Jamonera, and Bud & Marilyn’s, but that’s still on my to-do list.

I haven’t done many brunch spots in Philly, but we all liked the Farmacy in West Philadelphia, which offers a build-your-own Benedict and a lot of crazy twists on breakfast classics. No trip to Philly is complete without a stop at the Reading Terminal Market and a pork sandwich with broccoli rabe and provolone at Dinic’s. And for reasons I can’t quite explain, I liked the Big Gay Ice Cream shop down here better than the one I tried in Manhattan (which was the original location, I think). My daughter and I were in a bookstore in Philly recently, and I’d promised to take her to the BGIC afterwards, but she confused her favorite dish there with the name of the place and said in a fairly loud voice, “I wanna go to the Salty Pimp!”

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→ October 26, 2015
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Arizona eats, October 2015 edition.

My second and final Arizona Fall League post for this year is up for Insiders, covering Dom Smith, Clint Frazier, Jake Reed, Jason Garcia, and more.

The biggest news in Phoenix food has been the arrival of the Noble Bread Company, crafted artisan loaves of classic European breads, so good that every restaurant I tried all week that served bread bought it from Noble. (One such restaurant: the estimable FnB, still outstanding and one of the best bets in town if you want to eat a lot of vegetables and still feel like you had a real meal.) Noble now has a second spot, the Noble Eatery on McDowell, where the menu changes daily and includes two or three sandwiches, a flatbread option, and a salad. I went with their open-faced tuna salad sandwich, made with olive oil rather than mayo and including chickpeas and potatoes, served on a dark, crusty peasant loaf; with three slices and a huge portion of the tuna it was more than a meal for me, closer to two. The bread is just to die for – this ranks among the best breads I’ve ever tasted, with the texture expert bread bakers describe as “creamy” inside a crackling crust.

nocawich reopened in a new location in Tempe on College Avenue, right in the heart of ASU’s campus, this summer, with their justifiably renowned fried chicken sandwich still on the menu, as well as a giant patty melt served on good rye sandwich bread and triple-fried French fries that are out of another world entirely. On this trip I tried their breakfast, getting an oversized egg and chorizo sandwich with arugula, avocado, tomato, mayo (not much), and cheese on a sesame bagel from H&H in New York City. Everything Elliott creates there is amazing, and if I wasn’t behaving myself a little bit this week I would have grabbed one of the incredible pastries available – he has a pastry chef fly in from Portland to make them weekly. Other than nocawich I stuck to morning favorites on this trip: crêpe bar, the Hillside Spot, Matt’s Big Breakfast, Cartel Coffee Lab, and Giant Coffee.

My frequent dining partner-in-crime Nick Piecoro introduced me to a new taco/burger place in Arcadia called the Stand, where the menu is very simple: a burger, three types of tacos, hand-cut fries, and shakes. I tried all three tacos, for research purposes of course, and would recommend the short rib and chicken tacos but not the vegetable taco, which couldn’t hold the fillings in and was decidedly flat in flavor, with a lot in it (mostly quinoa and some sort of winter squash) but nothing that really popped in flavor. It needed something with umami to bring it together.

Speaking of that fifth taste, Umami in Tempe (very close to nocawich, at 7th and Mill) does ramen, and a few other things, but mostly ramen, customizable to order with five choices of broths and about a dozen or so toppings or add-ons, including chicken, roast pork, and pork belly. I went with the pork and chicken bone broth, roast pork, and a soft-cooked egg, all of which came out perfectly – the broth itself was a little salty but full of body and depth of flavor. They could probably stand to use better noodles, though; these tasted like they came right out of the package, even though more hip ramen joints in other towns have gone with fresh ramen noodles instead. The ramen, a small seaweed salad, and an iced tea ran about $13 before tip, and it was plenty of food for one.

La Piazza al Forno isn’t new – it’s been open since around the time I first moved to Arizona in 2010 – but its location in downtown Glendale, next to Cuff (one of my favorite spots on the west side), isn’t that convenient to any of the ballparks, so I hadn’t tried it till this week. Their specialty is Neapolitan-style pizzas, and they have the VPN certification that is supposed to go only to places that correctly follow the standards of Neapolitan pizza … although in my experience the VPN designation means virtually practically nothing. La Piazza’s pizzas are thin and they use top-quality ingredients, including San Marzano tomatoes and the option of using mozzarella di bufala, but the pies’ centers aren’t wet as they should be in Neapolitan pizza, and they put the basil on before baking the pizzas so it comes out very dark and loses its bright, faintly sweet flavor. Still, if you’re looking for pizza on the west side of Phoenix it’s this and Grimaldi’s and nothing else I’d recommend.

My one real disaster meal of the week was at a new modern Italian restaurant in Old Town called Evo, where the focus is on handmade pastas but not on service or even execution. The concepts for the dishes are sound, but neither item I ordered was well-constructed, and one of them came out wrong (spinach, which I can’t eat, instead of the promised escarole, an essential ingredient in the dish). The white-bean hummus with the roasted cauliflower was too thin and coarse, and didn’t add anything to the cauliflower itself, which was beautifully caramelized. The house-made orecchiette in the main course were shaped incorrectly – more like thimbles, so that the individual pieces couldn’t pick up any portions of the sauce or the other items in the dish. Even the fennel sausage in the dish was off, cut into inch-long rectangular blocks rather than broken up into smaller pieces when cooked. My meal also took forever; I don’t think my main course was fired until I reminded my server about it, a half hour after I ordered, despite the fact that the restaurant was almost empty. I would guess that EVO will be gone before I get back in March given the food and the rent at that location.

Still good: FnB, especially their socca with pickled butternut squash and cultured butter, and their salad of persimmons, pecans, pomegranates, and shaved Parmesan with mixed greens; and Welcome Chicken and Donuts, although I think the next time I go there I’ll try the chicken without any sauce at all. I tried a chocolate-glazed donut with pistachios and what I think were rose petal-flavored marshmallows; it was good but the donut tasted a little past its peak. Crêpe Bar in Tempe (Elliott and Rural) appears to be expanding, and they still bring out all kinds of little bites that the kitchen has thrown together. I can also verify that Citizen Public House still makes a mean negroni. The Revival in Tempe has closed; however, former executive chef Kelly Fletcher is now at Phoenix landmark El Chorro as chef de cuisine.

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→ October 3, 2015
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Saturday five, 10/3/15.

No Insider piece this week, but I held my weekly Klawchat on Friday.

My latest boardgame review for Paste covers the reissue of the classic Reiner Knizia game Samurai.

I mentioned this on Twitter yesterday but it’s such a good deal it’s worth sending again – Ruhlman’s Twenty, one of the best cookbooks I’ve ever read, is on sale for the Kindle for $3.99 ($2.99 if you already own the print version).

  • Julie DiCaro wrote a great piece for SI about the threats female sportswriters receive via social media. She’s been besieged by numerous accounts (several fake so I presume they’re all from the same sociopath) calling for her to be maimed, raped, or killed.
  • Dan Rather, of all people, had a spot-on rant about science denialism and false balance in the media.
  • Foreign Policy has an excellent longread on the history and future of antibiotics, focusing on the iChip, a new device that allowed scientists to find and work with new species of bacteria that can only survive in soil.
  • Opposed to genetic modification? GMO methods are in more than just foods, appearing in medicines, detergents, and other products that make our lives safer and better.
  • The New Republic looks at the complicated world of cannabidiol, the anti-convulsant/anti-psychotic chemical in marijuana, as state and federal authorities try to roll back often pointless policies on the drug. (Delaware became one of eighteen states to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana this summer, and we now have one dispensary for medical marijuana.)
  • Sour flavors are making a comeback, thanks to globalization, rising popularity of healthful fermented foods, and a change in our attitudes towards sugar.
  • Reader Kelvin sent along this piece on Chris Bianco and the rise of Phoenix’s pizza scene, and I read it only to realize afterwards that I know the writer.
  • Harvard Law and Policy Review discusses the fallibility of finality vis-a-vis the death penalty, specifically the case of Richard Glossip, whose execution in Oklahoma was delayed about five weeks but only due to questions about the drug cocktail the state will use to murder him.
  • Superhumanoids’ new video, for the wonderfully-titled “Norwegian Black Metal,” features SNL player Kyle Mooney in corpse paint. I reviewed their latest album Do You Feel OK? last week.
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→ August 28, 2015
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Top 40 pizzerias, ranked.

This won’t start any arguments.

I adore all kinds of pizza – New York-style, Neapolitan-style (thin crust, wet center), Roman-style (also thin-crust but with a cracker-like crust), Sicilian, coal-fired, wood-fired, whatever. Except “deep dish,” which is just a bread casserole and should be avoided at all costs. I try to find good artisan pizzerias everywhere I travel, and I’ve hit just about all of the most highly-regarded places in Manhattan and Brooklyn too. I grew up on Long Island, eating by the slice and folding as I did so, but a couple of trips to Italy convinced me of the merits of those very thin crusts and superior toppings. We’re the beneficiaries of a huge boom in high-end pizza joints in this country, and while I haven’t tried all of the good ones, I’ve been to enough to put together a ranking of the 40 best that I’ve tried. There is, I admit, a bias to this list – I’ve tried more places in greater Phoenix than any other metro area other than New York – and I’m sure I’ll get some yelling over where I put di Fara or Co. or Paulie Gee’s, but with all of that out of the way, here’s how I rank ’em. Links go to my reviews here on the dish.

1. Pizzeria Bianco, Phoenix
2. Kesté, New York
3. Motorino, New York
4. Roberta’s, Brooklyn
5. Pizzeria Vetri/Osteria, Philadelphia
6. Frank Pepe’s, New Haven
7. Pizzeria Mozza, Los Angeles
8. Pizzeria Lola, Minneapolis
9. cibo, Phoenix
10. Lucali, Brooklyn
11. Forcella, New York
12. Pizzeria Stella, Philadelphia
13. Paulie Gee’s, Brooklyn
14. Don Antonio by Starita, New York
15. ‘Pomo, Phoenix
16. Marta, New York
17. Ribalta, New York
18. Totonno’s, Brooklyn
19. Via Tribunali, New York/Seatte
20. Federal Pizza, Phoenix
21. Il Cane Rosso, Dallas
22. Antico, Atlanta
23. City House, Nashville
24. Tarry Lodge, Port Chester, NY
25. Desano, Nashville
26. Franny’s, Brooklyn
27. Grimaldi’s, Phoenix
28. Il Bosco, Phoenix
29. Di Fara, Brooklyn
30. 800 Degrees, Los Angeles
31. Co., New York
32. Rubirosa, New York
33. Bar Toma, Chicago
34. Punch Pizza, St. Paul
35. Toro, Durham
36. Dolce Vita, Houston
37. Stella Rosa, Santa Monica
38. Grimaldi’s, Brooklyn
39. Basic, San Diego
40. Nicoletta, New York

There’s a long list of pizzerias I still need (okay, want, but where I’m concerned pizza is a need) to try, so they’re not on the list: Flour + Water & del Popolo in San Francisco, Apizza Scholls in Portland, A4 in Somerville (near Boston), 2 Amy’s in DC, Sottocasa in Brooklyn, al Forno in Providence, Pizzaiolo in Oakland, Mani Osteria in Ann Arbor, Vero in Cleveland, Iggie’s in Baltimore, Garage Bar in Louisville, Vinny & Jon’s in Los Angeles, and more. It’s a good time to be a pizza lover, and unless you have to be gluten-free, how could you not love pizza?

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→ August 25, 2015
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NYC eats, August 2015.

I’ve got two posts up for Insiders today, one on sustainable breakthroughs so far in 2015 and one on this weekend’s Metropolitan Classic high school tournament.

I had quite a run of food in the city (that’s New York for all you non-New Yorkers; the qualifier simply isn’t required for the rest of us, nor is capitalization) over the weekend, between a pizza pilgrimage, an artisan coffee roaster, and a restaurant crawl with the O.G. Top Chef Harold Dieterle.

Pizza first … I’ve heard for years about Paulie Gee’s, a small pizzeria in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, that’s only open in the evenings and can easily run two-hour waits. They’re considered one of the best pizza joints in the country, including a spot on that 2013 Food and Wine list that I’ve been using as a sort of travel guide. (I’ve now eaten at 25 of the 47 that are still open, including all but one of the NYC entries.) By going solo I was able to get right in and sit at the bar, which had a rather convenient reading light right by my seat. The pizza is thin-crust, cooked in an Italian-built wood-fired oven, with various preset options ranging from the traditional to the bizarre. I went with a mostly traditional option of fresh mozzarella, arugula, and prosciutto, but – and I know I won’t get a good reaction from the crowd with this – the pizza was overcooked. The edges were too charred, and there were small parts of the center of the dough that were burned underneath. I have no complaints with the toppings and it probably would have been outstanding had it come out of the oven as little as 20 seconds sooner. Fortunately for me, they’re planning to open a second location in Hampden near Baltimore, so I’ll get to try them again.

The coffee spot was Blue Bottle, a roaster based in San Francisco with a couple of outlets in the city, and that is some damn good espresso. They offer a number of varietals in pour-overs, but as I was pressed for time both mornings (and particularly desperate for caffeine on the second morning), I went with espresso, which they make with blends rather than single-origins. Their roasts are light (“third-wave”) so you can still taste the flavors of the beans.

Harold Dieterle, the winner of the first season of Top Chef, is a huge Mets fan and reader of my stuff, so we’ve been in touch for a while and trying to get together for a food crawl in Manhattan, which finally happened on Friday night. The first stop was Cata, a tapas place on the Lower East Side where the alcohol consumption began – they specialize in gin and tonics, and I got one with Fever Tree tonic and lavender – and we had a handful of small plates. I’m pretty sure this was the first time I’d had jamón iberico, the Spanish version of prosciutto made from black Iberian pigs, often fed just on acorns. It’s less salty than prosciutto and the meat has a luxurious, buttery character with a distinct nutty flavor. It’s carved to order from a leg that’s sitting on the bar counter and costs $29 for a plate. We tried a handful of other tapas, best of which were the smoked oysters, the patatas bravas (fried potatoes, but not really French fries) served with an aerated aioli, and the marinated anchovy toasts.

Danny Meyer’s restaurant empire continues to grow, as the entrepreneur best known for creating Shake Shack is behind the new place called Untitled at the Whitney Museum. Head chef Michael Anthony (not the guy from Chickenfoot, although that would be cool) has created a vegetable-focused but not vegetarian menu that changes very frequently to reflect whatever’s most in season. We had at least a half-dozen dishes, some of which were gifts from the kitchen (for Harold, not for me), and the standouts included a tomato/melon “sashimi” that highlighted the spectacular tomatoes with just a little salt and I presume olive oil; a plate of grilled pole beans with squid and toasted hazelnuts, presenting a vegetable I rarely see in a way I hadn’t tried before; nectarine “toasts,” again taking a central item from the produce section and making it the runaway star; pork fritters, opulent little balls of shredded pork shoulder just barely breaded and fried, served over a corn relish; and duck sausage with mustard sauce, which turned out to be the second-best duck dish I had on the evening. The only dish I didn’t love was one of their most famous, the smashed cucumbers with black sesame seeds and soba noodles, which ended up lost in the sea of liquid underneath it, a hazard of working with high-quality in-season cukes. The space itself is very cool, with high ceilings and long pendant lights, plus lots of glass looking out on Gansevoort. Chef Anthony came out to chat and is an incredibly nice guy who’s a fairly serious Reds fan.

The last spot, and the most decadent, was Cosme, a Mexican-inspired upscale restaurant that, according to Harold, has one of the best duck dishes in the city: Duck carnitas, a whole braised duck leg served in a cast-iron skillet with thinly sliced onions and radishes, served with blue-corn tortillas, salsa verde, chile de arbol salsa (I tried it; it’s hot), and lime wedges. The duck shreds like smoked pork shoulder, but has a softer, smoother texture, and it stays moist between the braising and the way it’s served under the browned skin. It’s more than enough to share, but it’s also a steep $59. Whether that’s worth it depends on your budget, but I will say it’s probably the best duck dish I’ve ever had in a restaurant.

We also had Chef Enrique Olvera’s now-famous dessert, a pavlova he calls “Husk Meringue with Corn Mousse,” with burned and powdered corn husks in the giant meringue, which is served cracked in half so that the corn mousse (made with mascarpone) appears to be spilling out of the center. You can see pictures of both dishes in the glowing NY Times review from February. If Olvera’s name rings a bell, he appeared as a judge in one of the Mexico City episodes of the last season of Top Chef.

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→ June 27, 2015
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Saturday five, 6/27/15.

My Insider pieces this week included a post on some Red Sox prospects, including Yoan Moncada; one on the Arizona/Atlanta trade involving Touki Toussaint; and a reaction to the release of the Futures Game rosters. I also held a Klawchat on Thursday.

My latest boardgame review for Paste covers the reissue of the modern classic Tigris & Euphrates, designer Reiner Knizia’s best game, now back in print with better graphics and clearer rules.

My good friend Molly Knight has a book coming out on the Dodgers, The Best Team Money Can Buy: The Los Angeles Dodgers’ Wild Struggle to Build a Baseball Powerhouse, next month, and it’s so good I even gave the publisher a quote to use on the back.

And now, this week’s links…saturdayfive

  • We’re getting so much closer to vaccine sanity, as California is set to end religious and philosophical exemptions to vaccinating school-age children. The science is clear and unequivocal, and making the wrong, anti-science decision can affect hundreds of others’ lives.
  • A young widow’s heartrending letter to her late husband, who committed suicide a month ago after a long battle with depression.
  • The Moringa oleifera tree may lead to an inexpensive process for purifying drinking water in developing countries.
  • On a Tokyo coffee roasting master still roasting at age 100.
  • A former president of the American Humanist Association writes in Psychology Today that anti-intellectualism is killing America. I’m not sure I agree with the premise, nor do I think such unreason as racial hatred is “anti-intellectualism” per se, but I still found it an interesting read.
  • Roxane Gay wrote in the New York Times that she can’t forgive Dylan Roof, and why should she? Forgiveness means releasing your anger. If we forget to be angry, why would anything ever change?
  • The first segment of Thursday’s episode of BBC Outlook, on Canada’s abused aboriginal children is harrowing listening, but also makes a superb case for “truth and reconciliation” commissions to address past historical wrongs.
  • Common sense from VOX.com: People with mental illness are far more likely to be victims than perpetrators of violent crimes. Yet we don’t hear calls for greater mental health treatment options when the former is true, only the latter.
  • A recent meta-study has found that the phenolic compounds found in olive oil may help prevent neurodegenerative diseases, although it would be nice to see empirical evidence (via clinical trials) to back this up. Still, olive oil is delicious and may be really good for you.
  • The guys behind Animal and Son of a Gun have opened a pizzeria in LA, and it sounds amazing, of course.
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→ May 1, 2015
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Nashville eats, 2015 edition.

My annual ranking of the top 25 MLB players under 25 is up for Insiders, as is another draft blog post on Vanderbilt’s Carson Fulmer and Dansby Swanson. My weekly Klawchat transcript is up. I also appeared on actor Nate Corddry’s Reading Aloud podcast, talking mostly about books and pizza with a little baseball chatter thrown in.

Nashville has more great places to eat than I could possibly hit in one scouting trip, even if I stayed five or six nights. And new ones are constantly opening, which was my aim on my two trips there in April since several of them have become so popular either with critics or locals.

The 404 Kitchen (restaurant not found error?) was the best meal I had while in Nashville; it’s a small place, seating about 40, and the menu changes daily depending on what ingredients were available that particular day. When I was there, there was a farm egg starter that was just a yolk served on a plate of al dente farro with mixed wild mushrooms and herbs, with enough of the dark cooking liquid to form a sauce when I mixed the yolk into the grains. Farro is an ancient form of wheat that has long been eaten in southern Italy the way we might eat rice or barley, but since it’s a whole grain it’s more nutritious than white rice, and I greatly prefer its flavor to that of barley. I would have preferred the farro to be a little more cooked – this was Al Dente’s cousin, Trey Dente – but the dark, earthy, lemony sauce was superb in its balance of acid and umami. I made an improvised version of the dish over the weekend using mixed dried mushrooms, reconstituting them for the cooking liquid, and using steel cut oats (a.k.a. groats) because I couldn’t get farro.

The entree was the least successful of the three dishes, a wahoo fillet served with some spring vegetables, but lacking a little punch to spruce up the mildness of the fish itself. (My first experience with wahoo was on my honeymoon in Bermuda twenty years ago, at the White Horse Tavern. They served a fried wahoo sandwich that was so frequently confused with chicken by tourists that they had a sign up saying, “No, the fried wahoo isn’t actually chicken.”) The mixture underneath the fish included some fingerling potatoes and sunchokes, easily my favorite part of the dish. The dessert was a chocolate “budino” that was thicker than most budinos or mousses, semi-sweet with bits of almond and drunken tart cherries; I like darker chocolates but this was close, and it was rich enough that it was best shared.

Two Ten Jack is Nashville’s first izakaya/ramen house, and while I am no judge of ramen or broth at all – I’ve had real ramen maybe three times in my life – I thought the tonkotsu (pork broth) ramen at Two Ten Jack was spectacular. Tonkotsu is made from pork bones, often trotters (yep, that’s pig feet), so the flavor is meatier than any other stock or broth made from chicken or beef. It’s also thicker because the preparation of the stock involves slowly poaching some pork fat and then whisking it into the liquid to form an emulsion. Two Ten Jack’s version has a little pork floating on top as well as the noodles adn aromatics you’d expect to have, but I would gladly drink this stock by the pint. The restaurant also offers sashimi, a few other raw fish preparations (including a tuna poke that I thought needed more acidity), and yakitori skewers you can order by the stick for about $3-5 each. They also serve several cocktails built around the distilled rice spirit shochu, including one that mixes it with their own house-made tonic water.

Several of you have recommended Mas Tacos Por Favor for a while, although it’s much easier now that they have a brick and mortar location right across the street from The Pharmacy, a great burger joint that also serves amazing tater tots. Mas Tacos offers five different taco options that look like they rotate or change frequently; when I was there there were options with beef, pork, chicken, shrimp, and a vegetarian one with sweet potato. The pulled (braised) pork was the easy winner over the chicken, as the pork had the flavor of carnitas without being too heavy, while I thought the chicken was too bland and I mostly got the flavors of the toppings. You can get one elote (grilled seasoned corn on the cob with paprika and cotija cheese) for $3, which I recommend, and a small plate of maduros (fried sweet plantains), which I probably wouldn’t. They also sell aguas frescas in varying flavors, but were out of the one flavor (tamarind) I would have ordered that day.

Desano’s Pizza is a mini-chain of three locations (Nashville, Charleston, LA) serving thin-crust, wood-fired pizzas to diners at long picnic tables in a dining hall in sight of the three ovens. It’s a little above-average for this style of pizza, with the crust a little too thick underneath the toppings and the sauce definitely too garlicky for me, definitely a good spot for a group outing though.

I tried to go to Barista Parlor, the over-the-top coffee emporium on the east side of Nashville, but their espresso machine was down that morning, so I’ll have to save that for another trip. I did make it back to Crema, still the best local roaster I’ve found in Nashville, not quite at the level of direct-trade spots like Intelligentsia or Counter Culture but at the high end of the next tier.

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→ September 5, 2014
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More NYC pizza and gelato.

Today’s Klawchat went well, I think. I’ll be back on BBTN tonight at 1:30 am Eastern.

I’ve gotten to two more spots from that (somewhat dubious) Food and Wine list of the nation’s best pizzerias, both in Manhattan, home to eleven of the 43 restaurants to make their cut. I still have five left in New York City, three of which (Di Fara, Paulie Gee’s, Sottocasa) are tricky because their hours are limited.

Forcella boasts three locations in the city, with the original in Brooklyn; I went to their NoHo location, on the Bowery between 2nd and 3rd (that’s Manhattan, for those of you unfamiliar with NYC neighborhoods). Their biggest claim to fame is as one of the first pizzerias, perhaps the first, to introduce the Neapolitan style of pizza known as “pizza montanara,” where the dough is quickly deep-fried to set and slightly crisp the crust, after which it’s topped and baked in a hot oven like most authentic Neapolitan pizzas are. This was my first experience with any kind of fried pizza, so I have no means of comparison, but I can say it was spectacular – the direct contact of the hot oil with the crust produces far more caramelization of the exterior starches and sugars than you’ll get from the indirect heat of a hotter oven, and there’s a hint of the flavor of a zeppole (the Italian take on fried dough, often served in a paper bag and drowned in powdered sugar). The crushed tomatoes were bright and very sweet, but I might argue for a little more cheese so you’re not just eating a plate of (delicious) fried bread. It is a steal at $9, by the way.


Pizza montanara at Forcella.

Rubirosa is a full-fledged Italian restaurant that happens to serve very good pizza. I saw it on Mulberry Street, between Prince and Spring, a fairly unassuming storefront that hides a larger seating area in the back. Rubirosa’s pizza isn’t true Neapolitan style, as it has very little exterior “lip” and is more cracker-like underneath, as opposed to the traditional wet-centered Neapolitan style. While the toppings were a little more generous than those at Forcella, the tomatoes weren’t as bright and their acidity overpowered the rest of the pizza because the crust was so thin. I enjoy these crispier crusts, like those at the Grimaldi’s chain in Arizona (I haven’t tried their NY outposts yet), but it’s a different product than true Neapolitan pizza, where you can really taste and feel the craft of the baker behind the bread. Also, at $17 for a small pizza, it’s overpriced for what you get.

Mo’ Gelato‘s coffee gelato is some of the strongest-flavored I’ve ever tasted, although that’s not saying much considering how most coffee-flavored gelatos, even those dubbed “espresso” flavor, often taste about as much like coffee as a light-and-sweet cup of swill from Dunkin’ Donuts. Mo’ Gelato’s looks darker and tastes it, so that the sweetness has real balance from the sharp note of roasted coffee. Their chocolate sorbet was a little pale in comparison, even though its color and flavor are both very dark – the lack of any kind of additional fat created a hollow flavor that, paired with the butterfat in the coffee gelato, seemed flat.

Il Buco Alimentaria is an Italian market and sandwich/small plates shop that also serves a small selection of gelato flavors, about eight when I visited, dished up by a rather fetching Sicilian woman who looked about as Italian as I do (which is to say, not much). Their chocolate gelato was superb, very smooth with a pudding-like flavor and texture, a rich semi-sweet chocolate that wasn’t extremely dark but less cloying or sweet than milk chocolate. The caramel gelato, however, was way too mild; in an era of sea salt caramel gelato and ice cream, weak caramel flavors just won’t cut it.

The next pizza stop will probably be Via Tribunali, an import to Manhattan from Seattle that is the only one of the F&W pizzerias in Manhattan that I haven’t tried and that is open for lunch.

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→ August 25, 2014
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New York City eats, 2014 edition.

The highlight meal of the trip, and the one big splurge, was a recommendation by Sother Teague at Amor y Amargo, whose establishment I’ll discuss in a moment. Sother directed me to the tasting menu at Hearth, which is only* $86 for a seven-course meal that showed incredible skill and breadth within the farm-to-table genre.

* I say “only” because this kind of meal can easily cost you north of $100, and I think the only thing Hearth’s tasting menu lacked was flash.

The meal started with an amuse-bouche, a chilled carrot soup with blackberry-balsamic drizzle on top, served in a tall narrow glass to allow you to drink the soup in one or two shots. The first proper course was also a chilled soup, this one a zucchini soup with pistachios, sun gold tomato, basil, and chunks of Parmiggiano-Reggiano. The zucchini was pureed and slightly aerated; I assume there was cream added given the soup’s tremendous body, but that much fat would have muted the flavor, and in this case there was no dampening of the taste of the squash itself at all. The nuts and small chunks of cheese are sprinkled throughout the soup, emphasizing the textural contrast – and I can’t say I ever realized what a great combination pistachios and zucchini would make until I had this soup. I was hoping I could get a gallon of this to go as a parting gift, but no such luck.

Second course was my favorite of all seven savory courses: a warm summer vegetable salad with a red wine vinegar/shallot dressing that reminded me in flavor of a buerre blanc, but in fact was made by simmering potatoes and then using some of them to thicken the dressing and coat the remaining vegetables, which included green beans, more zucchini, and cauliflower. People who think they don’t like vegetables should go eat this dish. I’ve never had a vegetable dish with this much flavor that didn’t involve cooking the vegetables to the point where they brown.

The next three courses involved proteins, and each was very good to great. The swordfish dish with eggplant, tomatoes, shelling beans, and black bean puree had two issues for me, although the fish itself was perfectly cooked – by far the most important part. I personally like swordfish served very simply: grilled, topped with sea salt, fresh black pepper, a little olive oil, and citrus juice. The way steak lovers want a fine steak is how I want my swordfish – don’t get in the way of the star ingredient. The other issue was that the eggplant was very soft, too much so, and I ended up setting it aside. The restaurant was dark enough that when the dish arrived, one strip of eggplant with a little of the skin and cap still on the end … well, I’ll just say it didn’t look very appetizing, because this isn’t Top Chef.

The lamb dish involved two different cuts, including a small piece of lamb rib meat that had been rubbed with Middle Eastern spices, smoked off the bone, and seared on both sides, giving it the look and texture of Texas BBQ but with the flavor profile of Turkish or Arabic cuisine. The remaining lamb pieces were slices of loin, served very rare, with roasted carrots and a smear of labneh (Lebanese strained yogurt) underneath. I wouldn’t have ordered this because lamb is my least favorite protein, but as it turned out the dish was fantastic and my only complaint is that I wanted more of the smoked rib (even if it meant less of the loin meat). The carrots were coated in some amaranth kernels, giving the dish a little more crunch – kind of like quinoa but without the bitterness.

Their “iconic” (that was my server’s word for it) meatball dish was very good, but I’m a tough critic on meatballs and I think I’ve had better, including Coppa in Boston … and in my own kitchen. The meatball comprises veal and ricotta, served in a traditional southern Italian tomato sauce (don’t call it “gravy,” please) with cannelloni filled with “market greens.” I prefer meatballs that have been browned more, to max out that Maillard reaction, and like a mixture of meats that isn’t so veal-heavy because veal is so lean that the proteins in it can tighten up when cooked through, as a meatball has to be, and there’s always a slightly dry mouthfeel because of that lack of fat.

The first dessert course was more like a palate cleanser, a watermelon granita with a tiny quenelle of creme fraiche and some toasted pine nuts. It looks like pink rock salt, so the fact that it’s subtle and sweet and cold is a big surprise – and, as with the pistachios and zucchinis, the pine nuts and watermelon worked shockingly well together.

The second dessert was the memorable one, as in I’ll remember eating this for the next twenty years. It was a chocolate-peanut butter sundae, without ice cream: Chocolate sorbet on soft whipped cream on a peanut-butter sauce, surrounded by a crumbled peanut butter cookie. Sure, you could make the whipped cream and cookie at home, and the sauce is probably doable (it was smooth like caramel), but that sorbet – I don’t know how you get something that dark and cocoa-intense without dairy or eggs. Grom in the west Village does a chocolate sorbet with egg yolks, but I think Hearth’s is just sorbet, based on what two staff members told me. Speaking of which, everyone I spoke to there was wonderful – I ended up chatting with a few of them up front before leaving and they’ve clearly done a good job assembling a team full of good people.

I visited two cocktail bars while in the city, one of which was the aforementioned Amor y Amargo, Sother Teague’s 240 square foot place in the East Village where he stocks no juices or other mixers. It’s all spirits and bitters – liquors, liqueurs, potable bitters (like Campari or Aperol), and the little flavoring agents you probably think of when you hear “bitters” (like Angostura or Peychaud’s). Sother’s good people, so if you go and you see him behind the bar, mention I sent you. I tried two of his drinks, one his own suggestion – a mixture of three varieties of whiskeys, finished with a habanero bitters, so the result was like standing over a grill on which you’re smoking a pork shoulder over hickory. It’s a really cool space too, and most of the bitters are out on display – I’d never heard of more than half of the brands, and Sother told me he’s got a dozen or so bottles of stuff that’s no longer made or otherwise very difficult to procure. If you’re also a fan of Amor y Amargo, you can vote for Sother in Edible Manhattan’s Cocktail Contest, which runs through August 31st. The winner gets a $5000 prize.

After recommending Hearth, Sother also recommended Pouring Ribbons, a hidden bar on Avenue B just off 14th, in Alphabet City, so well disguised it might as well be a speakeasy. (The password is to be very nice to the guy at the door.) I got one drink, because when I’d finished that I couldn’t feel the tip of my nose, generally a sign that the libation has done its job. The Trouble in Paradise cocktail starts with Appleton V/X rum, probably my favorite rum for mixing, and adds a charred pineapple-infused rum, sweet vermouth, and campari – a small upgrade on a Kingston Negroni. For a drink that was all alcohol, it was surprisingly subtle, even understated – the booze doesn’t overpower the rest of the drink. It’s rich, well-rounded, a little smoky, a little sweet (I find rum in general is a little sweet, as if it has memories of whence it came), better than any true Negroni I’ve ever had – and I do like true Negronis, which are made with gin rather than rum.

While in the neighborhood one of those nights, I stopped into the renowned Big Gay Ice Cream shop to see what the fuss was about … and I was underwhelmed. It’s decent soft serve ice cream, served with lots of crappy toppings. You can’t make premium ice cream and then coat it in stale grocery-store marshmallows – but that’s just what I ended up with when I ordered the Rocky Roadhouse cone. You can build your own cone or sundae, but the use of subpar ingredients is a big negative for me.

Whenever I’m at Citi Field and can sneak away long enough for lunch, I take the 7 train one more stop to its end in Flushing’s Chinatown, which seems to get bigger and busier every time I go there. I usually go for a dish of steamed dumplings (xiao long baozi), which is a popular item in that neighborhood and the kind of thing that can serve as a meal in itself. The serious eats blog had a few posts extolling the virtues of a small basement food stall called Tianjin Dumpling House in the Golden Mall, located down Main Street towards 41st Ave, which serves an absolute bargain of a dozen dumplings for $3-6 total. The pork, shrimp, and chive version didn’t seem to have much shrimp, but the pork and chives were well seasoned and juicy without any grease. The dough wrappers were just thick enough to retain a little tooth and didn’t tear or leak, but not so much so that they came out gummy or undercooked.

Their dumplings were much better than those at the very popular table-service restaurant Nan Xiang Dumpling House on Prince Street, which took much longer to get (even for take-out). Theirs are soup dumplings, so inside the wrapper is a tablespoon or so of broth that bursts (or slops) out when you bite into it – on to your shirt if you’re not careful. The tradeoff is you get less filling, and since their servings are only a half-dozen to an order, I added an order of vegetable dumplings, which were filled mostly with spinach. Unfortunately, I found a hair in the container of the latter – not actually in the dumplings, but still a hit to the confidence even though the place has an A rating from the board of health.

I almost never go into NYC without hitting up at least one pizzeria, and tried two from that old Food and Wine list of the country’s best pizzerias … neither of which was all that special. Don Antonio by Starita, which is partly owned by the co-owner of my favorite pizzeria in the city, Keste, is VPN certified for authenticity, but I thought the crust was too thick in the center for that. The dough was otherwise the strength of the pizza, though, with good texture and just a little charring around the outside. I went with one of their signature combinations, a pistachio pesto and sausage pizza with mozzarella but no tomatoes or sauce; the pesto itself was kind of heavy and gave the pizza a nut butter-like flavor that just didn’t seem to belong on a pizza. I’d like to try this place again with a more traditional set of toppings to see if the dough holds up better under a lighter load.

Nicoletta, also in the east village area, was a big disappointment – their pizza is a hybrid of New York-style and Italian-style but doesn’t grab the best traits of either of them. The crust was crispier and held its shape when pulled off the plate, with very little lift at the edges. The tomato sauce tasted overcooked and acidic, and there was grease on the top like you’d expect at a mediocre pizza shop. I can’t imagine why it was on Food and Wine‘s list.

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