Slice is a great pizza blog that has been in my blogroll for two months:
I’m a major pizza binge lately; both eating and cooking it. Trying to hit the best of the best and this blog tracks them. Going to college in New Haven spoiled me with Frank Pepe’s and Sally’s. Proximity to NYC, Providence and Boston’s Pizzaria Regina and Santarpios has me looking for more real temples to pie.
I only went to Pepe’s once in my New Haven time. The inconvenient walk through dangerous neighborhoods, the inordinate wait, the okay ‘za…not for me. The very competent place right on campus (whose name I now entirely blank out on) was perfectly good, but the place I grew to love in New Haven was Modern Apizza (which was pronounced Moh-DERN ah-PEETS-ah). I worked a year after graduating from Yale on campus and lived a block from Modern. My roommate and I would get a pizza there (usually a bianca) every week. It was fabulous, great place, very fast and nice, always full but never bursting.
Of course, now I live in Seattle, where pizza is a very different thing. Pagliacci’s is the best, and they have my loyalty, and they make a very good West Coast pizza, which is a reasonably thick but not smothering crust, a good spicy tomato base, and a fairly high quantity of toppings, but not so high to make the pizza sopping (most of the time).
A neighborhood Italian place around the corner from me used to have a good lock on a simulacrum of east-coast pizza, but not enough olive oil to qualify. Wood-fired oven, natch, but very expensive (Cafe Lago).
A new joint opened here called Tutta Bella, which now has two locations. Wood-fired ovens, certification from Italy of Napolese-style pizza, consistent quality, tremendously nice staff (we bring our toddler in and we are not alone!), ingredients imported from Italy. Prices are reasonable, quantities are nice.
This is all in opposition to Buca di Beppo, which I’ve been to a few times, and it’s like a crazy uncle’s bad birthday party.
You walked to Wooster Square? Dang, that is a sign of desperation in the bad old days of New Haven. I don’t remember Modern. One of my favorites (due to proximity to Timothy Dwight) was Naples — on Wall Street by Silliman. That place was pretty raucous, had serious greasy NY-style slices the ladies would always blot with a handful of paper napkins, and the obligatory pitchers of beer.
Cape Cod actually has two great pies — Sweet Tomatoes — which has parlors in Sandwich and Osterville is of the Sally’s-Pepe’s school of thin chewy crust, and Fazio’s on Main Street in Hyannis has an excellent “rucola” pie which is essentially a blanco with caramelized onions topped with an arugula salad. Weird but excellent.
Thx for the Seattle recommendations.