Reflections on pizza

Since coming to the Bay Area, I have come to appreciate good pizza in a new way. Growing up in New Jersey with Attilio's only minutes away, I never thought of pizza as a big deal -- good pizza was available everywhere you looked. There was ne'er a gummy cheese nor a crappy crust to be found. But now that I've lived in San Francisco for six months, I know the truth. Bad pizza is out there.

This is my story.

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I was first introduced to bad pizza on a rainy day shortly after getting to San Francisco, walking home from the bank. I'd walked up a long hill and was tired and hungry and there was no food in the house, so I decided to stop by a random pizza shop on the way home. And there, at North Beach Pizza, I discovered one of the worst pizzas I have ever eaten in my life, with congealed-then-reheated cheese and scant amounts of tasteless sauce. Gah! I'm not sure what style pizza this is impersonating, unless that style is "bad."

Luckily, there are good pizzas in San Francisco, even in the very same neighborhood. I judged it harshly the first time I went, but I've grown fonder of Escape from New York pizza, partially because it's a block away from my house and it makes for a super-easy meal, and partially because it's not as expensive as I'd originally thought ($3-$5 a slice. I'll take it, here in SF at least). This is (I'm fairly certain) New York-style pizza and it's not bad -- thin, crispy crust, tasty toppings, appropriate amount of sauce. My only caveat is that they're famous for their potato pizza, and I am not a fan of that at all. The potato slices are super-greasy, the lack of red sauce is accompanied by a lack of flavor, and somehow, I kid you not, the whole garlic cloves are tasteless. How do you make whole garlic cloves tasteless? How?! Anyway, I would stick to mushroom or sausage or whatever normal toppings you'd get on a red pizza. Heck, the cheese slice I had was better than the potato.

The only other recent New York-style pizza I've had was from Di Fara in the freaking middle of nowhere in Brooklyn. There is another, more-famous pizza place in Brooklyn, Grimaldi's, and Di Fara is supposed to be similar or better. Di Fara is also one of those hole in the walls where you gather round and wait for an hour (at least; my brother's friend waited for two, apparently we got lucky) and the old dude who's been making pizza since before your mom was born makes each individual pizza all by himself. And there are only 8 mismatched chairs and a couple of tables that look like someone found them in a basement and you have to stalk people to get a place to sit and yet everybody still says it's the greatest spot on the planet. If it weren't for those conditions, I actually might agree. I thought the Di Fara pizza we had was the best that I will mention in this blog. He snips some fresh basil onto it, the crust is not thin but not thick, the sauce is delicious, the sausage is delicious, it literally just came out of the oven and into your hot little hands, there's just a little bit of char on it to make it taste authentic. Wow, my mouth just watered and I'm not even remotely hungry. So yeah. To me, New York-style pizza wins as far as style, and Di Fara wins as far as this blog.

Until I got here the only Chicago-style pizza I had ever had was from Pizzeria Uno, so I don't claim to be an expert at all. I have, however, been privy to the Chicago-style pizza craze that goes on here (I really can't think of a single independent Chicago-style pizza place on the East Coast, though I'm sure they exist. So, perhaps it's only a comparative craze), having been to Patxi's, Little Star, and Zachary's. By the way, I had erroneously thought that Chicago-style just meant "deep dish," but the term goes way beyond that. I don't know the technical terms for this, but in Chicago-style pizza, it seems like all of the toppings and sauce and cheese are piled into a pie-crust. All three of these places are pretty expensive considering it's just a pizza (usually over $20/pie). But to be fair, I got a large Little Star pizza just for myself and it gave me 5 meals.

Let me describe the Zachary's phenomenon to those of you who did not grow up in the Berkeley area (or are not intimately involved with someone from the Berkeley area). Zachary's is a freaking cult. Like half of Kuau's friends have worked there at some point in their lives. A quarter of them probably work there now. And they are rabid, rabid fans of this pizza. While Kuau and I were living in Boston, he came back to Berkeley to visit and was such a big fan of this pizza that he traveled to Target, bought a cooler, got a half-baked Zachary's pizza, and brought it back on the plane for me to eat.

And to Zachary's I say, eh. It's pretty good. To be fair, the pie that Kuau brought back tasted very good, probably because all of the looooove that went into it. But since then I have been back to Zachary's and I think it's ... fine, but I don't want to take it back on a plane to introduce it to my family or anything like that.

Patxi's is very similar to Zachary's, except our pizza was strangely watery by the end, as in there was a little puddle of oil-water on the serving dish. It didn't really affect the taste, but it made for a slightly less pleasant dining experience. Kuau still thought it was very comparable and was willing to give up trips to Berkeley/Zachary's, though, saying this would soothe his craving.

But poor Kuau has not yet been to Little Star. About Little Star I could wax poetic. I can't pinpoint the difference yet. But I will come back to you soon, Little Star, don't you worry. ... If you can't tell, Little Star is by far my favorite of these three. Like I said, I'm not sure why. Really, all three of them are remarkably similar and have a great crust, generous portions, extremely similar pricing. But something about the pizza I got at Little Star has made my mouth water every time I've thought of it since then. I think it's the sauce. When I got this pizza for myself I literally had it for 5 meals in a row and did not even get remotely sick of it. In fact, I wanted to go buy another one the next day (except for the strangely rock-heavy feeling in my stomach that hadn't let up for five meals ... what a coincidence!).

Lastly, I have to give up a little shout-out for New Haven-style pizza, which I might never have been introduced to if I didn't live in New Haven for four years, because who the f knows anything about New Haven? But those who are in the know usually say that Pepe's is the originator. Of pizza. (Kind of like New Haven also has this ridiculous claim that it invented burgers. Does anybody actually believe this?) There are also shout-outs for Sally's and Modern and a ton of other good pizza places in New Haven, but I haven't been to those recently. Whereas I just had Pepe's thin crust and their famous clams casino pizza.

It wasn't quite as good as I remembered. I did like the clams casino a lot, but it was really salty. Our other red pizza wasn't as salty, so maybe I'll stick to those from now on. Oh, but now I want the clams casino again, so never mind. Anyway, the crust is probably the star at Pepe's, being thin and yet managing to remain super-crispy as it does. Unfortunately, to me, Pepe's is one of those things where the hype is a bit better than the actual product, though the actual product is still really good. And this is so extreme that even my hype -- as in, my imagining the pizza right now -- is making me want to go back, even though I expect to be disappointed again.

Oh, man. After all of this talk, maybe I am hungry after all.