Pizza, Pizza
UPDATED 9/28/08
I thought that Michael Bauer was going to wimp out. When he kicked off his Pizza Friday series of blog postings, he called it his "quest for the best." Yet, when he ended the series in late June, there was no wrap up, no summary, no coronation of the best pizza encountered on his journey.
Until today. It took a month but the Big B came through, naming the top six of the 37 pizzerias he tried. MB's sainted six were (in no particular order, as far as I could tell) Gialina, Gioia, Pauline's Pizza, Pizzaiolo, Pizzeria Picco and Rosso. (Aside to the online editor at SFGate: See those little underline thingies? They're called links! They can take you really cool places. You ought to try using them once in a while. Your readers will love you for it. So will bloggers from whom you pull quotes.)
As the blurb on the SFGate home page said, "Let the arguments begin!" And begin they did.
I fully agree with the inclusion of Gialina. In fact, I lobbied for its inclusion in Bauer's Top 100.
At least one commenter disagreed saying, "Gialina is very overrated in my opinion. That atomica was...interesting." Somehow, I don't think "interesting" was meant to be a compliment.
Have you lost your taste buds? Adding some pepperoni to the Atomica yields one of the best pies I've ever tasted. Crunchy, spicy hot and salty. Oh, so good! If you haven't tried it, do yourself a big favor.
Unfortunately, I've not tried any of the other sainted six. I've seen Pauline's many times when searching for a parking spot at Little Star. I've made a note to try it. (UPDATE: Tried it. Didn't like it. See review.)
The other four establishments are outside of the City. I haven't tried them. Yet.
This geographical dispersion cause some parochial commenters to whine. One said, "Dude, only two of these are in SF. This IS the SAN FRANCSICO paper, remember? I am tired of reading reviews and recs of suburban places...."
Dude, some of us actually own cars and know how to drive them. Some of us live in the City but work elsewhere or vice versa. It's a big world out there — experience it!
Then there was the long list of people protesting that their favorite joint wasn't on the list. Among the (unjustly, in the minds of the commenters) spurned were Goat Hill (my father's favorite but just OK in my book), Arinell (good but way overrated), Delfina Pizzeria (I like, Mackie doesn't), A16 (yuck, double yuck) and Little Star (enough with their thick crust, thin is in and Little Star does it well).
The commenters also named some places that are now on my must-try list. Pizza Place on Noriega. Little Joe's on Mission Street (any place that's across the street from the Sons of Italy has got to be good). (UPDATE: Tried it. Didn't like the pizza. Too much mediocre cheese. Want to go back to try the pasta. Staff very cool.) Valentina's on Cortland in Bernal Heights. I'll report after experiencing.
One thing came across loud and clear in the comments — New Yorkers who transplant themselves to the left coast still believe that Manhattan is the center of the universe. Get a clue, guys. I've had New York pizza. It's not all that.
MB raised a couple of other points that got me thinking.
He quotes an author as saying, "Even the worst pizza is still melted cheese on warm bread. How bad can melted cheese on warm bread be?"
Pretty bad, actually. The worst pizza I ever had was when I was in elementary school. On the way home from fishing, my father and I stopped at a roadside stand for dinner and ordered pizza. It was made with American cheese! Now, my mother could work miracles turning American cheese and white bread into a toasted cheese sandwich. Bad American cheese melted onto a bad pizza crust with bad tomato sauce is just awful.
The same author claimed that most people crave the kind of pizza they grew up with. Bauer disagreed. I come out somewhere in the middle.
My love of thin crust pizza comes from my earliest memories of the noble pie. When I was a child, my parents would buy frozen pizzas produced by Bruno's Restaurant in Indiana, Pennsylvania (amazingly, still in business some fourty odd years later). The early ones were the best, with a thin, almost cracker (at least as I remember them) crust. I still have fond memories of my family's Friday night ritual during the winter. We come home from watching our high school's basketball games and mom would throw a Bruno's pizza in the oven. She'd cut the pie into six pieces but would always give me one of her's. No doubt, that was an early start to my career in gluttony.
Over time, the quality went downhill when Bruno's started putting an excessive amount of flour on the underside of the crust. Finally, they quit making pizza for sale in stores and we were left to find another option.
That option turned out to be frozen crusts to which we added tomato sauce, cheese and other toppings. Fortunately, I didn't become accustomed these substandard pies so I was not destined to lead a life of loving mediocre pizza.
Eventually, I went to school in Pittsburgh and discovered what is, to this day, the best pizza I've ever had — the pie from Vincent's Pizza Park (also still in business although the eponymous Vincent must be long retired). It could have spoiled me in the other direction, setting a standard so high that no other pie would do. As wonderful as Vincent's was, it was so unique that I've mentally placed it in a different category of food so it didn't spoil the pizza made by mere mortals for me.
The key to Vincent's pie was that the ovens were old and rarely, if ever, cleaned. They imparted a charcol flavor to the pizza that I've not tasted elsewhere. My favorite pie was topped with pepperoni and sausage — a fat bomb for sure but orgasm for the palate.
On my virgin run to Vincent's, we did take out and, being the rookie, the other guys duped me into holding the pie on the ride back to our dorm. My jacket got three big grease spots — one on the belly and one on each arm — from where the pie came in contact with it. (Vincent didn't use boxes for his take out — he placed the pie on a flat slab of cardboard and wrapped it in butcher paper.) I wore those stains proudly, like badges of honor.
One time, three of us ate in at Vincent's, which could have forced a tricky negotiation because the pies were cut in eight pieces. When the pie came out, and without us saying a word, we realized that it had nine slices! Problem solved. And, the slices were pretty much all the same size. We decided that Vincent's wife, who served up the pies, was as much an artist with the slicer as he was with the ovens. (Once, Vincent had to take some time off because of a medical problem and his wife took over the ovens. The regulars thought that the pies might have been even better with his wife at the helm but no one had the nerve to breathe a word of this to Vince!)
So, while my upbringing did influence my love of thin crust, most of the rest of my pizza preferences were formed in my adulthood, eschewing a fixation on either the best or the worst of my early experiences.
How has your taste in pizza evolved and what's your favorite today? What's the worst pizza you've eaten (or been served but not eaten)? Inquiring minds want to know — tell us in the comment section.
In the meantime, I'm HUNGRY!
Your writing style is very refreshing and I am enjoying reading your blog.
Oh man, I'm hungry now too. My taste for pizza has certainly matured as I have grown up. When I was a kid in Carlisle, Ohio, we ordered pizzas from the local Casano's. They were crunchy thin crusts loaded with peppers, tomatoes, onions, pepperoni, and small balls of sausage - all toppings except the pepperoni were nearly minced. The pizzas are cut in squares and I used to love eating the small corner pieces that were a little charred. Your description of the charcol taste of Vincent's pizza reminded me of Cassano's. I still eat it from time-to-time when I go back to visit.
However, my favorite pizza now is certainly Gialina's. I have a full review of Gialina on my blog.
Reply to this
Zach was too shy to include the URL of his blog so I'll pimp it for him. It's http://studentfoodiesf.blogspot.com/.
Reply to this
Oops! I think I inadvertently pasted the wrong website in my original post. Thanks for the update, Grumpy.
Reply to this