delfina pizzeria

san francisco, ca

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okay, my last post might have been a little overdramatic. i'll tone it down here. delfina has great pizza. vanita frequently brings her family here, so you know the food is amazing and the restaurant is family friendly. the pictured pizza was the broccoli rabe, which was a bit too bitter for me. but the other pizza we ordered in september 2012 (thank goodness for automatic timestamps) - whatever it was - tasted great.

reggio's @ o'hare

chicago, il

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i'm a huge fan of chicago style pizza. my co-workers and i went to pizza due after a work event, but only because it was close to our hotel and open late. nowhere near as good as giordano's. so i was still craving a true chicago-style pizza at the airport, on my way back to SFO. reggio's was a little stand in the middle of the united terminal advertising a "butter crust." how could i say no to that? it didn't seem to really be chicago-style pizza. the crust was good, but not great. sauce was a little bland. but the cheese was good and it was sufficiently filling to sustain me through my five hour flight.

howie's artisan pizza

palo alto, ca

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finally, good thin-crust pizza! town & country village is a very posh strip mall (somewhere along the lines of seattle's u-village) with some excellent eats, like calafia. howie's serves a really good neapolitan style pizza. neapolitan means a thin, bendable, crust, hopefully with just the right amount of char and chew. i could have used a little bit more char on our pizza, but it's probably best to minimize the carcinogens.

howie's also has an excellent wine list with helpful descriptions of their wine. i'm really getting the hang of this wine + pizza thing. pictured are the spicy meatballs, which were good, but not actually spicy. do people in the south bay have an aversion of spice? i'm not sure what's going on here. i may have to start storing hot sauce in my purse.

patxi's pizza

palo alto, ca

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i miss new york city pizza. not only are there fantastic sit-down pizza joints like batali's otto, angelo's, or lombardi's, but nearly any slice joint is going to have a good slice of thin crust, great sauce, perfect cheesiness. i have yet to find to a good new york style spot in palo alto, but i have found a great spot for chicago style pizza. i mean, it's no giordano's, but i have to work with certain geographical limitations.

patxi's does do chicago-style well, good cheese, good sauce, nice buttery crust. one of my favorite things about patxi's (and one benefit to my geographical limitations) is that the wine list is fantastic. i usually have a soda with my pizza, but i'm starting to get used to the amazing wines that you find in every restaurant in the bay area. patxi's wine menu has descriptions of flavors, notes, etc. so a vino novice like me can find something i'll like. wine with pizza -- try it!

roberta's pizza @ madison square market

madison square park, nyc
(in october)

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i blogged about madison square market last year, but i have to highlight roberta's pizza, which was new to the market this year. roberta's is in brooklyn, which basically means that derek and i have never tried it. but they have this amazing mobile pizza oven that they bring to madison square park for the month of october to serve fresh, piping hot, delicious, brooklyn-style pizzas to hungry manhattanites.

this pizza was so good that derek and i headed over there whenever we got a chance. it's a surprisingly quick process, you get your personal-sized pizza served to you about 10-15 minutes after you order it. our favorite pizza was topped with pesto, fresh mozzarella, mushrooms, and artichoke hearts. perfect crust - chewy and charred. gooey melty toppings. pizza perfection. now that i'm on the west coast, i definitely miss new york style pizza and roberta's was one of my favorites. at least i'll always have this blog post to remember it by.

otto

8th st (5th ave/university)

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to continue our tour of batali, we checked out otto near NYU. it was late on a quiet sunday evening - hardly anyone on the streets when we walked down past washington square park. but otto was packed, loud and raucous. that's where everyone was. reasonably priced batali food, who can resist? a co-worker recommended the cheese plate, but i forgot to order it - so i'll have to go back, of course.

what we did end up ordering was an arugula salad (excellent) and the pane frattau pizza - a thin crust pizza with tomato and pecorino, topped with a perfectly cooked egg sunny-side. poke the egg and the runny yolk runs all over the pizza like a rich sauce. the pecorino was a little too strong for derek, but i loved it. especially when you put the arugula salad on top. dinner for 2 under $25? that's a bargain for batali.

angelo's

new york, ny

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my friends and i recently held a pizza tasting - everyone brought their favorite pizza to determine which was the best in midtown east. angelo's won easily. they use fresh mozzarella, great sauce, and tons of basil. the crust is nice and chewy, with a good amount of char. they also have an excellent arugula salad that you can start with, which makes you feel a little healthier. they also serve huge french rolls, perfectly crispy on the outside and soft on the inside.

the pizza is excellent when delivered, but even better when you get it fresh at the restaurant. also, when you go into the restaurant, they serve everything with really good olive oil - perfect for dipping the french rolls and pizza crusts. with a full bar and a casual atmosphere, it's great for hanging out with friends after work.

giordano's

chicago, il

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chicago, it turns out, is a food city. i wish i had more time to explore the culinary landscape, but i only had two free evenings. the first evening, i told kasi that i was craving chicago-style pizza. the hometown girl takes me to the famous giordano's on rush street for their famous deep dish pizza pie. we order the special, of course - sausage, mushrooms, green peppers, and onions. the pizza takes about 45 minutes to bake, which is just enough time for kasi and myself to update eachother on: our lives, the lives of our mutual friends, and the latest episode of american idol.

the pie finally arrives and it is MASSIVE. we ordered the smallest size available. it's supposed to serve 1-2 people, but the pizza must have weighed at least ten pounds. i'm telling you - there is no way that 1 person can eat the entire pizza. i would be shocked to see 2 people finish it. there's a thick crunchy buttery crust, topped with gooey chewy cheese an inch deep, and another half-inch or so of sausage, veggies and red sauce. delicious. i can understand how someone might want to eat the whole pizza, but i only managed to get through 1/3. kasi succeeded in finishing another 1/3. we had to roll ourselves out of the restaurant, but it was worth every bite.

delfino's pizzeria

seattle, wa

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located in university village, just a short walk away from the university of washington dormitories, delfino's was one of my favorite restaurants in college. my friends and i would walk stop by delfino's first to put in our pizza order, then go study (or shop) at barnes and noble while we waited for our pizza to be ready. they also serve excellent soups and sandwiches if you're in a hurry. my favorite is their deep dish, almost chicago-style, pizza. i say almost because it is not as heavy as the real chicago deep dish pizzas.

recently, they added a slice menu, which is great if you don't want to wait. cindy, chris, baby m, and i were doing some post-christmas shopping at u-village so we stopped by for some salad and slices. i forgot to take a picture of my pizza so the only evidence of our meal is a pretty picture of the leftover salad. the daily slice happened to be sausage and veggies deep dish, which is my favorite. it wasn't as good as the fresh-out-of-the-oven version, but it still brought me back to my undergrad days.

lombardi's pizza

new york, ny

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one of derek's favorite pizza places. it's located right where chinatown and little italy intersect with the nolita and soho shopping districts. usually there's a crowd of tourists outside and a ridiculously long wait. the hostess actually has a loudspeaker that she uses to call out the names of parties. it's a nice corner - if you have to wait, sit on a bench outside and people-watch or do some quick shopping on mulberry and mott. but for some reason, on sunday night at 7 pm, it was only a five minute wait for the two of us.

perfect crust - thin and chewy. the sauce was a little too sweet for me, but i enjoyed the crispy and spicy pepperoni. i'd probably avoid it if there was more than a 20 minute wait. note: this place is cash-only. there's an ATM located outside, but since an ATM surcharge of $2.00 can buy an order of zha man tou, i ran to the nearest citibank on broadway, just south of broome.