Friday: Ahh… Brooklyn. (aka the “Dick Chicken Popcorn/Exploratory Post”)

It’s probably never the best idea to embark on a Brooklyn (art) excursion when you (unintentionally) miss the first stop, which turns out to be food. …

In this case, I missed out on supposedly delicious, fifth year anniversary-priced ($5) Margherita Classica pizzas at Fornino’s in Williamsburg — a pizza geek’s pizza place, if I ever saw one. Just missed them by about 10 minutes.

So when I later came across rows of bags of popcorn (with seemingly normal popcorn inside), labeled as “Dick Chicken -flavored Popcorn” at an overly-hyped event at the art space known as the 3rd Ward … well, yeah, I grabbed one. (Granted, the boxes labeled “Dick Chicken Nuggets” were selling for serious double-digits a piece — but they didn’t have any nuggets inside.)

…I took one and stashed it in my satchel, unsure if  I was planning on eating the Dick Chicken Popcorn or … archiving it. I had my own (free!) Dick Chicken souvenir … that I was waffling about eating, well, until, I saw two grandmotherly-aged women eating Dick Chicken-flavored Popcorn in the exterior hallway.

“Excuse me, I really hope not, but is there anything “Dick Chicken special” about the popcorn?”

“Nope, seems fine to me,” one replied.

And then I took the plunge. My estimation, air-popped, could have used a little more salt.

(And yes, I saved the bag as a souvenir. And later fashioned this still life…)

End of message.

Tuesday: Simple Italian with a Touch of Ferrari Red (aka the “Trattoria Cinque Discovery Post”)

When I come across a solid restaurant concept, I like to sometimes pretend that I know enough about the business that can dissect why it works.

rustic bread, fresh ricotta, E.V.O.O., black pepper

I was up for the challenge at Trattoria Cinque on Tuesday. This newish neighborhood spot in Tribeca is a good find — crowd-pleasing trattoria-style Italian run by Italians in a venue that could just as easily be the spot for a low-key, midweek meal with a friend (or three) as for a birthday dinner production for 20.

As far as I can ascertain, here’s why it works:

Start with stylish, but unpretentious, decor: From the street, you want to walk inside.

Stunning (original) exposed brickwork, vaulted ceilings, brown leather banquets, industrial matte black lamps, backlit bottles of lemoncello, chairs and other accents painted official Ferrari red paint — I was told the design is intended to channel the Ferrari factory, circa 1950s, and it works. It’s fun without being gimmicky.

Keep the concept simple: “Cinque” is Italian for “five” and, appropriately, the menu has five beginnings, five pizzas, five big plates, five pastas, five endings.

On top of that, the entire menu receives a makeover about five times a year, to account for seasonality, popularity and whatever else. Plenty of room for the kitchen to engage with the crowd and evolve responsively.

Make it accessible: The most expensive thing on the menu at the moment is a $25 ribeye steak that’s aged for weeks in a meat locker on site. That’s cheap, especially for this neighborhood, but my favorites of the evening (I didn’t try the steak) were priced well below that.

The first thing I’ll be back for are Trattoria Cinque’s thin, oblong pizzas ($11-$12) like the pizza con gorgonzola e pere, a delicate, ultra-thin crust pie that is finished with white truffle oil and fresh ground pepper. It’s cooked perfectly and evenly throughout, and somehow, that thin crust holds itself together long enough for you to get it in your mouth.

Also: A fantastic Caesar salad ($10) that is only deserving of such a production:

Each one ordered is prepared from scratch at a tavola, or a large, wooden table placed prominently and dramatically in the main dining room. It’s dining meets spectacle, old world style.

And before I come back for the brasato di Manzo — braised beef short ribs with white polenta ($20), the hearty meat and potatoes dish I ordered on Tuesday — I’d dig into the list of pastas, all of which are made in-house. Entrée portions of pasta dishes run $14-$18, like most of the menu.

Eventually, we got around to desserts … but by then a bottle of grappa and a bottle of limoncello had showed up on the table. It was time to relax.

TIP: Trattoria Cinque is currently offering a “Pie, Peroni & Pigskin special” on Monday nights where $15 gets you a pie and two Peronis. And, presumably, some NFL football on the TVs in the bar area.

Want more food shots? There’s a photo of the frito misto plate — fried calamari, shrimp, artichoke hearts, and lemon slices — after the jump:

Saturday: Ugghhh … (aka the “Tour de Bar Food” Post)

Potato skins, followed by an appetizer sampler, followed by late night pizza, all washed down with copious amounts of beer. This just might be the blog post I submit to ThisIsWhyYou’reFat.

Let’s chalk it up to the fact that Saturday was a double special occasion, an out-of-town visitor and a local friend’s birthday. Here’s what went down:

Fully aware of the endurance it would take to get through the evening — we were starting early, about 6 o’clock — we needed to eat something early to hold down the fort. Enter, potato skins at Murphy’s Pub in Midtown East. They were chosen purely for the fact that they were the cheapest, least fried and easiest shareable appetizers on the menu.

When we showed up at the birthday party at Rattle n’ Hum, the excellent craft beer bar in Murray Hill (just a little further south), my friends had apparently had the same idea and voila, chicken quesadilla and sampler platter arrived. We were now satisfactorily fortified for the copious amounts of beer that came next.

And as for the slices from La Mia Pizza … well, anyone who’s ever been out for a big night in New York City knows that there’s just something magical about the glow emanating from a pizza shop open late night. And, if you actually have to cross in front of it while walking home, it’s a lost cause — even if you don’t finish it until the AM.

Monday: Spinach Two Ways at Big Nick’s (aka the Sort of “Daring & Delicious Pizza” Post)

"where to find your food"

The trick to eating at Big Nick’s in the Upper West Side is to arrive hungry, but not starving. Otherwise, their 28-page menu — which includes more than 40 types of burgers, nearly as many specialty pizzas, two dozen salads and even more sandwiches, Greek options, an around-the-clock breakfast section, all types of pasta, and on and on — might just overwhelm. Trust me on this one.

"our pizza is different, daring & delicious"

But aside from that little caveat, Big Nick’s really is special in this city. It’s wood veneer walls are covered in a collage of photos, notes from the management and handwritten menu specials that only could have grown organically over decades. Children are given balloons. The staff is brisk, occasionally gruff, but always accommodating.

It took me about three times of eating at Big Nick’s before I really get a handle on it, and my strategy now is to hone in on what general category of food I’m interested in and ignore the other sections of the menu as if they’re not there at all.

In fact, on this night I already knew one of two things I was ordering before I walked in the door: the Grecian-style spinach ($4.50), listed under appetizers, page 6.

Not creamed spinach, not like any other cooked spinach dish I’ve ever had really, the spinach is laced with feta, slices of onion, and some sort of (assuming Grecian) seasoning, garnished with tomato and cucumber slices and a lemon wedge and served hot.

It’s a fantastic way to dress up spinach, tastes good, and is so good for you. (Of course, it was my mother, the dietician, who first picked out this fairly obscure appetizer when I brought here here).

Being that my whole table was bathed in a warm, pink glow from Big Nick’s neon sign advertising how daring and delicious their pizza is, for part two, I decided to try a slice of the Fricasse pizza ($3.75), which, according to the menu, is: “a Big Nick original & NYC’s first green pizza!”

More feta, more spinach, plus onion, herbs in a cream sauce — it was okay, a little watery, actually. I’ve previously heard other diners rave about this pizza, which is what had piqued my interest. Was it that I was spinach saturated? That I prefer a pizza not so wholesome? I’m not sure. No matter, there are dozens of other pies to pick from next time.

Big Nick’s, 2175 Broadway, at W. 77th Street, 212-724-3010 (pizza) 212-362-9238 (burgers and other)

Tuesday: Ohh I Get It … a “Pitza” is a “Pizza on Pita” (aka the “Bedouin Tent Discovery” Post)

More Atlantic Avenue discoveries.

Bedouin Tent. I stopped in on Sunday to grab a take-out menu and the front of the house smelled so good — that sweet, dough-y, bread baking smell — that if I hadn’t just finished my Paddington Bear panini across the road, I would have ordered something, anything, right there and then.

Bedouin Tent makes their own pita in a huge, industrial pizza oven, right there by the entrance, all day every day. Little dough balls sit stacked in flour on one side, waiting to be rolled out and shaped.

(I don’t really know how to make this metaphor work, but they reminded me of nothing so much as a small surplus of snowballs, lying in wait.)

Just as the oven is located front and center in the restaurant, the pita here is showcased in every dish: It is the vessel for an assortment of Middle Eastern salads and spreads; split open, the pita becomes a pocket, or sandwich; laid flat and topped with diced and sliced meats, vegetables and (sometimes) fresh mozzarella cheese, the pita becomes a “pitza,” a pita/pizza hybrid; with meal-sized salads and entrees, pita is served on the side, like bread.

I tried the garden salad ($7.50) — lettuce, tomato, mushrooms, peppers, cucumber, artichoke hearts, olives, parsley and feta cheese — and the Lambajin “pitza” ($7), a crumbled mixture of lamb, onion, tomato, parsley and other spices, spread out on flat pita disc and baked like a pizza.

It was a ton of food — easily enough for two people. (Indeed, it was two meals for me.) This is how every $7.50 veggie salad should be loaded: thick cuts of fresh produce, plus beautiful homemade touches, like housemade stuffed grape leaves, artichoke hearts, a blend of feta and parsley.

The Lambajin … a meat-lover’s “alternative” pizza. Full of flavor and meatiness, I did miss the cheese. (Look closely, there are a couple pitzas that are cheeseless.) All in all, my first Bedouin Tent meal left me wanting to try more, namely the “Green Pitza,” — leeks, scallions and fenugreek (described as “lightly sweet”) and mozzarella cheese — and, well, everything else.

Bedouin Tent, 405 Atlantic Ave., Boreum Hill, Brooklyn, (718) 852-5555.

TIP: Bedouin Tent has a large back patio, shaded by large, cream-colored umbrellas. I had to take lunch to-go, but if the weather’s good, take advantage of it! Then, it seems like more places than not along Atlantic Avenue have just similar backyards. Merits more exploring …

Monday: Birthday Dinner Gone Gonzo (aka the “Cheese Three Ways” Post)

There are few things more enjoyable in the world than sharing a meal with close friends, when everyone makes the time in their respectively busy lives to actually be present, and eat and laugh and tell stories and simply enjoy each other’s company.

… Which makes my birthday dinner at Gonzo in the West Village just about perfect.

It wasn’t the original plan: Earlier Monday morning I found out that Brooklyn Bowl — the new, LEED-certified, 16-lane bowling alley in Williamsburg with a full menu by Blue Ribbon (where I was going to have a small fête) — was closed Mondays.

I needed options, stat. My research skills kicked into high gear, and I ended up with a list of options that included everything from all-you-can eat/drink rip tips (which are excellent) and domestic draft beer at Brother Jimmy’s BBQ ($15.95) to a 3-course, $35 prixe fix meal at Sojourn in the Upper East Side that includes a wine pairings.

In the mix, from my friends at winedanddined.com:

Gonzo (W. 13th nr 6th Ave) is offering 2 for 1 pizzas on Monday nights and from 5-7 on Saturdays.

At first, pizza didn’t sound quite right. But the more I thought about it, the more I liked it. It was the perfect renegade birthday dinner — going gonzo at Gonzo. A girl can’t ask for much more on my birthday than a literary pun that’s this sweet.

Plus, the grilled, thin-crust pizzas are unique in the city, a culinary gift from the late chef Vincent Scotto. Oblong, ultra-thin and piled high with premium toppings in complex, sometimes exotic, flavor combinations, they’re certainly unlike any pizza I’d ever had.

I’ll be back to try the pizza with watermelon listed as a topping, but for a first taste we stuck with the classics:

(top) Sausage pizza, topped with ricotta cheese, roasted red pepper puree, romano & bel paese cheeses.

(bottom) Wild mushroom pizza, topped with chanterelle, shiitake & oyster mushrooms, caramelized onions, taleggio, romano & bel paese cheeses.

We also shared a large meat-and-cheese tasting platter ($25), my picks (counter-clockwise from top left): Capicola, Prosciutto di Parma, Cacciatorini with fig & fennel jam; taleggio, pepper pecorino (center), giant basket of grilled bread slices (not pictured). Few things make me happy like a good meat and cheese plate, maybe a glass of prosecco to go with — oh wait, had that, too.

Prosecco was as much a through-line to this lovely meal as was the cherished company and … of course, the cheese.

That thing with a candle up top? Brown sugar cheesecake. It’s a cheesecake purists will appreciate: a slightly different, darker sugar taste (molasses?) comes through, but the flavors aren’t so radically changed as if whole candy bars are thrown in, a la Cheesecake Factory. It’s really, really good. My one critique? With the circular shape, you get less buttery, gram-cracker-y crust.

TIP: The pizzas are definitely larger than our server let on — don’t let them up-sell you. Go with a group and share a mix of the cicchetti, Venetian-style small plates ($7-$11), or maybe a couple of appetizers, plus the pizzas. Two-for-one pizzas makes group dining that much more affordable — and fun.

Dinner: Pizza Party for One (What a Great Day!)

Pizza and rosé. Such a perfect finis to a really excellent day.

While I’ve had my eye on this exact meal for some days now, I had no idea that I’d arrive here like this: Sticky and grimy, the bottle of rosé slapping at my side in my purse, my personal-sized pizza box hot to touch and deliciously fragrant, one hand steadying the box on top of the seat of my new bike, the bike being a vintage, magenta-colored, 5-speed Schwinn, body style “Caliente” (literally translated: hot!) found on Craigslist hours ago. Oh and did I mention that Caliente and I made a trip to see some friends in Queens (okay, just Long Island City) on the way inaugural voyage home?

I didn’t have much hopes for this personal-sized pepperoni pizza that’d been sitting in the display of La Mia Pizza, a local pizza shop that I’d not yet tried, but by the time I got to the Upper East Side I didn’t really care. Feed me.

But I’ll tell you what: I don’t know whether it’s the uber-excitement about my new bike, the stellar rosé or actually the pizza, which is thin-crust, crispy, oozy in all the right places, or a little of all of the above … but right now, it’s pretty damn delicious.

Dinner: Let’s Pause for a Moment of Silence and All Say, “Mmmm … Pizza” (The “John’s Pizza OMG” Post)

Yeah, yeah. John’s Pizzeria. In Greenwich Village. West Village-ish. Whatever, on Bleecker Street, yeah, best pizza in the city.

At least, so I’ve been told by multiple friends whose taste I trust, although maybe not entirely subscribe to without a little bit of “personal” validation. It hasn’t won a gold star from me yet.

Finally got around to it. Oh … my … god. John’s truly is the opposite from that old standard, the reheated to luke-warm plain cheese slice:

Doughy, fluffy, hot through-and-through; generous portions of toppings like large, thick slices of meatball and sausage crumbles (truly a meat lover’s pie); sweet sun-dried tomatoes, whole basil leaves and sliced black olives on a second pie, which was the one I dug into.

Something about the exact combination of our second pie — it kept surprising me with a subtle headiness of flavor I can only compare to popping a handful of popcorn into your mouth and getting an unexpected hit of truffles, from the dash of truffle-flecked salt that’d been sprinkled on it. Not to say that John’s uses truffle-infused olive oil in making its pizzas, but the flavor combination was just on.

Best in the city? I’m not there, yet. But hell yes I’m giving John’s it’s gold star. It’s earned it. What a fantastic reminder that there’s so much more to pizza than the thin-crusted, ultra-lightly-cheesy, blush of a tomato sauce, slice?

Wednesday: The “Everything Is Good Here” Post, (“Here” Is Adrienne’s Pizzabar)

I just roll my eyes when you ask a server what they recommend and they say, “Everything! It’s just so good!” in that mindless, chipper way. Umm, no. We weren’t asking if you recommended eating here. We’ve already decided to do that. We were asking which items you, server who has eaten most everything on the menu, prefers. 

Anyhow, we didn’t pose that question to anyone at Adrienne’s Pizzabar in the Financial District. But we did sample nearly every section of the menu — an antipasti, a 10″ pizza and a pasta entree, baked in the pizza oven — and it was all damn delicious. 

The mixed antipasti misto ($16, small): A bounty of fresh vegetables, roasted and served virtually naked, with just a touch of olive oil, salt, pepper and the occasional spice. The flavor of the vegetables shined. Plus, several toasts topped with bruschetta; a lentil and a white bean salad; thin-shaved slices of salumi and prosciutto; cubes of cheese, a basket of rolls and olive oil and vinegar for dipping. This antipasti, with a glass of wine or two on the picnic tables out back, would be a light and lovely dinner in itself. 

… And then the pizza came. We ordered the vesuviana pizza, topped with anchovies, olives, capers, spicy red peppers, basil ($15), and it was almost mouth-orgasmic. The way that the hot peppers played off the saltiness of the capers, anchovies and olives; the balance between cheese, homemade au natural tomato sauce, the soft, springy dough base — this truly unique pizza was the favorite among dishes that were all excellent. 

The conchiglie imbottite, pasta shells stuffed with ricotta, spinach, marinara ($10): Baking the shells made the cheese bubble and crisp on top, while the ricotta inside stayed light, creamy and smooth; the tomato sauce puree was vibrant, fresh and simple, the dominant flavor tomatoes. (I like this kind of marinara sauce, which actually let the tomato shine through). This entree could easily be a meal in itself. 

… While I can’t (yet) guarantee the excellence of whole menu, based on the excellence of this first experience, I am confident that more picks than not are bound to be a success. I am definitely going to be back for more.

Dinner: A Slice from Joe’s

I think this is my first on-the-go slice post, which is shocking. Apparently, since starting this blog, I’ve eaten an all-time low number of slices. (For those of you who have asked me have my eating habits changed since starting this blog, there you go. Maybe?)

Slice details: Plain cheese, from Joe’s Pizza in the West Village. A moment of silence in appreciation of this classic.