i8tonite

Tag: Pizza

  • I8tonite Countdown, The Top 8: Favorite Midwest Eats 2023.

    I8tonite Countdown, The Top 8: Favorite Midwest Eats 2023.

    Or, How My Pants Stopped Fitting.

    The New York Times, my favorite daily read, published their third annual The Restaurant List: The 50 places in the United States that we’re most excited about right now” in September. While the title implies coverage of 50 states, they only selected restaurants in 28 states, doubling or tripling eateries in locations. Of course, they missed Indiana. They also bypassed 31 other states, including New Mexico, Arizona, and Kentucky. 

    i8tonite's top 8 eating experiences: stock photo, WordPress

    Montana made it, as did Iowa. For Illinois, they named two, but they were both in Chicago. One in Minnesota and another in Michigan. In California, they gave Los Angeles three and San Francisco, shockingly, only one. For a bit of context, the late LA Weekly’s Jonathan Gold uncovered one hundred in the robust L.A metro area annually. 

    That’s not to say the restaurants didn’t deserve to be placed on the list. It’s only misleading. As much as I like the idea of Big Sky Country, I’m not going to Montana anytime. People could say that about Indianapolis, which is where I write this. However, we are a centerpiece in the Midwest. A four-hour drive to Nashville, Milwaukee and Detroit. Three hours to Chicago and St. Louis and ninety minutes to Cincinnati, Louisville and Dayton. If I drove four hours anywhere from Los Angeles, which is where we lived before we moved here, I would still be in California. Possibly, Tijuana depending on the traffic. 

    Therefore, I wanted to create a simple list of my favorite eats that I’ve had in three Midwest states. My objective is to highlight the many experiences that didn’t make the cut with the Grey Lady.  

    Although, I’ve traveled to six states this year, including New York City twice, where I cut my teeth while working and eating at some of the best restaurants. I’m disqualifying anything beyond the Midwest. 

    Besides, Indiana gets a bad rap on the food front. Writing for Edible Indy and Culinary Crossroads for the last four years has opened my eyes to great Midwest talent. Indiana chefs and food artisans deserve recognition. 

    Over the next four weeks, I will post my favorites. 

    We begin with….

    Lady Tron’s, New Albany, Indiana: Underneath the sci-fi memorabilia in a vintage Valentine’s portable diner, Lady Tron’s owner and chef, Summer Sieg, creates flavor combinations worthy of Mos Eisley Cantina on the planet Tatooine (Star Wars, 1977). Actually, that’s not true. She makes tasty sandwiches and soups for human and earthbound consumption. 

    On a recent Facebook post, her specials featured a vegan coconut, sweet chili vegetable ramen, and a white chicken chili. It sat alongside a mozzarella and bacon grilled cheese with artichoke and spinach on a Hawaiian roll. On the daily menu, eaters must try a stunning Uhura, a large eight-ounce portion of cod, deep-fried with a satisfying messy crunch, atop a toasted bun with a generous spread of garlic, jalapeno, and shredded iceberg lettuce. Or, for a vegetarian combo, an offering of smoked gouda and provolone grilled cheese on garlic butter and herb sourdough. 

    The dining space seats only 10 at a counter with Summer’s wife, Alexa Lemley Sieg, acting as sole waitron. You can find this in the charming artistic hub of New Albany, directly across the Ohio River from Louisville. The restaurant is a stone’s throw from the Town Clock Church, one of the first stops of the Underground Railroad. It’s a poignant reminder of what the area meant to many on the trail. 

    147 East Market St, New Albany, IN, United States, Indiana 

    (812) 725-9510

    Perrillo’s Pizzeria, New Salem, Indiana: Nestled in the heart of North Salem, Indiana, Perillo’s Pizzeria not only brings the flavors of Sicily to Hendricks County but also crafts phenomenal pizza. Chef Damiano Perillo, who received a culinary degree in his hometown of Palermo, Sicily, honors the American farmer while providing Italian cooking lessons in every dish prepared. 

    Using fresh ingredients, often from the Perillo family farm and their neighbors, sets Perillo’s apart. He only needs to go out and pick his ingredients grown in acres, not wood boxes, underneath the cloudless, cerulean skies. They cultivate vegetables by providing ingredients from their land to ensure the ultimate farm-to-table experience. He also prioritizes Indiana farmers, forming a kinship with the local agricultural community.

    Perusing the menu for an ex-NYC straphanger reminds me of walking along Little Italy’s Elizabeth Street and reading the handwritten paper versions housed in a weatherproof glass box. They swathe the delicious listed items in a deep red, Marcella Hazan-like tomato sauce, salty meats, and milky mozzarella, filling a crusty, luscious dough. In the Midwest, you will be hard-pressed anywhere within 100 miles to find a Sicilian deep dish, hand tossed, with a chewy crust, pulled strands of gooeyness, unless you ate here, a literal pin, on a Google map, two and a half hours south of Chicago and 45 minutes to Indianapolis. 

    Perillo’s rehabbed a former 19th century doctor’s office to become his restaurant. Its whitewashed facade brings to mind a bohemian pottery store in the East Village. There is ample outside space to sip one of the nice reds or a local Indianapolis brewery. 

    The Washington Post recently noted the establishment as having one of the best NY-style pies in the Hoosier state, ranked by Yelp. I might even say the Midwest. It is a pizza haven bordering on heaven.  

    5 S Broadway St, North Salem, IN 46165

    (765) 676-4171

  • I8tonite: A New York Pizza Experience

    I8tonite: A New York Pizza Experience

    Pepperoni Pizza

    On a recent work trip to the Big Apple, I found myself working voraciously from one area of the boroughs to another, with only an opportunity to grab a quick slice of pizza for lunch, before hailing an Uber (Who takes cabs?) or jumping on the subway, repeating this action until dinner. I did this for five days. By the end of the trip, exhausted and not feeling well plus I felt bloated from the amounts of consumed dairy and wheat. (Yes. I  realized that milk products including trace amounts of butter and I are no longer friends.)

    With this said, the trip provided me a rewarding experience that only Lactaid can cure the next time I venture forth with so much mozzarella. And, although, the New York slice, the version that you dab with a napkin to relieve of extra grease, rolling-up like a New York Times straphanger, is becoming extinct like said transit-rider, it still is served deliciously — and for me, gratefully.

    On Quora – the internet answer for everything — someone tried to figure out the number of shops, reckoning it’s anywhere from 3200 to 32500.  Suffice it to say it’s a broad number. They even try and figure out how many per day a pizzaiolo must toss, bake and sell (about 50) to stay in business.

    Whatever the case and take this with a grain of well-tossed salt hidden in the folds of rising dough, here are my selections for a few grand pizzas – in today’s Manhattan.

    Prince Street Pizza

    Formerly known as Ray’s when I lived was a poor New York student in the eighties, I would stumble by for a pepperoni slice after nightclubbing, something to soak up the alcohol. Purchased a decade ago, the existing owners kept the place alive and very much a Soho tradition. Instead of the fold-and-go variety of pies, they execute a Sicilian square loaded with small circles of spicy pepperoni. When baked onto one of the gooey delicacies, they become mini-cups of flavor, holding liquid fat, ready to drip down your chin or shirt. There are only a line and a counter so may do like a New Yorker and eat while walking.

    27 Prince Street (between Elizabeth and Mott Streets)

    (212) 966 – 4100

    Princestreetpizza.com

    Farinella

    Days of cheese and pepperoni

     I came by the Romanesque pizza shop after Uber hightailing from a meeting in Brooklyn to Lexington and 78th only to be thirty minutes early. Rarely do opportunities arise with time on your side, so I sought out a quick place to eat and came across Farinella Pizza and Bakery.  Here the pies are elongated rather than round and the dough stretched rather than tossed. Regardless, it’s really delicious with a crispy under-carriage while it grips onto the selected toppings. The margherita is divine Italian simplicity at it’s best.

    1132 Lexington Avenue (between 78th and 79th Streets)

    New York, New York, 10075

    (212) 327 – 2702

    Champion’s

    Pepperoni Pizza

    Who knew that pizza – an import foodstuff brought over by Italian immigrants – could be so delicious in the hands of a Turk? Hakki Akdeniz worked for many years making $300 per week to learn the tasks of pizzaiolo trade. The outcome is a true slice of New York pizza. Folded in half, paper plate underneath – and a walk to the subway – or hanging out at one of the few tables. Eating the chewy dough and cheese with just that right amount of giving made me feel like all is right with the world – that Andy Warhol, Deelite and Nell’s where still around.

    17 Cleveland Place, New York, New York

    The end. Go eat.

    (P.S. Apologies for the long space between posts. Life happens.)

    [prosperInsert gtm=”merchant” id=”123522~123477~” ft=”fetchMerchant” imgt=”original” fb=”123522123477″ ni=”true”][/prosperInsert]

  • A Grown-Up Pizza Party

    I’m a little late to my first post of 2015. I actually caught up a couple of weeks ago but now I’m slagging behind. Two posts per week was way too demanding so I brought it down to one per week. That’s 52 entries per year. Geez….it’s a damn publishing house.

    My friends keep saying what a great idea it was to have a pizza party for the holidays. The idea,  which incorporated 3 agendas: a housewarming, a birthday and a holiday, came across my mind because of a friend’s invitation to her 4th Annual Cookie exchange celebrating Hanukkah/ Christmas. As we know, even though you say to people you don’t need anything; inevitably and good-naturedly, guests will bring something. By having a themed event where it was around a particular food  guests could ….bake, buy or have their food delivered….it allowed partygoers to participate inexpensively in your new found home, birthday and holidays.

    I’ve decided that a party is a very hard thing to have as an adult. We want them to be fun and full of conversation but we don’t want them to be drunken revelries or a rehash of our youth. We want our friends and family to meet and enjoy each other but without the sex in our parents bedroom or additional alcoholic inappropriateness which we used to think was charming when living in the East Village at the age of 21(or at least I did). No drugs just  fancy (and expensive) beers, wines and of course, a house drink. (In this case, Nick had his own “Cosmopolitan” recipe.) We want music but we don’t want it too loud so it drowns out the conversation and inevitably, no matter what you do, people still congregate in the kitchen or around the booze, even though the rest of the house is empty. There, of course, are the no-shows but then the tried and true stumble up the front porch, excited to be sharing your new life bringing, in this case, pizza.

    And what pizza we had!  I believe that the pies were arguably some of LA’s best joints such as Hollywood Pies (Chicago deep-dish), Prime Pizza, Stella Barra, Pizzeria Mozza, Mulberry Street, Wolfgang Puck, Big Mama’s Pizza, and Vicolo (a frozen cornmeal crust, made out of San Francisco and associated to the legendary Hayes Grill). A few of my culinary friends even made their pizza such as Mark, who made a “flammchuken”  and Mary who made her own freshly made Arugula and Prosciutto Pizza with homemade dough. The pizza that we ate that night showcased some of the best food in the Los Angeles/West Hollywood/ Hollywood/ Pico-Robertson area. (Pasadena, Burbank, Glendale, The Valley….different areas, so don’t get your underwear in a bunch.) Each pizza was a standout.

    Vicolo was a bit of a surprise when Donna pulled it out of a bag. It’s probably my favorite grocery store pizza. Living in San Francisco, I discovered Vicolo at my favorite grocery store, Falletti’s Foods on Broderick. It’s this buttery, cornmeal crust pizza found in a grocer’s aisle; not frozen but freshly shrink-wrapped. It has the honor to be associated to Patty Untermann, a former restaurant critic at the defunct San Francisco Examiner. (Untermann also owns the legendary Hayes Street Grill, a 35 year old Bay Area seafood icon , a great place to go before or after attending a concert at Davies Symphony Hall, a block away. )

    My friend Shelley invited me to dinner with Kathy and Jeff when Stella Barra first opened. I got to meet the very young but accomplished Chef/ Owner Jeff Mahin, who talked to the table about his process of dough-making. Pizzeria Mozza, I attended the friends and family dinner and met Nancy a couple of times.

    I could go on about my past experiences with some of these pizzas but it’s a new year and a new life. I now can look upon these gifts of food with new eyes and thoughts. Some people think of music with fond memories and food can bring up the same sense of personal history. If you’re in the Los Angeles area, you should stop and try at least one of these places.

    Next year, I’m thinking Chinese food. Happy 2015!