What's Better-- New York- or Chicago-Style Pizza?

Said no one ever.

Flatbread Company

While I haven’t been to Portland, Maine, since August (insert sad emoticon here) I still have some food posts from my last trip that never went up—one of them being about the tasty pizzas at Flatbread Company, located right on the water at 72 Commercial Street.   

I like Flatbread. It’s got a sweet vibe to it. The restaurant feels nice and spacious and you can watch your pizza being made and tossed into a blazing open wood stove. Inside is welcoming and warm, but when it’s nice out I recommend sitting outside by the water.  I'm biased toward a New York slice, but I've found life is much better when you just open yourself up to different variations on a good idea. My favorite pizza so far at Flatbread is the Homemade Sausage. I love the taste of the sausage—it’s nitrate free with a pleasant combination of subtle sweet maple and a bit of a bite from the fennel. The pizza also comes with organic sulfate-free sundried tomatoes, caramelized organic onions, organic mushrooms, whole milk mozzarella, and Parmesan cheese with organic bread dough and homemade organic garlic oil and herbs.  

Everyday they offer a vegetable and a meat special pizza, and they will also let you order a pizza half-and-half so you can try both without having to order too much food. On one visit we ordered half Coevolution and half of the meat special for the day. Coevolution is composed of imported Kalamata olives (guaranteed to make a good pizza even better), fresh organic rosemary, organic red onions, Sunset Acres goat cheese, fire-roasted sweet red peppers, and whole milk mozzarella on organic bread dough with homemade organic garlic olive oil and herbs. The meat special came with tiny Maine shrimps and a Thai peanut sauce. It had a little bit of heat to it and was also topped with peppers and snow peas. A success all around.  

A crisp Maine Root root beer is a nice accompaniment to the pizza, especially on a hot summer day. They also have nice options for beer and wine at the bar inside.  

One of the interesting aspects of Flatbread is that their menus are made from children’s drawings, some of which are highly entertaining. I am a seaweed! I am a cloud! I am a strawberry! I am an orphan?  

Put it on the Pizza: Part III

Putting it on the pizza is always a good time, whether you're surrounded by friends or just spending a lovely summer evening in solitude. I found myself in the latter of those situations this weekend, and putting it on the pizza seemed like perfect way to further enjoy my already sublime summer day. After all, a day of lying in the sun, reading, and swimming can really take a lot out of a girl.

But what to put on the pizza? I had two ideas, so I decided to just split the pizza into two different toppings. On one side I mixed together tomato sauce with Sirracha and spread a thin layer of the dough (store-bought, if you're wondering. I was going to make my own dough but got lazy). Then I topped it with mozzarella, provolone, and veggie-sausage that I'd found in the fridge.

The other side of the pizza got a liberal helping of fresh basil and garlic pesto, covered in sliced mushrooms, grilled chicken, green peppers, red onions, tomato slices, feta, mozz, and kalamata olives.

When I placed the pizza on the grill I cracked an egg on top of the side with the Sirracha sauce. Beautiful.

Unfortunately by the time the egg was cooked the dough had burnt a bit, but otherwise it was delicious. The yolk on the Sirracha side was perfectly cooked (or not cooked, rather), and it oozed out delicately over the sauce, cheese, and dough. The other side with pesto and chicken was also delightful--nice, garlicky, and satisfying without being overly heavy. 

I sat down, enjoyed some pizza, finished re-reading Hemingway's The Garden of Eden, sipped a glass of red wine, and soaked in the late summer evening. Then the doorbell rang.


I'd been cupcaked. (To be continued...)

Put it on the Pizza: The Sequel

All right, I know I've been slacking on the blogging, but I've just been distracted by summertime and all that comes with it. There's lots to catch up on foodwise from the past couple months, and what's a better place to start than pizza? A few months ago I reported about putting it on the pizza, and you may recall that the pizza was absolutely delicious. But when Rob's friends Rob and Rob came to town in early June, we knew we needed to put it on the pizza once again. 

This time Rob made the dough from scratch. I'm not sure of the recipe she used for the dough, but it sure was damn tasty.

We definitely put it on the sauce (in the sauce?) as well--tomatoes, red wine, spices, herbs, and even a strawberry. Making homemade tomato sauce is easier than one would suspect. It can really be as simple or as complex as you want. We just pureed some tomatoes (if you want to be hardcore you can peel and seed the tomatoes as well) and let them simmer on the stove with the other random ingredients we decided to throw in. When it was thick enough to our liking (that's what she said) we spread it on the delicious dough that Rob had prepared..

 

What is that sprinkled across the dough beneath the sauce? you may ask. It's some roasted garlic! To prepare the roasted garlic we just wrapped some whole cloves of garlic with olive oil in foil and popped it in the oven until it turned golden brown. Then we smashed the cloves, chopped them up, and spread them all over the pizza for some garlicky goodness.

After the garlic and sauce, we topped the pizza with tasty caramelized onions, fresh basil, mozzarella, and cracked black pepper.

To caramelize onions, thinly slice an onion and add the slices to a pan with olive oil and butter. If you are using a sweet onion I don't think you really need to add any sugar, but I tend to sprinkle in a little salt and sugar when I use a regular yellow onion. Cook the onion slices on low heat, stirring occasionally, until they turn a lovely brown color, but just be careful that they don't burn and stick to the pan. We couldn't get enough of the caramelized onions as they filled the kitchen with a delicious aroma and transformed from white to transparent to a luscious caramel color. I think we even added a little bit of beer to our onions as they simmered away, but then again, when Rob is the kitchen anything goes.  

 

 

After we put it all on the pizza, we placed it on a hot grill (with a piece of tinfoil between the grates and the pizza) and let the dough crisp up and the cheese melt into deliciousness. When it was done we were floating in pizza heaven...

If you still haven't put it on the pizza then be sure to check out the video below...

Eh, Put It on the Pizza

Sometimes you just need pizza. It's one of the greatest comfort foods of all time. Who doesn't love pizza? Seriously--having a party? Can't go wrong with pizza. Want to relax on the weekend and order in? Just pick up the phone and have pizza delivered to your door. Need all the essential food groups in one bite? Pizza!

But as convenient as it is to order in pizza, it's also a great food to prepare with friends. The other night I met up with a good friend to make pizza, sip on red wine, enjoy some music, and even watch a late-night home viewing of Romeo + Juliet. 

We started off with pizza dough from a local New Jersey bakery. If we were up for it we could have made it from scratch, but instead this dough served as a delicious and convenient alternative. After struggling with rolling out the dough for some time (we have issues), we began to prepare the toppings. Rather than using tomato sauce we loaded the pizza up with pesto, adding a thick layer of basily goodness to the dough. Next we topped it with lots of shredded mozzarella cheese, followed by sliced baby bella mushrooms, romano cheese and basil Italian sausage, and caramelized onions. 

After twenty minutes in the oven our golden-brown pizza was ready to be devoured. The flavors were delicious and even more satisfying knowing that we'd made it ourselves and each collaborated to the masterpiece. There are so many options for pizza toppings, but I have to say that our combination of pesto, sausage, mushrooms, and onions was pretty killer.
 

Speaking of communal cooking experiences with pizza, you may want to check out this demented video. If you like watching disturbing videos that you wish you could turn away from but simply can't because they are so weird that they hold your gaze for far too long (i.e., Jersey Shore) then feast your eyes upon this slowed-down version of a Olsen Twins' song "Gimme Pizza." Simply bizarre.

Vesta

Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoy where I moved to in New Jersey, but living in Jersey in general makes me crave the New York experience like nothing else. After settling in at my new digs, I knew I had to make a trip into the city. It was time. On a recent Saturday night I headed out to Bayside, Queens, for a fabulous night of celebrating the birth of my friend Eric and reuniting with many old college friends I hadn’t seen in years.

But Sunday means brunch, and after stumbling around for a couple of hours after I woke up I ventured in to Astoria to celebrate yet another birthday—this time for a fabulous lady named Cassi. This celebration, however, revolved primarily around eggs and hashbrowns rather than the previous nights’ debauchery of drinks, food, a DJ, hot tub, pool, and bottle of Jim Beam.

Brunch was at Vesta. I stumbled out of the cab, still half in the bag, and into a nice, small restaurant located at 21-02 30th Avenue in Astoria, Queens, NY.

The lovely ladies who greeted me were my sister’s friends, and I was so happy to be able to celebrate with them. I sat. We chatted. We laughed. We waited for the other girls to show up. Unfortunately there was not a Bloody Mary in sight. I’d been craving hair of the dog since I woke up, so I settled for a mimosa, which was still quite delightful.

We were all so hungry as we waited for the last lady to join us that we decided to order a Hangover Pizza in the meantime. The pizza was out of this world. It was ultra-thin crust with potatoes, pancetta, sausage, fried eggs, and spicy tomato sauce. We dove in with gusto and devoured this culinary gift to those who partied too hard the night before. The yolk of the eggs oozed out over the hearty pizza and it was a short time before we’d finished the whole thing. This pizza was what everyone hopes to get out of brunch but too often has to settle for simple eggs and toast. Not that there’s anything wrong with eggs and toast, but when you know that a Hangover Pizza exists, nothing else will ever suffice.


I really wanted a Warm Bankie (fried eggs with polenta, asparagus, mushrooms, and truffle oil), but when I ordered it the server informed us that they were out of polenta and not making the dish that day. I contemplated asking them if they could just substitute bacon for the polenta, but instead I opted for the L’Italiano, which consisted of poached eggs, grilled Italian bread, hot sopressata, and ricotta. Damn. It was good. The yellow yolk oozed out over the sopressata and ricotta, which was spread thin on the grilled Italian bread. Every bite was hearty and satisfying with that rustic quality that meats like sopressata embody. The hashbrowns that accompanied it were also delicious.


As our breakfast plates were pulled away the server presented us with dessert menus. We groaned in our inability to eat anything more, but Kathleen looked at us all with a devilish smile and sparkle in her eye and suggested the chocolate ganache. We couldn’t resist, and I’m so glad we couldn’t. The chocolate gananche was decadent and rich, with a drizzle of caramel, and that nice element of salt with a sprinkling of peanuts. This is exactly what a candy bar should taste like. Luscious chocolate, sticky caramel, and salty peanuts. It was like a Snickers, but so much better. It also came with fresh whipped cream, which just makes everything in life seem more bright.


The menu at Vesta changes with the season so don’t expect to be able to get these exact dishes when you go there. Just be prepared for a fantastic meal based on exceptional, local ingredients paired with a nice selection of wine and wine-based drinks. Enjoy!

Song of the Week: Pizza Power

Song of the Week: That's Amore