Pizza, the next frontier.....

During my preparation for my trip back to NYC, I decided that I have to get my share of quality pizza in NYC that the Shanghaiese can't seem to get right. I spotted the following articles during my research:

http://nymag.com/restaurants/cheapeats/2009/57893/

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/08/dining/08pizza.html


I decided to take a pizza tour this time back. I was determined to squeeze as many of these restaurants between family reunions and meals at Sushi Yasuda and Peter Luger. As it turns out I was able to eat at 5 of the top 20 from New Yorker Magazine (http://nymag.com/restaurants/cheapeats/2009/57893/) and a two others not on the list which includes a New York institution - Grimaldi's. My mission was clear - to try the "new guard" pizza that has pervaded Gotham while I have been away. Before I go into details of each restaurant, I will say that these excursions have rendered my personal top 10 list obsolete. It is safe to say that my expectations of pizza have changed forever. That really sucks since this elevated sense of pizza does not bode well living in the barren wasteland of pizza known as Shanghai.

The methodology was simple, I will use the standard margherita pizza as the barometer since this represents the essence of pizza. Just the crust, mozzarella cheese, tomato sauce and basil for a dash of seasoning. No pizza on steroids and whacked out toppings to interfere with the essence. Maybe the next trip I will venture into alternative pizzas but this time I will start with the basics.

I will introduce each pizza joint in the chronological order of my visit.

Grimaldi's
718.819.2133
242-02 61st Avenue
Douglaston, NY 11362

My first night back in NY, I took the family out to a NY institution - Grimaldi's. Everybody knows the original location in Brooklyn under the Brooklyn Bridge, but the one that we went to was in Douglaston, Queens - only a 5 minute drive from my parent's house. This is a place that I am familiar with since to me it represents one of the pillars of pizza in NY, and is a place I have visited every time back to NY since I left for Shanghai. When it came time to order, I had to compromise a bit on my methodology since we had a wide spectrum of palates at the table. From my 5 year old nephew Spencer to my 87 year old father, compromise was a necessity. We ordered 3 pies for a table of 8 - one sausage and two mushroom/onion:





I enjoyed the thin crust, slightly burnt and the fresh but slightly tough cheese. The crust has a bit of crunch to it and the sauce was nice and sweet. It satisfied me but I must admit, it was not as good as I remembered. Even though I was a tad disappointed, to me it still served as the stardard that all other pizzas be compared to. I looked forward to exploring the next frontier now that I had a belly full of good quality pizza.