Forcella - Pizza Wars: The (Roman) Empire Strikes Back

It's almost impossible to talk about New York City pizza without someone uttering the phrase, “the best in the city”. New Yorkers pride ourselves on their pies, and everyone and their mother has their favorite spot. Given adequate provocation, they are ready to defend their favorite as the best of the best. And there's competition a-plenty. There are the old school classics - Grimaldi's, Patsy's, Lombardi's, John's on Bleeker. There's the new hipster-foodie regime – Motorino, Roberta's, Lucali. Artichoke, Best Pizza. The Brooklyn heavyweights – Totonno's, Di Fara, L and B Spumoni Gardens. And that's just the tip of the iceburg. There's the generic pizza parlor pie, dollar slices, grandma slices, sicilian, and thin crust bar pies.

Then there's Chicago, America's other great pizza town. If you haven't seen Jon Stewart's take-down of Chicago's deep dish pizza, its a must watch. (http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-november-13-2013/tower-record). Don't sleep on New Haven, Connecticut either. I've personally sat in 4+ hours of traffic just to pop into Frank Pepe's to get a slice of the clam pie.

Some are quick to disqualify the delivery franchises like Domino's and Papa John's as not-real-pizza, and yes, they are wholly, truly sub-par and gross. Yet, for every Corner Bistro Burger or Minetta Tavern Black Label Burger, there's a McDonald's, and I'd be lying to you if I told you I don't love a Big Mac. Lastly, there's the horrifying world of freezer pizza – Elio's, DiGiornio, etc. Please, I beg of you, leave those monstrosities to our mid-western compatriots, where they are forced, for lack of any other options, to consume such abominations.

But this entry is devoted to a style of pizza more pure, more authentic, than the above-mentioned contestants. To understand it, you have to trace the Italian-American heritage of New York pizza back to Italy, particularly – Naples. Neapolitan pizza is both the oldest sort of pizza and the newest variety to pop up all over the city. Neapolitan pizza is distinguished from it's progeny in that its typical smaller, usually about 8-12 inches in diameter and uses fresh ingredients, like San Marzano tomatoes and fresh bufala mozzarella cheese. The crust should be springy, yet crispy from having spent a short time in screaming hot wood-burning oven.

Forcella, just off of the Lorimer stop of the L train, is an authentic and excellent Neapolitan pizza spot. I had visited Forcella for the first time about a year ago, and I was a little disappointed, not because the pizza was bad, in fact, its great, but because at 8 p.m. on a Saturday nobody was inside. I feared that this great new pizza joint would be gone before I could return for more. I hadn't returned until just this past weekend, and to my surprise, the place was mobbed. (No pun intended, no seriously, please don't kill me, I have a family.) When we arrived, we asked for a party of two and promptly received the death-stare when we told them that we didn't have a reservation. After we were finally seated, more patrons flooded the narrow lobby and bar and waited for tables.

We ordered two pies. The first, and simply a must-order, was the Margherita Extra. The Margherita Pie is the flagship of all Neapolitan Pizza. Its so popular, most ordinary pizza parlor's carry some sort of bastardization. What makes it so delicious, and the reason its so scarcely reproduced correctly, is fresh ingredients. Forcella coats their pizza dough with a light and zippy fresh tomato sauce, before dolloping it with imported bufala mozzarella. If you have the dough (geez, I know, another pun) you can get Burrata, instead of the bufala. Then it goes into a massive wood-burning oven that takes up the rear quadrant of the open kitchen. It comes out bubbly and charred, and then gets hit with some good extra virgin olive oil and fresh basil. It's so simple its stupid, but it's all you need to make one of the... best pizza's in the city.

The second pie was a personal creation. The menu has a create your own pizza option, and I took full advantage. I started with a “Bianca” base, essentially fresh bufala mozzarella and parmesan cheese without the sauce. Then I added some prosciutto di parma. I swear, aside from maybe lobster, I don't think there's anything I'd rather eat than prosciutto. I finished the pie with a healthy pour of truffle oil. The pie was rich and decadent, but the doughy, chewy crust provided an excellent counterbalance to the toppings.

There's also a plethora of other pie's and toppings to sample. Cheeses include, bufala mozzarella, shaved pecorino, gorgonzola, provolone, ricotta, fontina, and burratta. Add to that, hot salami, garlic, anchovies, fennel sausage, prosciutto, truffle oil, mushrooms, eggplant, zucchini, arugula, olives, artichokes, and onion. Thats over ten million combinations! (I made that up, I don't know how to math).

We had intended on ordering a desert pie, essentially their pizza dough, fried and topped with nutella, almonds, and powdered sugar, but we didn't have room. Seriously though, how bad could that be? Forcella is BYOB too, so feel free to bring some wine to complement your pizza.

So, while I may not have resolved the “best in the city” pizza wars, Forcella is another arrow in the quiver to prove that New York City, with its multitude of styles and subsets is truly the mecca of pizza, this side of the Atlantic.

Egg: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Candied Bacon

Sometime between meteoric rise of the cronut and The Great Bacon Craze of 2009, this city fell head-over-heels for Brunch. Between all you can drink prix fixes to smoked meat tacos, the late-morning weekend meal is nothing short of a full-fledged food phenomenon. I've always been unabashedly unenthusiastic about breakfast food. My daily routine usually consists of a K-cup and a splenda. However, on the weekends, I am occasionally persuaded to get out of bed at the crack of noon and drag myself to the nearest place that sells runny egg yolks and crispy pork belly.

Thus, I finally made my way to Williamsburg's preeminent brunch spot, Egg. I've tried to get in to Egg once before, but I was dissuaded by the long wait. Fastened to the door of the nondescript restaurant is a clipboard where you can scribble your name and your party size, and once about every 500 minutes a hostess comes to seat those at the top of the list, who haven’t already gone elsewhere. Don't fret if the list is long, chances are Fonzie and Yolanda ditched to another breakfast spot. But the wait is worth it. 

If you visit in the winter months, when you get inside, you'll be rewarded with some hot, outstanding french press coffee. It really does beat the pants off of the regular drip stuff. There's something slightly rewarding about pressing the plunger down and pouring off a cup yourself.

I ordered the Eggs Rothko. After wrestling with ordering the Country Ham Biscuit, I ultimately had to order the eponymous egg. Just to give you a taste of what you could have been reading about, the Country Ham Biscuit features Kentucky ham piled on a biscuit lathered in fig jam, before Grafton cheddar is melted on top. You can see why I gave it serious contention. Oh, and it comes with grits. 

The Eggs Rothko, named after abstract impressionist painter Mark Rothko, was everything I look for in a brunch entree. There's nothing abstract about the dish, in fact, everything on the plate exists is as it should be. Gooey egg yolks wait for your fork to pierce the threshold, locked inside a fresh slice of brioche bread. A generous helping of Grafton cheddar insulates the eggs from above. This is essentially a take on what I would call “eggs in a basket” or “eggs in a hole”, which I frequently make at home using a juice glass to cut a small hole in a slice of white (or wheat) bread, in which to fry an egg. Egg's “Rothko” nails the ratio of eggs, bread, and cheese, so that theres just enough buttery bread to sop up the runny yellows. The cheddar cheese essentially turns this “eggs in a hole” into an open faced grilled cheese version of the breakfast dish.

Like all good breakfast joints, you get a side of meat with your eggs, and I chose (wisely) the candied bacon. If you love to pour a little maple syrup on your bacon, this is for you. If you aren't into that sort of thing, well, you need to reevaluate your life choices. The thick cut bacon retains every iota of the smoky, pork, goodness that you crave, but packs a syrupy sweet bite that is a bona fide, ten out of ten on the Richter Scale foodgasm. If there is any complaint to be made, its that they give you too much of the stuff, to the point where you begin to fear for your own safety. To quote the great Robert Kelly, my heart is telling me no, but my body, my body is telling me yes. Get off the subway a stop early, stop worrying, and learn to love the candied bacon.

I did also taste Egg's hash-browns and they too succeed. They have a golden, crispy outside and a flakey tender inside, reminiscent of the mythical hash-browns at McDonald's. I don't often get to enjoy those bad boys. If I'm in a McDonald's before 10 a.m., and I'm not at the airport, something bad has happened in my life. Egg's hash-browns are perfectly salty, not too greasy, and cut the sweetness of the candied bacon. Makes sense that Egg's ownership have a pop-up stand at the Smorgasbord called “Hash Bar”. Disappointingly though, my waiter brought me a bottle of Heinz Organic Ketchup, to accompany my hash-browns, which really didn’t do the job of the “real-deal” high fructose corn syrup stuff. Fucking hipsters, man.

All in all, Egg is a must-go for NYC brunch aficionados. Although it might not please to Bloody Mary and mimosa drinking crowd, a hot cup of good coffee and a runny egg is what gets me out of bed on the weekends. Oh, and the candied bacon, definitely the candied bacon. 

Lake Pavilion - Brooklyn Goes to Queens

I've been meaning to venture into Flushing, Queens for some time now. With Chinatown reduced to a few worthy spots amidst a sea of barber shops, tourist traps, and Chase banks, I felt compelled to submerge myself in what is without-a-doubt the epicenter of authentic Chinese food on this side of the East River.

My experience at Lake Pavilion was in one word – bizarre. The restaurant itself is situated on on an exit ramp of the Long Island Expressway. Wedged between merging semis and reckless New York City driver's, Lake Pavilion's neon frontage shines like the diners of New Jersey. But inside you'll find no disco fries or gyros.

When you step into the foyer of Lake Pavilion, one finds themselves in what can only be described as an aquarium from hell. Creatures from the deep, including ten-foot long Dungeoness crabs, 5+ pound lobsters, scores of live prawns scurrying with semi-conscious fervor, and unidentifiable (at least to this guy) scaly red sea monsters, fill tanks from the floor to the ceiling. My only solace came from the knowledge that I would be imminently be eating them, rather than vice versa.

Past the threshold of the hell-quarium, and into the main dining hall, is yet another strange scene. The place is huge, and not just for NYC. Its a massive banquet hall littered with giant ten-seater circular tables decorated for a bat-mitzvah in 1988. Purple fabric covers the high-backed chairs, fastened with pink ribbons. Pseudo-silk gold napkins adorn the place settings. But no bat-mitzvah girl could be found, no DJ Lonny, or children playing coke-and-pepsi. In fact, my two dining compatriots and I were among the only white people in the place. But if its authentic Chinese that I want, I'm taking the overwhelming Asian crowd as a a sign I was in for something great. (Yes, I'm aware there are plenty of Asian Jews, so relax.)

We opened the menus, and to our dismay, it was mostly in Chinese. English translations were scant and largely ambiguous. One dish was translated to “Triple Crispy”. What was crispy? What was triple? To make matters worse, our waiter spoke minimal English. We ordered largely by pointing at the helpful photos and taking educated guesses.

We ordered three items. Peking Duck – which one Yelper called the best in the city. Dungeoness Crab with Glutenous Rice – to display my dominance over the sea monsters in the front and to test if any of us really did have a gluten allergy. Finally Mayonnaise Prawns with Fried Milk. I know what you are thinking, that sounds gross. Well, first consider that mayo and shrimp are frequently partners in shrimp salad. Moreover, the dish came highly recommended by both the NY Times review and Yelp. Still I was skeptical, but when we confronted our waiter about what was the thing to order at Lake Pavilion, he suggested (pointed at) the Mayonnaise Prawns too. So we were all in for it.

The Peking Duck was certainly worthy of the title of this long forgotten food blog. Jesus was it good. The duck was presented on a table-side cart, while our waiter sliced pieces off of the succulent, crispy-brown bird. He carefully took the pieces and put them in tiny buns, slathered with hoisen and finished with sliced cucumber. Heaven. Certainly better than the run of the mill bao, and in my opinion was better than the bao (baos?) at Momofuku, Ippudo, Bauhaus and many other NYC institutions.

Next came the Dungeoness Crab with Glutenous Rice. The crab appeared to be fried, and the meat inside was tender and sweet. But between the fatty duck and fried crab, our hands were slick and our brains starting to congeal with the beginnings of Stage 1 Food Coma. The Rice was certainly glutinous – sort of a al dente fried rice that was a great sidekick to the crab. It reminded me of the Salt Cod Fried Rice at Danny Bowien's Mission Chinese.

Last, and probably least, is the Mayonnaise Praws with Fried Milk. The prawns were large and plentiful, but slathered in a warm, sweet, yellow mayo. It was much like the Japanese mayo that accompanies many sushi rolls. But the shrimp were COVERED in it. It was actually rather tasty, but for me, it was a psychological battle. Every time I put one in my mouth, a big ole' jar of Hellman's popped into mind. Scattered over the shrimp were some delicious candied walnuts.

The fried milk pieces were actually delicious. They were like the best zeppoles or beignets you've ever tasted (outside of the Jersey Shore and New Orleans respectfully, of course) filled with a sweet cream. They were fantastic, but so sweet. One or two of them was overwhelming, and they gave us about 95. Combined with the sweet and tangy mayonnaise shrimp and the candied walnuts, this dish was simply too much sweetness for my tastebuds to handle.

Thank god for the hot towel guy, because after the meal I needed a warm bath and EMS. Maybe it was the fried milk, or the mayo, or the fried crab, or the fatty duck, but I was down for the count. To add to the bizarre scene, at various points throughout the evening, over the loud PA system came a 1980's drum track and synth, with a strange rendition of the birthday song in both Chinese and Chinese-English. Think – Applebees meets Hong Kong. Doors would open, behind which we would hear Chinese pop music blasting. Was there a party back there? We never ventured back there, but we think there might be a secret karaoke bar.

Oh, and hey, it wasn't cheap either! We weren’t quite sure how much these dishes were when we ordered them, so expect a little sticker shock when you get your all Chinese receipt.

All in all, would I go back to Lake Pavilion? Not without a guide. Despite the internet's best help, I feel we could have ordered better if we could have pierced the language barrier. As we left, we passed a table of chefs. We glimpsed dished that looked more appealing, and less greasy. We again passed through the aquarium of horrors one last time, and I got the sense that, despite my optimism, it was they who had defeated me.