Difara's Pizzeria

So to add on to the recent pizza posts. I hearby claim to have found the best pizza in my life. Thanks to master of the Brooklyn pie, Domenico Difara. Difara's is a tiny shop on Avenue J + E 15th St. in Brooklyn. Difara is a legend first off and won't let anyone touch his pies but him. His son may get to slice ingredients, but thats all. Domenico has pure asbesto's hands, no gloves, he just pulls the hot pizza pan or pie right out of the ovens. If he is sick or tired, they close, no one runs this shop but him. Honest to God, this pizza can ruin you. Nothing will compare for a while. All the ingredients are imported, three cheese per, and Dom snips the fresh basil over each pie. It is utterly amazing and mezmerizing to watch this man work. Totally worth any drive, wait, you may have to endure.

GET THERE.

Difara Pizzeria
1424 Avenue J
(corner of East 15th St.)
Brooklyn NY 11230
Tel: 7182581367

Meat Loaf

Remember your Aunt Brenda's meat loaf that was made of leftover ground beef, tomato paste, canned mushroom soup and those creepy fried onion sticks? Slathered with ketchup and served with a delicious vegetable medley straight from the 3 for a dollar section of the grocery store freezer?

Well things don't have to be that way. unless you're really nostalgic for biting into dry beef with giant chunks of green pepper and peas in it.

Get some sausage in there, ricotta cheese, wrap it in pancetta, hell you could make BBQ chicken meat loaf, cheesesteak meat loaf with whiz all over it, mexican meat loaf wrapped in tortillas and deep fried (uh.. let me know if this works)... It's just as easy as Aunt Brenda's. Basically mix some meat & junk together, mold it into a brick and put it in the oven. Just make sure there's some good stuff in there to keep it moist & delicious -eggs, milk, panko breadcrumbs, cheese, foie gras, fatback, whatever.

Serve that with a salad and you're good to go. Wedge of lettuce chopped into quarters with some herbs & stuff thrown on top, olive oil & lemon juice. salt.
Easy.

Jumbo Pie

The horrible truth is that while I blog about obscure sandwich shops and lamb brains mostly I just eat pizza. Often from Lazaros which is literally two blocks from my apartment. It's your average pizza joint, calzones, steaks, cheese fries, and above average salads. We ordered the "Jumbo" pizza one day and god damn this thing was huge. The box barely fit up my stairwell. Also hot & fresh since they are only two blocks away.

Lazaro's Pizza
1743 South St

Modern Apizza - New Haven CT

The debate over best pizza in the Northeast is as hot as the ovens they are cooked in. The exception to the rule of best pizza that normally is given to the large thin crusted slices in New York is oddly enough. New Haven, Connecticut. For a long time I have been meaning to get to the legends of pizza in New Haven. I have been to BAR, a great spot with pitchers and amazing thin crusted pizza that still reigns as the best I have ever eaten. Frank Pepe is considered the Godfather of New Haven pizza and also a legend for inventing the White Clam Pie due to his own allergic reaction to mozzarella and tomato sauce. Pepe’s, Sally’s and Modern Apizza are the top three from all reports in New Haven. So on Friday night two friends and I were driving North and decided to make a stop off at Modern.

Modern is a pretty normal looking pizza spot, booths line the walls and pitchers of beer are no problem. We ordered a large half sausage, half cheese and a small clam pie. The pizza was just as it should have been, gooey and with crispy thin crust. The sausage was soft and sweet and the clam pie had perfect cubes of roasted garlic and was served with lemon wedges. Yes, a squeeze of lemon set it off perfectly.

Pair it all up with a nice lager and this meal ranks up there in the pizza books. New York or New Haven…well, I can’t confirm better. But its all good.