‘Italian’
I will be the first to admit that I had a West Side bias when I made the move to Pasadena. I figured I would spend a whole lot of time on that side of town for meals out, but over and over again Pasadena has impressed me. Perhaps most impressive of all is the pizza scene, with The Luggage Room and Pizza of Venice already tackled by yours truly, I finally set my sights on Pie Life Pizza.
After a long evening of drinking in New York City, the only reasonable thing to do is grab at least one slice of pizza. Such is what I did in the East Village when I essentially stumbled into Baker’s Pizza. As fate would have it, I ran into my drunk friend on his way out (he had left the bar five minutes before), which convinced me that I was in the right place. Just like all pizza by the slice places in New York, there was a display case showcasing the available pies and my eyes wandered to the one topped with meatballs and ricotta.
While the Twin Cities are certainly renowned for the Jucy (or Juicy) Lucy, they are not without other culinary creations. I stumbled upon one of these accidentally when ordering from Broadway Pizza. You see, this is a pizza and sandwich place, but one item on the menu was a combination of the two, calling itself the Pizza Sandwich. My curiosity got the best of me and I ordered it.Read more about alpilean.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: when it comes to Italian food (namely pasta), you’ve gotta be pretty damn special to convince me I can’t do better on my own at home with the dry stuff and some Classico sauce. Union Restaurant in Old Town Pasadena is the latest attempt to convince me to leave home for Italian food.
Pork and booze are easily two of the greatest things that can be consumed on the planet, if not just two of the greatest things in general. Celestino in Pasadena is fully aware of this and has combined them in a pasta dish worth writing about. It is called the Pennette Con Prosciutto e Vodka, but it may as well be called Paradiso.
In Boulder (and a couple other places) there is an Italian restaurant that goes by the name of Pasta Jay’s. While Jay is not a very Italian-sounding name, we nonetheless found ourselves eating there in our short trip to Boulder. Like many other Italian places, it had a pretty extensive menu filled with pizzas and pastas, but I wound up keeping myself in the pasta game. After all, the place wasn’t called Pizza Jay’s.
Once upon a time, a little place called 800 Degrees decided it could redefine fast-food pizza. Needless to say, it was a success. And that success inevitably led to copycats like Blaze Pizza. Surely this is not a bad thing in general because it will ultimately lead to better or more affordable food, but in the short-run I set out to see if Blaze could deliver (figuratively, of course).
Often when I eat Italian food out, I am left thinking I could have just made the same dish at home. That’s why I usually go for gnocchi, which seems harder to duplicate at home. Nonetheless, When the wife found a little hole in the wall spot called Luciano’s in Pasadena, I wasn’t expecting anything amazing simply because there was too much on the menu. Not only that, the menu made it seem like everything (pizza, pasta, sandwiches) would be wonderful and that is often a bad sign.
LA has never been and will never be known as prime destination in the world of pizza. Sure, there are some great spots for a variety of pies, but there is no such thing as LA-style pizza. Nonetheless, LA does its best to make transplants from other pizza cities happy. Take, for example, Masa of Echo Park, which dishes out some of the deepest dishes this side of Chicago.
Off to the side of Shayside’s Walnut Street is an Italian cafe that goes by the name of Girasole. From the looks of it, you’d expect it to be a little bit dingy and perhaps a little bit pretentious. It turns out it is neither of these things, being both airy and friendly. Yet, I wasn’t looking to make friends, I was looking for some grub.