‘Pizza’
As an apparent result of success, Italian Village Pizza expanded recently into a few new locations. One of which was in Fox Chapel/Blawnox and when the wife and I needed to get out and get some grub one night, we found ourselves in the friendly confines of a place with possibly the greatest happy hour hours ever (7-9). And while I enjoyed a Yuengling, I was really at Italian Village Pizza for their namesake.
What do you get when you combine an abandoned church with a brewery? The answer is Church Brew Works, a spot in Lawrenceville that might just be one of the most unique breweries/restaurants in the country. Nay, the world. Benjamin Franklin once said, “Beer is proof that God loves us,” and the use of the altar for the actual brewing might just be the best support of old Ben.
Portland undoubtedly has a reputation for being “granola.” Having never been myself I couldn’t quite vouch for anything, until I made my way there on my road trip. We were staying with someone in the Pearl District and I decided to check out Hotlips Pizza. Hotlips is a sort of New York-style pizza joint with a definite Portlandish twist. Pizza options were definitely geared towards being local and on the vegan/vegetarian end. Fortunately, though, they had pepperoni.
Tucked into a row of warehouses in Gardena there is a big secret. In fact, the secret is so well-hidden, if you weren’t looking for it, you could miss it altogether. This secret is Eatalian Cafe, an Italian restaurant that resides in a warehouse itself and serves up some classy cuisine.
On our last night in Cape Town, we were thinking Italian and headed back to The Waterfront to find Meloncino. The restaurant might just have the greatest view of any pizza place in the world, but I must admit I have not seen every pizza view in existence. While great views are available all over Cape Town, I was more curious if great pizza existed as well.
Just a couple of weeks ago, a new pizza place opened in Culver City called Wildcraft. Their schtick is the use of sourdough in their pizzas, which is cool with me, but I’m not sure if it entirely qualifies as being wild. Nonetheless, I was eager to try it out and see just how wild and crafty it would be.
While I never felt unsafe in Arusha, I was told it wasn’t the kind of city to walk around in at night. This proved to be difficult when it came to dinner, because I was staying in a hotel on the outskirts of the city. This meant my eating options were limited if I wanted to avoid getting mugged (which I’m still not sure was an actual possibility). Yet, there were a couple restaurants near my hotel that catered to foreigners like myself. The prices were steeper than the local places in the city, but you can’t put a price on safety. Or something like that. On my first night in Arusha, I opted for The Blue Heron.
EDIT: This Sammy’s is closed, but you can still get their decent pizza around LA and Vegas.
In dire need of portable food while in Studio City, I wandered into Sammy’s Woodfired Pizza. Apparently Sammy’s has locations throughout Southern California and Nevada, but this was the first I had ever seen or heard of such a place. I took a quick look at the menu and while there were a couple of mildly interesting pizzas, most were pretty basic. Faced with such choices, I went with old faithful: pepperoni.
For my birthday dinner this year, my lovely wife-to-be took me out to the Los Feliz part of town as a surprise. It’s not a part of town we spend much time in, and we made our way to Little Dom’s, an Italian place that hovers between fancy and neighborhoody. The menu had a lot of great-looking options and we decided to start things off with an appetizer and wine.
My buddy, DCo, is a bit of a pizza snob. It works out well for me, because he likes to point me in the direction of awesome new and old pizza places. Recently, he told me about a new place called Lago D’Argento over in Silverlake. It took a bit of convincing, but finally I had a real reason to go to that part of town and decided to make a run for pizza while there. I invited another buddy, Jeff, to join and we checked the place out.