NYC to Cleveland in 7 Hours

Hibernia Diner
9 Green Pond Road
Rockaway, NJ 07866
(973) 625-3255
thehiberniadiner.com

WITH CLEVELAND UP three games to Boston's one in the best-of-seven American League Championship Series, and my ma holding a handful of seats to game five at Jacobs Field, there was really no choice but to pack up my aunt's car, wake up my cousin and take off for Cleveland.

As the story goes, upon hearing that mother had a pair of tickets to the game leftover after our family had snapped the rest up, my cousin Adam decided that if he could skip school for a couple days, I could skip work. Turns out he was right. So, Adam journeyed to Brooklyn last night, met me at work late this morning, and around Noon we set off through the Lincoln Tunnel headed for I-80 West.

We stopped, briefly, at the Hibernia Diner in Rockaway, NJ. It seemed like a good time to break for brunch. Adam grabbed an omelette, and I grabbed potato pancakes. I'm not sure how that omelette turned out, but the pancakes were perfect little ovals of starch, deep fried to a golden glow. They were awful, at best mildly satisfying, and everything I expected them to be. I gladly chowed down on Swedish Fish for the rest of the ride.

We hit the Ohio border around 6:00 that evening and caught a glimpse of the Cleveland skyline off in the distance about an hour later. We parked downtown a little after 7:30 and found our seats at 8:10. The opening pitch was ten minutes later. Nothing like good timing.

Dinner? Cheese pizza from the fine servicefolk at Jacobs Field. The game? Not so good. A few runs here, a few runs there, and suddenly the Indians found themselves far from clinching the series. There's always Saturday night, but we're definitely not driving to Boston to watch the game.

MIKE EATS NEXT TIME: Hibernia? Maybe, maybe not; Jacobs Field, well, there's always next year.

End of Summer, Part III: L&B Spumoni Gardens

L&B Spumoni Gardens
2725 86th Street
Brooklyn, NY 11223
(718) 449-1230
spumonigardens.com

FOUNDED IN 1939 and run for the next 68 years by the Barbati family that founded it, L&B Spumoni Gardens is a perennial favorite for Best Pizza in New York City (strike that, in Brooklyn, as if the City mattered at all in the contest) in the only media outlet that really matters: people who eat there. If you think otherwise, you haven't eaten at L&B's.

Mint, Steph and I finished our Last Day of Summer crusade, which began in Tribeca and continued on to Coney Island, by ordering up a half-tray of Sicilian pizza in Bensonhurst. L&B's cheese-first, sauce-on-top school of deep-dish pizza-making earns itself, at first, many a startled disbeliever. That is, until first bite. The crowds melt away into the summer breeze; the din of spumoni lovers waiting in line softens to a hush. All that remains is the sweet, sweet sauce, tangy cheese and a crispy, coal-burnt blackened crust. L&B's patio was invented for moments like this.

For $18 you get 12 slices of inch-and-a-half-thick goodness, you pick up a shaker of grated Parmesan, a shaker of garlic salt and a shaker of red pepper, and then you sit and enjoy yourself on L&B's sprawling outdoor patio. Neighborhood locals come and go, the clustered line waiting for homemade spumoni refreshes itself endlessly, and plate after plates of hot heroes and pasta pass by. This is summer at L&B's. I defy you to find me a better slice of life.

MIKE EATS NEXT TIME: Hopefully once more before it get chilly.

Patsy's: A Tale of Pizza and Pasta

Patsy's Pizzeria
318 W. 23rd St.
New York, NY 10011
(646) 486-7400
www.patsyspizzeriany.com

PATSY LANCIERI OPENED a soon-to-be legendary pizza parlor in East Harlem in the early 1930s. This much is accepted as New York pizza gospel. What happened in the years to come can only be described as chaos. The short of it is that Patsy's pizza pedigree remains intact to this day despite a family feud over its debated ancestral discipleship. The Grimaldi clan would have you bypass Lancieri's importance en route to its Brooklyn digs, while Patsy's very name itself has been enshrined as Manhattan's marquee pizza moniker.

Personally, I prefer Grimaldi's. Aside from the simple fact that walking over the Brooklyn Bridge to order up a pie at the always-packed Grimaldi's is the quintessential New York experience, the pizza is just better. That's it. But we'll leave this conversation go until I have a chance this summer to visit L&B's. Then we'll have an opportunity to make a proper assessment of NYC's pizza titans.

Mint and I didn't order pizza anyways. Not tonight. We ordered pasta (what can I say--I had pizza last night). It's odd, yes, to visit Patsy's and skip the pie, but I've had pasta from its kitchen before (albeit uptown, not in Chelsea) and it was perfectly fantastic.

Pasta cooked al dente, seafood cooked ad absurdum

Not tonight though. I ordered the linguine fra diavolo with seafood. The sauce was rich and spicy, but the seafood was overcooked, remarkably to entirely different degrees; the mussels were just slightly overdone, ditto for the tiny scallops, the calamari was quite tougher, and the shrimps were the worst of the rubbery bunch. Not a great review, I know, and I do like Patsy's. Mint's simple spaghetti looked infinitely more interesting. Luck of the draw? Perhaps.

MIKE EATS NEXT TIME: One does not normally go to Patsy's if one is not seeking pizza. Lesson learned.

Amish Market: Best Pizza In Midtown? Bet the Buggy On It

Amish Market West
731 Ninth Avenue
New York, NY 10019
(212) 245-2360
www.amishfinefood.com

FOR TWO YEARS I practically lived off the Amish Market. It's that good. And if I didn't eat there absolutely every day, I certainly bought my coffee there every morning without fail. How can you pass up a place that makes "coffee with milk" using steamed milk without you having to ask or pay extra for it? I'm sorry, you didn't know the Amish made excellent coffee? They also make delicious sushi, salads, fresh-sliced sandwiches, and--get ready for this--the best pizza in Midtown.

That said, I've never eaten at Amish Market West, or any of its other locations around the city, only at the 45th St. location stuck between Second Avenue and Third Avenue, where its a beeline from the AETN offices to the Amish's front door. I was nevertheless quick to recommend it when a coworker asked for a not-terrible suggestion for a late-night working meal. My suggestion, specifically: brick oven pizza.

Why assume one store is as good as another? At Amish Market East, there's a guy who works the brick oven counter, serving up pies and hot sandwiches, hundreds of them daily, and chumming it up with the endless stream of customers--he seemingly knows everyone by name. He is as authentically Italian a pizza pie-making guy as you are likely to meet in this city. On his reputation alone I staked my confidence of suggesting Amish Market West, even with it being a different store entirely.

Was the pizza as good as over East? Decidedly not. I doubt my pizza guy would have let the crust stay so soft; there were no crispy, burnt-black spots on the underside of our Western crust to keep the slices stiff. The mushrooms and mozzarella were certainly up to par, as fresh you'll find anywhere. Working late, the best part was not having to pick up the bill.

MIKE EATS NEXT TIME: He'll walk over to E. 45th.

Photo courtesy Bob's Walk, photographing every block of every street in NYC since 1988.

Mike Eats Pizza! In Brooklyn! (Finally!)

IT SEEMS ODD that a blog about consuming food written by a blogger based in Brooklyn is only now, after almost three months of blogging, getting around to the one food for which Kings County is world-famous: pizza! Though I suppose stranger things have happened.

First, as you may have noticed from the now-broken chain of un-commented upon daily Menu posts below, I've been rather absent as of late. This was partly due to unispiring cuisine, but also on account of some early, early call times after which I returned home exhausted. Yesterday, for example, began at 5 a.m. The quantity of coffee I drank would have been more efficiently administered intravenously.

Last week's trip to Migita Sushi: as memorable to us as
axing eight federal prosecutors was to our Attorney General

I offer this not as an irrelevant tangent. It helps explain why I was lazy enough to order a pizza last night. I say "lazy" not because I consider pizza an inferior, couch-potato food, but because Greenpoint is a historically Polish neighborhood and pizza is not a prized Polish tradition. So, if you're going to channel fat and grease into your body via pizza, you might as well get a top-notch pie.

Now, while Williamsburg has some quite authentic Italian options, Greenpoint is lacking. What Greenpoint has is Baldo's (way over on Nassau--and suspect to boot), Nassau Pizzeria (further up, but I'll grant them the reputation of having a decent slice), and L.A's (on Manhattan Avenue just south of Greenpoint Avenue itself.) Of the trio, L.A. is your best bet. For $10 (takeout only) on Monday and Tuesday, a large regular pie ain't a bad way to go if you're trying to keep it cheep and you don't feel like trying too hard.

L.A.'s pizza isn't quite as good as it's predictable menu of Italian fare, and it's hardly fine dining, but when it comes to quick, enjoyable Italian food in Greenpoint, you'd do well to look no further. If it's fine dining you want--head over to La Piazzetta on Graham.

Some people will eat pizza regardless of the time, place, or impending heart failure. I don't normally consider myself part of that group. But after eating a few slices last night I was reminded of how even an average slice in Brooklyn is better than twenty slices anywhere else. Except, perhaps, Patsy Grimaldi's. Viva la pizza!

Spring Break, Part III: Pizza in the Heart of It All

University Pizzeria & Italian Eatery
133 Lincoln Avenue
Youngstown, OH 44503
(330) 743-9244
www.universitypizzeria.com

FINDING GOOD PIZZA in Ohio is nearly impossible. Everywhere you go is seemingly overrun with chain after chain serving up cheep, terrible pies. And most small Italian joints don't even bother making the attempt or they just pass off the same, sad imitation that's become standard. There are few exceptions to this rule.

Which doesn't mean that you can't find incredible Italian food in Ohio or the occasional bastion off great pizza hope, you just have to look really, really hard. It's a a bit easier here, up in the northeast corner of the state, where many Italian immigrants settled at the turn of the last century, and where their families are still to be found.

I have to admit, still, I didn't even believe my own brother when he started working at University Pizza (or U-Pie to locals) a few years back, claiming they made a great pie. But they do. It might not quite live up to expectations in New York or Chicago, but sitting right on the edge of Youngstown State University's campus it's far and away the most solid option you've got in Youngstown.

Everything is fresh and creative. We had the spinach and tomato pie with garlic, Romano cheese and olive oil, and Brooklyn Brewery lagers from the bar (Brooklyn beers at any bar outside of NY state is always a good sign). But I should also recommend the Spinchoni pizza too--garlicky, spicy hot and everything you want in life. When you're looking for pizza in Youngstown.

MIKE EATS NEXT TIME: Of course.