Pizza & Beer Day, but a flight change first......

Both Iain and I woke up early, deciding to take the initiative and book a flight home early. We managed to get one for Sunday morning which still gave us the full day in NYC. 

We had pre-booked a pizza tour in Brooklyn which was thankfully still going ahead. This is where I hand over to Iain as he is the pizza fanatic...

Iain

When you think of New York, you think of, Pizza! Well, at least I do.

The one thing we had booked on the trip which we actually got to do was to go on a Pizza Tour in Brooklyn. We had booked the best one going, “Scott’s Pizza Tours” (see here: https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g60763-d1187709-Reviews-Scott_s_Pizza_Tours-New_York_City_New_York.html). This guy is obsessed, and has a Guinness world record for collected pizza boxes. He even appeared on Vice’s Frank Pinello’s ‘The Pizza Show’ (also totally recommended!).

So, anyway, it was our first full day in the city and we were up early and eager to get going. We were meeting Greg in Brooklyn outside a pizza restaurant, (Sottocasa Pizzeria). The trip to Brooklyn wasn’t too fun as the homeless problem seems to have gotten worse since I was last here. Very, very, sadly troubled people were sleeping in carriages all day, and we were interrupted at least 4 or 5 times buy people going past begging for money. It wasn’t pleasant at all. And at 9AM in the morning! 

But, we arrived at Sottocasa’s and were told all about the intricacies of making pizza and the process involved. The most important component of any pizza isn’t actually the pizza really, it’s the oven. You need a really hot oven to get things going. Without that, you have a tough chance of doing anything well. The oven in this resatuarant was hand made in Italy and shipped to Brooklyn. The only problem was they had trouble fitting it into the back of the restaurant as it was so heavy. The original plan to just use a basic crane to put it in place didn’t work as another person who owned part of the premises was worried it was so heavy it would crash through the basement while being carried and driven into place. Exasperated, the people who had to deliver it (and also worked at nights at airports moving planes and things) brought a ‘real’ crane down and lifted it over the buildings roof and dropped in place. If you google ‘Brooklyn flying pizza oven’ you can see it in action!

But, the pizza was amazing. The dough was made and left to ferment for a couple days, the secret sauce was just 100% tomatoes in a blender, and the cheese was Filo de Mozeralla (cows cheese), and, a bit of basil for flavour (red, white and green of the Italian flag). Simple stuff, but it was delicious. It only took about 1-2 minutes in the oven (almost 1,000 degrees celsius). Perfection!


Our second stop was Luzzo’s which had a very similar setup. The pizza was slightly worse, but still great. The problem was more that there wasn’t enough to go around!


The next place had a coal/gas system. Coal gave it a slightly more carbon taste, and again, it was really great. I think we still preferred the first place but it was probably just because we spent a little more time there and it was the first of the day.

Frankly though, they were all amazing, and if you get to go on one pizza tour, make it Scotts! (He is now doing virtual online things at his website, so if you want to make dough, or know how to knead it, go there!)

After the pizza tour, we decided to head to Brooklyn Brewery. We arrived just in time for the free tour, before settling down for a beer flight which was delicious. We were now fed and watered, so it was now “MY” time. I was determined to go to Macy’s and buy whatever I wanted….




Two hours later, and quite a bit poorer, I wandered to the pub to meet up with Iain and Greg. They were both slightly worse for wear, but equally as happy. We spent the evening in the pub before saying our goodbyes….who knows when we will be back?


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Anniversary Holiday

Image
Every year, around December 8th, I look to see what we can do or where we can go to celebrate "surviving" another year of marriage.   Over the last few years, we've been back to our wedding venue for an overnight stay, had an all-inclusive holiday in Ras al Khaimah in the UAE, visited New Orleans and had a Michelin tasting menu at The Kitchin in Leith. This year, we decided to stick with Europe and head to Riga, the capital of Latvia. Back in April 2020, we were supposed to visit Riga, but the trip was cancelled due to Covid. I'm not sure why its taken us so long for us to rebook, but the prospect of a traditional Christmas market and some Glühwein convinced us. We flew Ryanair from Edinburgh to Riga on Sunday 3rd December; the flight was 2 hours late, but thankfully we had paid for a lounge so we weren't too bothered. I had pre-booked a taxi on arrival and was delighted given the delay; the journey was only 15 minutes, but it was midnight and -10 when we arrived ...
Read more

Bucharest & Dracula

Image
This is another one of these holidays that we had booked in 2020, for my birthday to be precise. It's only now, April 2024, that we managed to rebook and make our way to the Capital, Bucharest and the mountains and countryside of Transylvania. It was the usual deal, British Airways via London using a companion voucher and Avios to upgrade to business class; I'm pretty sure the flights cost us £2. The flight to London was early, and it was absolutely beautiful coming into London; we had fabulous views of the city.  We arrived in Romania late afternoon, and had a taxi waiting to take us to the hotel. I had booked The Mansion Boutique Hotel, a 4 star hotel in the centre of the pedestrian district; we had to be let off by the side of the cobbled streets but thankfully it was only a 2 minute walk. Check-in was great, we got a glass of fizz each and taken to our room which was called "Zen". We actually didn't have too long, so unpacked quickly and made our way out of th...
Read more

366 Steps with a Hangover!

Image
Surprisingly, we weren’t feeling quite so fresh this morning. We decided to delay breakfast and go straight to the Belfry of Bruges, a medieval bell tower. There are 366 steps which lead you to the top of the 83 metre high building. Normally, this would be fine but with the cold and a hangover, I was not feeling the best. The spiral staircase is very steep at the top so they only allow 50 people up at a time; we had to wait at the bottom for a few minutes which was a bit of an inconvenience, but now I understand why they have these restrictions. We made it to the top and only had a 10 minute wait until 11am which would signal a lot of bells chiming. I’m sure you can imagine how my head was feeling at the end of it! After descending the tower, we headed to the Church of our Lady Bruges as there is a Michelangelo sculpture located there. Unfortunately, you had to buy a museum ticket in order to see it so we decided it wasn’t worth it. Instead, we went for lunch at a very quaint tea room....
Read more