California Food and Wine Blog

Posts Tagged ‘pizza’

After arriving in Italy and losing our Data Connection with our Ireland phone, we went in search of a wifi spot in the town center to do a little research on where we wanted to go. We stopped into a Pizzeria Ristorante that displayed WiFi on their front window.

We struggled even more with ordering from this Italian restaurant as they spoke even less English than at the Cafe. We ordered a couple espressos and two items that were more similar to each other than we meant them to be.

Jessica ordered the Prosciutto e funghi (which we now know to be tomato, mozzarella, ham, mushrooms) and Nathan ordered the Calzone farcito (which is tomato, mozzarella, ham, carciofini, mushrooms) We should mention that neither one of us are big fans of ham and thought it was the American Prosciutto, so it was quite a surprise when we saw it covering our plates. However, the crusts and sauce were very fresh and tasty and each had an enourmous plate of food for about €5.50, leaving us very full and satisfied.

We did attempt to go back a couple days later for a nice dinner, and were much more successful at ordering a 1/2 Litre of wine, Risotti frutti di mare, and a Diavola pizza with spicy sausage and salami… and little cut up pieces of hot dog, that part was a bit strange.

We never could get the wifi to work, but we did enjoy some tasty Italian dishes.

Flavor: 3.5/5

Value: 3.5/5

Service: 3/5

On a Foursquare recommendation we tried Don Antonio which was awarded “Best Pizza”  by New York Times’ Best of New York.

Walking into the restaurant we immediately noticed the classy modern decor and the place was packed with customers. They may have still been overstaffed though because there were a few employees standing on the stairwell talking throughout our lunch. I wanted to tell them to clean something or take a break!

On a recommendation by the waitress (which was helpful since the menu was huge), I ordered the Montanara Starita for $12. This is their award winning specialty pizza with dough that is baked and lightly fried with tomato sauce and mozzarella cooked in a wood-burning oven. The crust was much lighter than I expected and had a very unique taste and fluff that was quite enjoyable. Their sauce was definitely on the sweeter side and was too much for Nathan, but overall I thought it was a tasty pizza.

Their Award winning pizza with crust that’s baked and fried

Nathan ordered the Bianca with Arugula Pizza for $14.  This wasn’t so much a pizza as it was an arugula salad.  To even taste the pizza I had to remove about 2/3 of the arugula.  The crust was doughy not cooked all the way through, and the sauce was nice but very thinly spread.  Cheese was a creamy mozzarella and it was cooked very well.  However they need to practice portion control and perfect all their pizza crusts, not just their specialty, in order to make a better pizza.

Basically a pizza with a salad on top.

The pizzas seemed a bit on the small and pricey side, and the cooking and flavor was inconsistent likely due to a menu that’s too large to ensure quality control. Their original pizza was worth trying, but I honestly don’t know if their restaurant as a whole deserves the ‘best of New York’ title.

Rating

Price:  2.5

Flavor:  3.5

Service:  3.5

Overall:  3