{"id":1138,"date":"2012-12-22T17:23:43","date_gmt":"2012-12-22T22:23:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fornobravo.com\/pizzaquest\/2012\/12\/22\/robertas-mini-quest-part-ii\/"},"modified":"2012-12-22T17:23:43","modified_gmt":"2012-12-22T22:23:43","slug":"robertas-mini-quest-part-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fornobravo.com\/pizzaquest\/robertas-mini-quest-part-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"Roberta’s – Mini Quest Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Note: For a recap, scroll down the homepage past the halfway point, to read about Dave’s and my visit to Di Faro’s, which is Part One <\/em>of our NYC Mini-Quest<\/em>:<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is classic New York, or rather classic Brooklyn pizza! Beautiful pie!<\/p><\/div>Dave and I had to force ourselves to stop eating pizza at Di Fara’s. \u00a0This was no easy task. \u00a0You’re sitting there in front of what is a “perfect” pizza in a “perfect” place and you have to stop eating so that you can eat more somewhere else. \u00a0We had a plan though, so we put the brakes on in order to make this a quest and not just lunch.<\/p>\n

We left Brooklyn to get to Brooklyn. \u00a0As I mentioned, there was just no getting a cab from Di Fara. We walked around looking for about 20-30 minutes. \u00a0So, we jumped back on the train and headed back to Manhattan to grab a train to come back out to Brooklyn to hit Roberta’s <\/strong>for our second stop on our mini pizza quest. \u00a0Perhaps there should be a Pizza Quest train line put in that better connects some of New York’s best pizzerias? \u00a0Am I the first to come up with this? \u00a0There is one pizza maniac that comes to mind who has made a living making these connections, but more on that later.<\/p>\n

Let your iPhone lead the way.<\/p><\/div>It really is too bad we didn’t have Peter, Jeff and the rest of the crew with us. \u00a0We were having a ball. \u00a0Di Fara’s left us completely satisfied — and, in reality, a little too satisfied. \u00a0We had started out with a plan to taste the pizza at Di Fara, but as it ended up, it became more of us eating the pizza. \u00a0I’m sure you can imagine. \u00a0When we left we couldn’t just leave the rest of it there or, God forbid, throw it away! \u00a0So, with our foil-wrapped leftovers we moved on.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

You may walk by it, so take a good look at this sign.<\/p><\/div>Another train ride, a change of lines in Manhattan and we were headed back to Brooklyn. \u00a0We popped up from under the streets not far from Roberta’s and into what seemed like a set from the film The Warriors<\/em> at first. Robertas is in an old warehouse district neighborhood called Bushwick,\u00a0 that had seen better days, but is coming back with a young artist scene moving in and transforming this into a trendy neighborhood. I was telling Dave what Peter told me before we came to NYC. \u00a0He said Roberta’s was like walking into the TV show Portlandia. \u00a0He didn’t say it was like visiting Portland. \u00a0His point was far more metaphorical. There was a coming transformation from the “real” world to the two dimensional surreal world of Portlandia. \u00a0If you haven’t seen it, you should. \u00a0My favorite episode is when the main character discovers Portland and describes it to a friend in LA as if it’s a place you must enter through a portal in time! \u00a0Our first steps onto the street and I was starting to see what he meant. \u00a0When we turned the corner and almost walked right by Roberta’s it again made more sense.<\/p>\n

We left our offering to the pizza gods behind. Our hope, our dream was that it would be taken up by someone who needed it. With our offering of Di Fara’s pizza, we entered Roberta’s.<\/p><\/div>Here we were. \u00a0There’s a sign that says Roberta’s<\/em> right there. \u00a0The exterior of the building looks more like a set from Gotham City with graffiti all over it and a sign that almost seems like they are hiding it. \u00a0It was time to go in, but we still had our leftover pizza from Di Fara’s that we had hoped to give to someone along the way, but never ran into anyone who seemed interested. \u00a0We couldn’t bring our Di Fara’s into Roberta’s! \u00a0So, we left it on a mailbox, hoping someone would pick it up. \u00a0We found out later that night that someone did indeed pick it up and our offering did not go to waste, but I’m getting a little ahead of myself here.<\/p>\n

Having spent plenty of time in Portland, we had another laugh about Peter’s description as we took our seat at one of the picnic tables inside.\u00a0 (We love Portland, by the way. \u00a0We have some serious questing to do up there eventually.)\u00a0 We all want a great place to sit and have a beer a great pizza and maybe, more importantly, just hang out with friends. \u00a0Roberta’s is that place. \u00a0They are getting rave reviews about their pizza and food, but I think a major aspect of this place’s success (being fairly off the beaten path), is it’s qualities as a place where you can come and spend some time. \u00a0It doesn’t feel like home — it feels like Portlandia — but it has a certain comfort factor as if you’ve come into this special place and found a hidden secret. \u00a0It feels local and full of regulars. \u00a0It was Saturday afternoon and it was busy and continued to get more busy.<\/p>\n

The spicy Bee Sting with hints of sweetness. After a cold beer this piping hot pizza hit the spot.<\/p><\/div>Our first order of business after all this travel was to order a couple of beers. \u00a0When you’re in Portland, I mean Brooklyn, do as they do. \u00a0We then ordered a couple of pies to “try” — you know, we were there to do some tasting now in the second part of our three part mini pizza quest. \u00a0We chose the “Bee Sting” with Tomato, Mozz, Sopressata, chili, basil, honey, and another with Tomato, Mozz, Speck, and a sunny side up egg. \u00a0I think that was a special.<\/p>\n

Delicious! \u00a0The dough is terrific and their ingredients balanced. \u00a0I loved the touch of honey on our Bee Sting and if there’s an egg on a pizza on the menu, I’m going to order it. \u00a0It was “done to a turn!”\u00a0 Two more

The egg is done perfectly becoming part of the sauce as you slice up the pizza.<\/p><\/div> beers. \u00a0Too much pizza now. \u00a0Did we have a third Beer? \u00a0I don’t think so. \u00a0We were drunk — pizza drunk! \u00a0We thought we may have gone too far and ended our quest a little early. \u00a0How could we make it back to Manhattan and get to Keste and order more pizza after all of this?!<\/p>\n

It was time to go. \u00a0We managed to leave some pizza on the platters. \u00a0As we were walking out the door, I was looking back over my shoulder to grab a last look at the place. \u00a0We were, after all, about to leave Portlandia and step through the front door and back to our three dimensional selves. \u00a0I hadn’t left yet and didn’t want to leave the memories behind. \u00a0As I turned I heard a voice I recognized. \u00a0We passed each other but my back was turned. \u00a0I had only met this voice a few weeks ago, but it had to be him.<\/p>\n

Dave Wilson, Scott Wiener and me as myself<\/p><\/div>“Scott?”<\/p>\n

It was! \u00a0The Scott Wiener of New York’s — Scott’s Pizza Tours (www.scottspizzatours.com) had just walked in as we were walking out. \u00a0He’s the pizza maniac I mentioned above. \u00a0I met Scott in Las Vegas at the Pizza Expo and had traded emails here and there. \u00a0If I’m a pizza nut, he is the tree. \u00a0He’s off the charts pizza crazy. \u00a0Well, I turned Dave around and we went back to Portlandia to have another beer with Scott and his friends. \u00a0I think we may have had two. \u00a0Dave was ready to go get his camera and come back and start filming as Scott regaled us with Pizza lore.

It didn’t take Scott long to fold.<\/p><\/div> I think our favorite part was how he wrestled with having a slice of our left overs. \u00a0You see, he has a pizza slice log on his phone to track how many slices he eats in a week. \u00a0He gives pizza tours daily (Scott’s Pizza Tours) after all, and without that log he would not be able to walk! \u00a0He took the slice anyway even though he was already over his weekly slice limit! Not only that, where is he hanging out in his free time? \u00a0Roberta’s — love it!!<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Good times. Good conversation. Good beer and great pizza!<\/p><\/div>This should have ended here. \u00a0We enjoyed another beer and some good conversation with Scott and his friends in the outside bar of Roberta’s. \u00a0This should be part 2 and 3 of our mini pizza quest. \u00a0We started hours ago and had been eating great pizza and now had a few drinks in us.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

It wasn’t easy leaving this place. We came and found good food, drink and friends.<\/p><\/div>It wasn’t. \u00a0We said our good byes and walked a little slower out the door this time heading back to the city to visit Keste Pizzeria on Bleecker Street. \u00a0Dave hadn’t been and this looked like our only chance. \u00a0As we left we saw that our offering of Di Fara slices still sat on the mail box. \u00a0We smiled and walked down the street thinking back on the two pizza stops we made in the last few hours. \u00a0We felt like time had stopped in Di Fara’s Pizza World and we transcended space and time visiting Roberta’s world.<\/p>\n

This had been quite a day already.<\/p>\n

But, it wasn’t over. \u00a0In fact, it wouldn’t really be over for some time, not until after we got back from our next stop – Keste Pizzeria. \u00a0I was just getting to my hotel room and I got a text. \u00a0It turns out that our offering had finally found it’s proper home! See final photo, below — ahh, Portlandia….<\/p>\n

You can’t write this stuff! I highly recommend Scott’s Pizza Tours – which I did attend the next day on Scott’s insistence.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Note: For a recap, scroll down the homepage past the halfway point, to read about Dave’s and my visit to Di Faro’s, which is Part One of our NYC Mini-Quest: Dave and I had to force ourselves to stop eating pizza at Di Fara’s. \u00a0This was no easy task. \u00a0You’re sitting there in front of what is a “perfect” pizza in a “perfect” place and you have to stop eating…Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":351,"featured_media":1127,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c45-guest-bloggers"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nRoberta's - Mini Quest Part 2 - Pizza Quest with Peter Reinhart<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fornobravo.com\/pizzaquest\/robertas-mini-quest-part-ii\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Roberta's - Mini Quest Part 2 - Pizza Quest with Peter Reinhart\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Note: For a recap, scroll down the homepage past the halfway point, to read about Dave’s and my visit to Di Faro’s, which is Part One of our NYC Mini-Quest: Dave and I had to force ourselves to stop eating pizza at Di Fara’s. \u00a0This was no easy task. \u00a0You’re sitting there in front of what is a “perfect” pizza in a “perfect” place and you have to stop eating...Read More...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.fornobravo.com\/pizzaquest\/robertas-mini-quest-part-ii\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Pizza Quest with Peter Reinhart\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/PizzaQuestFornoBravo\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-12-22T22:23:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.fornobravo.com\/pizzaquest\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2012\/12\/di%20fara%20pizza.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"640\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"640\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Brad English\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Brad English\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"9 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.fornobravo.com\/pizzaquest\/robertas-mini-quest-part-ii\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.fornobravo.com\/pizzaquest\/robertas-mini-quest-part-ii\/\",\"name\":\"Roberta's - 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