{"id":868,"date":"2012-04-04T16:40:45","date_gmt":"2012-04-04T20:40:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fornobravo.com\/pizzaquest\/2012\/04\/04\/joes-pizza\/"},"modified":"2012-04-04T16:40:45","modified_gmt":"2012-04-04T20:40:45","slug":"joes-pizza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fornobravo.com\/pizzaquest\/joes-pizza\/","title":{"rendered":"Pizzeria Crawl on Bleecker Part 3"},"content":{"rendered":"

A photo I took on my Iphone with my new Hipstamatic Camera App earlier in the day. I just think this captures a little of the sense of the energy of this place.<\/p><\/div>I was having an interesting night. I haven’t always been comfortable just going out alone and sitting in a restaurant while surrounded by people who were out together enjoying a social experience.\u00a0 I don’t remember when that changed exactly, but I do remember how it became that much more of a comfortable thing while I was working in New York.\u00a0 I realized that I liked it in a way because, in this city there is so much going on and it would be a shame to not go experience it all just because you were there alone.<\/p>\n

I just had two great pizza experiences in a row, in the span of a couple of hours, and had only walked a couple of blocks.\u00a0 John’s Pizzeria was a throwback to a classic New York style pizza that remains deeply rooted in my memory.\u00a0 Pizza Roma was a delicious escape with a carefully balanced pizza in a nice cafe style setting.\u00a0 I was fully satisfied by both experiences and had found two places that would compete for my time in future visits.\u00a0 To me, it felt as though I had hit a home run.\u00a0 For a pizza nut, this was a near perfect night.<\/p>\n

The rain was getting more obvious as I continued my quest. Famous Joe’s Pizzeria offered another welcome stop.<\/p><\/div>I was out and walking down the street, but my walk was again a short one.\u00a0 I turned the corner onto Carmen Street and I found my next and final stop: Joe’s Pizza.\u00a0 Joe’s is a take-out pizza- counter type of place.\u00a0 There are a few places to sit, and a few areas to stand at a counter, but it’s designed to sell you pizzas to go, or slices for a quick lunch, dinner, snack, or late night “second dinner.”\u00a0 It was about 10:30 PM now, so I was closing in on the beginning of their second dinner part of their business.\u00a0 When I walked in, the two guys behind the counter were having a boisterous conversation with a couple standing at the counter.\u00a0 This was the kind of conversation you only seem to find in New York, or on the East Coast.\u00a0 They were laughing and talking about things as if they knew each other for years, but afterwards I realized they were just a couple of customers that had wandered in that night.\u00a0 In Los Angeles this conversation only happens between New York transplants, or between people who actually do know each other!<\/p>\n

Slice of Cheese please!<\/p><\/div>I stood looking at the menu, but I knew what I was having.\u00a0 I wanted a straightforward single slice of New York Cheese Pizza.\u00a0 I was on a roll that night, living out my Valentine’s Day dream\u00a0 (don’t tell my wife!).\u00a0 I just had two great pizzas that were totally different, but equally satisfying.\u00a0 I was now standing poised to really re-visit my childhood.\u00a0 I grew up in New Jersey and remember coming to New York with my father and getting to buy those gigantic slices of cheese pizza and walking down the street with him.\u00a0 As a kid, those babies are huge. And, the memory of getting them with my father seared the experience deeply into my mind.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I made eye contact with one of the guys behind the counter.\u00a0 He looked over at me, while still engaged in his conversation.\u00a0 I said “Slice of Cheese.”\u00a0 Without so much as a blink he slapped a hot slice of cheese pizza on the counter in front of me.\u00a0 It was as if he had a pizza oven under the counter that I couldn’t see and had his hand on the slice just waiting for me to come in and make the request.\u00a0 It was that fast.\u00a0 Was he the Pizza Nazi?\u00a0\u00a0 I thought about saying something, but was afraid he might take it back just as fast.\u00a0 “No pizza for you!”<\/em><\/strong> You might think he was rude because it was so fast, but it wasn’t.\u00a0 He was just ready with that slice.\u00a0 I worried it wasn’t going to be hot enough, but didn’t dare question him!\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Clearly this counter was well used. The seasonings were in a state of readiness, to say the least.<\/p><\/div>I took my slice over to the counter stand where the salt\/pepper and herbs were sitting, or I should more appropriately say laying around.\u00a0 I hit my slice with a little oregano and some red pepper flakes.\u00a0 Things looked good here.\u00a0 It was still lightly raining outside.\u00a0 The conversation still rolled along behind me over at the counter.\u00a0 My pizza looked like the images seared into my memory.\u00a0 Oddly, the thing was indeed piping hot, just as it should be.\u00a0 Was this guy a magician turning so fast and pulling my slice out of the oven without me seeing it, or did he really have an oven hidden under the counter.\u00a0 I think he is the Pizza Nazi!\u00a0 Did he know I was coming?\u00a0 Maybe they caught word of my secret pizzeria crawl as news was spreading down the street from where I started?\u00a0 <\/p>\n

As a kid, I remember that first bite being my favorite one.<\/p><\/div>Suddenly, I was 10 years old!\u00a0 You know the feeling of Deja Vu<\/em>?\u00a0 I think our sense of smell and taste is so strong that we can be easily transported in time when something makes that perfect connection to our memories.\u00a0 That first little triangular bite tells you everything.\u00a0 I smiled as the taste of the cheese and tomatoes and the classic New York Crust collided head on with my memories.\u00a0 I took a few more bites while I observed the little pizzeria.\u00a0 I noticed the rain again outside as I looked out through the foggy windows.<\/p>\n

I then decided that I was finished here.\u00a0 My Valentine’s Day Pizzeria Crawl was coming to a close.\u00a0 I was totally fulfilled.\u00a0 I took my slice and decided to go out for a walk in the rain and try to bring back a little balance to the evening by working off a few of the calories I had acquired on my trip down the block on Bleecker Street that evening.<\/p>\n

Again, I can’t wait to come back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was having an interesting night. I haven’t always been comfortable just going out alone and sitting in a restaurant while surrounded by people who were out together enjoying a social experience.\u00a0 I don’t remember when that changed exactly, but I do remember how it became that much more of a comfortable thing while I was working in New York.\u00a0 I realized that I liked it in a way because,…Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":351,"featured_media":863,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c45-guest-bloggers"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nPizzeria Crawl on Bleecker Part 3 - 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\/joes-pizza\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Pizzeria Crawl on Bleecker Part 3 - Pizza Quest with Peter Reinhart\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I was having an interesting night. I haven’t always been comfortable just going out alone and sitting in a restaurant while surrounded by people who were out together enjoying a social experience.\u00a0 I don’t remember when that changed exactly, but I do remember how it became that much more of a comfortable thing while I was working in New York.\u00a0 I realized that I liked it in a way because,...Read More...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.fornobravo.com\/pizzaquest\/joes-pizza\/\" \/>\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=\"2012-04-04T20:40:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.fornobravo.com\/pizzaquest\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2012\/04\/img_1049.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=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.fornobravo.com\/pizzaquest\/joes-pizza\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.fornobravo.com\/pizzaquest\/joes-pizza\/\",\"name\":\"Pizzeria Crawl on Bleecker Part 3 - Pizza Quest with Peter Reinhart\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.fornobravo.com\/pizzaquest\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-04-04T20:40:45+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-04-04T20:40:45+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.fornobravo.com\/pizzaquest\/#\/schema\/person\/5c45b9d10b57201e2ba13337f1724018\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.fornobravo.com\/pizzaquest\/joes-pizza\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.fornobravo.com\/pizzaquest\/joes-pizza\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.fornobravo.com\/pizzaquest\/joes-pizza\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.fornobravo.com\/pizzaquest\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Pizzeria Crawl on Bleecker Part 3\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.fornobravo.com\/pizzaquest\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.fornobravo.com\/pizzaquest\/\",\"name\":\"Pizza Quest with Peter Reinhart\",\"description\":\"A journey of self-discovery through pizza.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.fornobravo.com\/pizzaquest\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.fornobravo.com\/pizzaquest\/#\/schema\/person\/5c45b9d10b57201e2ba13337f1724018\",\"name\":\"Brad English\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.fornobravo.com\/pizzaquest\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f997b270bc5efdfb1b6bf71fedbd9f7e?s=96&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f997b270bc5efdfb1b6bf71fedbd9f7e?s=96&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Brad English\"},\"description\":\"Brad English is a producer based out of Los Angeles, CA. He has been in the business for over 24 years working on a wide range of projects that have taken him all over the country and to many parts of the globe. He loves to travel and cook for his friends and family. He discovered Peter Reinhart one day while searching the internet to find a way to make a better pizza crust and bought Peter\u2019s book: \u201cAmerican Pie, My Search for the Perfect Pizza\u201d. \u201cAs I read the opening section of the book called, \u201cThe Hunt,\u201d I knew right away that this had to be a show. I was actually jealous as I read about Peter traveling around the world going to all these amazing pizzerias and getting behind the scenes with the pizzaiolos!\u201d Within a few days he had contacted his friend, fellow producer, and fierce Competitive Restaurant Ordering rival, Jeff Michael. 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