DVA Pizzeria - South Park - San Diego

Yo Tom!  This one's for you...

This episode is entitled "My Pie My Mouth"

I love to eat pizza, obviously.  I also obviously like to write about it.  I love to photograph it, smell it, look at it, and I also like to make it.  Now, I'm not claiming that mine is the best, it's not even my favorite.  But the process is completely a pleasure.

The inspiration for this came from the fantastically amazing Ottoboni family.  Dear friends of mine from Switzerland (they are Italians, NOT Swiss!) who were living in San Diego for a few years.  They would have Hannah and I over for dinner occasionally and the first meal was their homemade pizza.  Dough, sauce, everything from scratch.  It was wonderful.  Not just the pizza but the whole experience.  The smell of the food, the taste of the wine, the children running around yelling at each other in Italian.  And these kids, there were only 3 at the time and they were young, like 1, 4, 6 maybe???  Now there is a fourth and they are all super cute.  Great kids, great parents.  Most of my visits to Switzerland include a dinner at the Ottoboni's, and I'm always snapping photos of the food, they are amazing cooks.  I promise that on my next visit I'll fully document the occasion and let you all have a peek.  

My point with all of that was Luigi, the dude, and Letizia, the Mrs. dude, inspired me to make my own pizza.  They showed me the process, in and out, and sent me on my way.

Here is my pie.

It starts with the dough

Yes, I made it.  The problem I have with this batch is that there isn't much pull to it.  And the error lies in the fact that I normall substitue about a 1/2 cup of the 5 cups of all purpose Bob's RedMill flour with a high gluten flour, and this time I was out.  The development of the guten is what gives you the pull.  But, too much and it will be too tight and won't relax so that you can stretch it and flatten it into a pizza.

Cornmeal, love it

Sauce

No, I didn't make this one, but it's fairly simple.  Tomatoes and salt.

2 types of cheese.  Mozzarella and parmesan.

If this was a Neapolitan pie  I'd use fresh Mozzarella, but I find that the fresh makes the top kinda soupy, which I really don't like.

Drizzle of Red Pepper Olive Oil

And into the oven and onto the pizza stone

500 degrees or more

A couple of minutes later, out comes my pie...

My friendly helper

Bada-boom

Bada-bing

Just cheese

Yummm

Nice and crispy on the bottom and warm and soft on the inside.  

Pie.  

Go find one and eat it.

DVA

M Noodle Shop - Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NYC

Now that I'm a Williamsburg local I'd like to introduce you to my favorite local restaurant.

http://www.mnoodleshop.com/

Fresh, delicious, handmade food.

Need anything else?  

You don't.

I found this place by simply walking by after coming off the L heading back to the hotel.  It's very cose to the Lorimer/Metropolitan stop.  And to be honest, before I went I checked Yelp to try to get an idea of what to order, what's awesome.  And to my surprise the Yelp reviews were terrible.  Pretty much a slam, stating that if you were drunk and it was late and you were hungry then you might want to check it out, otherwise don't bother.

Yelp is dumb.  I hate Yelp.  

This place is great!  But you need to know that you are headed into a noodle shop.  Chinese fast food, not fine dining.  They also do a huge take-out and delivery service, so if the place doesn't look packed then it's still not kosher to assume that it's dead and they should be totally focused on you.  Come in, sit down, they'll be over soon.

Another cool thing?  Open SUPER late.  Check this out:

Open till 6am?  WTF?!?!?!?!?!?  Wowza!!!!

There are no photos of the first visit, it was just enjoyed, not documented.  And it was completely enjoyed!!!

The second stop is detailed here-after.  I happened to be lucky enough to arrive when two of the owners were making vegetable dumplings.  Here's that piece of art for you:

I also had the Ho-fun noodles with beef and bean sprouts.  SOOOO good!!!

If you're ever near this place you HAVE TO check it out.  Great, delicious, fast, fresh, did I say delicious?  

Eat more noodles

DVA

Katz's Deli - NYC

We came, we saw - the line down the street to get in, we felt the freezing wind (-30 wind chill), we walked on.

See you next time Katz! Or not

DVA

Nice Green Bo - China Town, NYC

http://nicegreenbo.com/default.aspx

Josh, you are the man.  A great recommendation, a great restaurant.  Not that you have, or would ever, steer me wrong, but this place is great!  Great food and super cool also.  Not super cool in the sense that it's new and glitzy and there's some hot new chef.  There's no celebrity chef here, none needed.  This place looks like it has been here since the first railroad was built in America by the first Chinese to come to America.  And did I say that it's small?  Yeah, tiny.  But they have the fastest service and are simply KILLIN IT! I even had the old Chinese lady running the place give me a wink while I stood outside in the snow waiting to be sat, letting me know that my table was ready.  She looked like some old lady Chinese woman gangster, but cool/edgy.  I love this place.

I ordered all of the recommended dishes, even though they have like 200 other items on the menu.

Here is the Hot and Sour Soup

Scallion Pancake

Lo-Mein with Mushroom and Spinach

And the star of the show

****Crab and Pork Soup Dumplings (Xiao Long Bao)****

They are like little soft pillows filled with some sort of ground meat (obviously pork and shrimp just based on the name alone, but you couldn't necessarily identify the meat....just sayin) and then filled with broth.  Some kind of lovely, flavorful, all enveloping elixir of wonderfully flavored magic.  It's a pocket of soup in a dumpling!?!?!?!?!?!?!?  I've heard of the larger version, the kind that you would use a straw to suck the soup out of.  But I really love the small, bite sized version.  It really is magic.

The dumplings are joined by a small dish of black vinegar and julienned ginger.

The perfect bite is the dumpling, dipped in the vinegar, a few slices of ginger.

Josh recommends also adding a small dollop of the spicy red chili.  My table didn't contain any of this, but I am absolutely sure I could've gotten some with a mere nod of the head or toss of my hair....However, at that point I was finished eating and ready to roll.

Nice Green Bo

Soup Buns

Who knew???

Clearly not me, but now I do, and so do you.

Eat More Soup Buns

DVA

Republic - Union Square, NYC

http://www.thinknoodles.com/

I'm familiar with this place as a destination for a really fantastic Banh Mi.  

Naturally, I made a bee-line here my first day on the ground.  The journey contained a subway ride and a brisk walk in the snow, which turned into a rapid walk in the frigid rain on the way out!  

But let's focus a bit, and that focus is FOOD!

To my great disappointment the Banh Mi is no longer offered.  WTF?!?!?!?!?!?  Who made that call?  Wowzer!  

I was not happy, but I sat down anyway and perused the menu.  The special of the day happened to be a steamed bun with chicken.  Sounded worth a try, and I added a watercress salad too, trying to stay a little healthy on this trip....

Let's start with the seating.  This place has the mixed group picnic table seating as well!  Must be the latest hot thing?!?!  Well, anyway, I like it.  Much less pretentious that the standard seating strategy.  Well, maybe pretentious is not the right word, but I like it.  I also like the uni-sex toilets!  There is NO reason for separate facilities!  Just like changing rooms at clothing stores.  You are only un-clothed in the stall.  It's not like, let's say, if a dude is buying a shirt he takes all of his clothes off and walks around infront of the mirror shirt-cocking everyone!  You are only naked in your own stall, we can share people.  Back to the toilets, yes, anyway....  I also really love it when they take the toilet thing even further, especially for a large toilet facility.  Separate toilets with a communal hand-washing station in between. Love it.  Let's evolve people, humans, us, you, me...Let's share a meal, share our experiences, share our time, it's so very limited.

Love it

OK, food

The watercress salad was delicious.  Not super flavorful but doesn't need to be, it's a fricken watercress salad, so in that vein, they had a success.  Fresh, light, yummy.

And a great accompaniment for this....

Ohhhhh mama!!!!!!

If you don't get how totally off the charts this is, let good ol' DVA splain you a bit,

Perfect bun, light fluffy, sticks to your finger JUST a bit, but not sloppily.  Steamy and great.

Perfect chicken.  Fried lightly, battered lightly, sauced lightly.  !!!!!!!!! 

Now, the homerun, bullseye if you will.... take a peek deeper inside the bun....  

THERE'S PICKLED CARROTS AND DAICON AND CILANTRO! 

All of the awesome flavors of a straight up, no bullshit, classic, Banh Mi!  

YES!

Really delicious.  Flavor explosion.  Really well done. Not over done.  Just done right.  Kind of like the singer of the National Anthem at the Superbowl, or wherever.  Just sing the fricken song.  No need to show how you can run up and down the scales.  Just sing the song, the classic, and the crowd will love you.

Republic sings the song.  They just fricken sing it.

When in Manhattan, anywhere near Union Square, you really have to try this place.  

Eat more noodles.

DVA