I was on the road this week, so , yeah, pizza. In case anyone thought this tweet was a joke...it wasn't.
I have been following an anonymous pizza writer
called SexySlices. SexySlices has been on a mission to eat a lot of
Buffalo Style pizza. It’s got nothing to do with wings. It is a large,
doughy pizza covered with tomato sauce (possibly sweet),
a shit-ton of cheese and usually some cup and char pepperoni. This is
the type of pepperoni that cups as it cooks and the rim gets a little
dark. You can get it with a stick of Margherita pepperoni if you slice
it about nickel thickness. Some time ago, Serious
Eats did a nice write up on why some pepperoni cups and others don’t.
There are fans of both cupping pepperoni and pepperoni that lays flat
but the cupping style seems to be having its 15 minutes of fame as it
has also become popular down in the city.
As much as I really want to love Buffalo Style
pizza, I don’t. I kind of wish I did. This style of pizza is about
excess and I prefer a more balanced approach. Everything about Buffalo
Style is big. However I think it is the perfect slice
for the drunken Bills Mafia fan just after he tries to jump through a
flaming table a tailgate party. I’m not that creative, it's a thing.
A week or two ago, SexySlices had a big pizza event
with pizzas supplied by 8 of his favorites. The people voted and Macy’s
Pizza won. I figured if I was going to give Buffalo style another shot,
it might as well be from the winner.
We got to Macy’s and they had a large 1 topping
Tuesday Special. There you go, a large pepperoni pie was the order. The Sexy Slices Trophy was on display.
A guy
came in just after us and ordered a large double pepperoni pie. I think
there was a little confusion because I’m pretty
sure we got the double pepperoni pie and this guy ended up thinking
Macy’s double pepperoni is weak. My first thought when handed the box
was, “Holy shit this is heavy!” I would have liked to get an official
weight on the pie. I’m guessing around 4 pounds.
Here’s the pie.
It’s heavy, sit in your gut pizza. It’s greasy,
messy to eat and the sauce was definitely sweet.
I’m sorry to say that
if this is the best example of Buffalo Style, I’m out. On the plus side,
it was a little better cold. Still not good
but better. The pizza certainly wasn’t offensive and didn’t make me
angry for a few days (it has happened) so this was kind of an early
dinner with a friend on Tuesday night and then I ate the leftovers late
at night probably more because it was there and
I eat like an idiot on the road than I actually wanted the pizza.
In the morning I got right to work (certainly no
need for breakfast) and then had about an hour to kill before a meeting.
During the summer, Paula’s has a doughnut filled with cannoli cream. It
would have been foolish not to try it, right?
So I tried it.
First up, a Margherita.
There is no place to hide flaws in a Margherita
pizza. It is just dough, tomato, basil and cheese with a drizzle of
olive oil. Jay adds a littl salt and a little parm. It is delicious here. I’d argue lighter and more delicate
than the Margherita at Song e Napule and that is probably
a bake time thing. Jay is cooking 60 second pizzas and Song e Napule were more
in the 2 minute range. Don’t get me wrong, both are really good.
Jay has also been making a Detroit-ish style pizza.
For a while it was just Wednesday and Saturday (this Wednesday night
visit was not an accident) but now you can get those every day. Only 40
of them though. We (same poor soul that ate
the Macy’s pie with me the night before) went for Red Top which was a
pepperoni pizza – garlic, cheese blend, cup n char pepperoni, Sicilian
oregano, organic tomato sauce and parm.
A good Detroit style pizza is everything that
Little Caesar’s wants to be but isn’t. These were definitely different
than the Detroit style pies I had and Emmy Squared and Norma’s. Both of
their crust had more of a fermented flavor. This
was light and airy with what seemed like less oil. It was really good.
Since we were there…we got a ‘nduja pie too.
Garlic, basil, freash mozzarella, fontal, red onion
Berkshire ‘nduja, chili honey and parm. Also really good. Little
spice, little sweet, delicious crust. Had a great time talking dough,
the pizza forum, pizza places with Jay. Also got
to meet FlourCityMark who was there grabbing a Margherita. Pizza people
are the greatest. Just before we headed out, Jay told us he had put in a
Banana Pepper + Onion square pie for us (garlic, cheese blend, red
onion, banana peppers with poblano cream sauce
and parm post bake. This one had to be cut into 6 pieces instead of the
usual 4 because I was just about done.
Another good pie. If I had to
pick the best, I’d go with the Margherita. When I venture into
Neapolitan style, someday fairly soon it will happen,
I hope I can eventually make one as good as this.
Gotta say, those offerings from Jay's Artisan look absolutely divine.
ReplyDeleteThey are great pies. The lighting and my phone camera dont do them justice.
DeleteThat 'nduja pie looks awesome. Actually, all four of those pies look delicious, but the 'nduja description really makes me wish I had a reason to make a trip to Buffalo.
ReplyDelete- Bob W.