California Pizza Dreaming

Pizza at Co. New York City

It has been seven months since I moved out of California back to the East Coast.  Friends ask me all the time if I miss it.  Sure I miss things- family, endless sunny days, beach out my front door.   But what I miss most, which comes as a surprise for other New Yorkers, is the pizza.

Sure I know, walk out my door, down 8^th Ave and hang a left on Bleecker St., I find myself at one of the classic New York pizza joints, John’s Pizza.  And if I head east, just north of Washington Square Park, there’s the thin crust Italian style pizzas of Mario Batali’s Otto.  Up 9^th Ave into Chelsea is a more (but not quite) California style pizza of Co., charred to a nice crisp around the edges and topped with interesting combinations of Italian meats and cheese.

But I can’t help it.  I love pizza in LA.  I miss it.

Fennel Sausage and green onion pizza, Pizzeria Mozza, Los Angeles

Mozza is the hands down favorite.  Oddly, it is also a Mario Batali restaurant but the pizza is the baby of his bread genius partner Nancy Silverton.  3000 miles away I can still taste the sweet pork sausage, squished down onto the crust at the suggestion of the bartender, juices oozing out over the chewy thin crust with billowy, hollow edge.  Some of my most memorable meals in Los Angeles during my time there happened at the bar at Pizzeria Mozza, watching the pies- goat cheese and leek, squash blossoms and burrata- go in and out of the oven.  (Note: For traveling pizza lovers, I have it on good authority from KF Seetoh, Singaporean food guru, that the Mozza in Singapore is excellent as well.)

Bollini’s Pizzeria in Monterey Park, south east of downtown Los Angeles, was a journey off the beaten track I never once regretted.  The wood fired oven burns at 1200 degrees, a feat achieved by few restaurants anywhere.  The pizzas are paper thin, with that just barely burnt around the edges look- the sign of a pizza oven master.  The toppings at Bollini are solid if not wildly inventive.  The Fungi Y Tartufi, wild mushrooms with fontina and truffle oil, never disappointed.  But is of that crust I dream.

For everyday eating near the beach where I lived, Gjelina in Venice was the go-to.  Reservations were impossible, waits were always long, but for the determined, like I was, the pizza was always worth the wait.  The menu there changed seasonally so toppings might range from heirloom tomatoes in August to beet greens in the fall.  It is the sort of place I could go often enough, not far away, not too much of a special occasion destination, that I could try out the new toppings on a regular basis- if I didn’t like what I ordered, there was always next time.

Pizza in New York sure is good.  But these days when I think of pizza, I’m California dreamin’.

Amy Powell is a food and travel writer based in New York City. She is a graduate of Cornell University's School of Hotel Administration and the French Culinary Institute. Follow her on Twitter @amymariepowell

Eating Thai in Namibia and Other Surprising Food Finds

Ever play the Chinese restaurant game? John taught me that one. It’s a game we have been playing during our summer travels. The first person to spot a Chinese restaurant on arriving in a new town scores a point. The idea being, that no matter where we are in the world it seems every city, town, and village can lay claim to a Chinese restaurant. To win, we just have to be the person to spot it first.

Finding a good Italian restaurant in Lusaka is not that much different than having a Chinese restaurant sign pop up while driving through the rural cow covered Swiss countryside: both are familiar yet strangely out of place. Though chow mien in Switzerland may not be our thing, sometimes eating the local food can also mean being open to cooking styles half way around the world from wherever we happen to be at that moment.

I initially noted Cai Tai in Swakopmund, Namibia, a Thai restaurant, because the sign was written in English and Chinese. I did not score a point for the sighting as the restaurant turned out to be Thai, not Chinese, but our interest was piqued. This coastal, German town with its Bavarian hotels and brauhaus was not the place I expected to find a Thai restaurant. But after weeks of dinners dominated by large slabs of game meat, the idea of a nuanced Southeast Asian lunch was too attractive to pass up.

Cai Tai was not good African Thai cuisine, it was just good Thai. Inspired by the grey coastal weather, I ordered a soup starter to warm up. No generic tom yum here, instead a bowl of glass noodles mixed with pickled vegetables and bits of ground pork were steeped in a spicy aromatic broth. It was the sort of soup I would want my grandmother to make when I’m sick, if my grandmother were Thai. The mutton came highly recommended by the Bangkok born chef/owner. It was thinly sliced and seasoned heavily with whole cumin seeds and chilies, seared in a wok and tossed with green onions and sliced celery.

Finding unexpectedly good food is part of the pleasure of traveling out of my comfort zone. I could rationalize that my standards are lowered when out of the developing world but no, I am very sure that Portico restaurant in Lusaka, Zambia was excellent Italian food, period. The night in question, a large group of us were asked to choose from a set menu which included a couple of African style meat dishes, a few pastas, or any pizza we might want off the standard list. I went basic, pizza with red sauce, cheese and pepperoni. Basic was delicious.

Judging by the many empty plates, most of these belonging to well traveled folks with good taste, the others in the group were not disappointed by Portico’s version of Italian food either. The pizzas came out thin crust and with just the right amount of char around the edges. The ravioli and tagliatelle were homemade and the sauces were authentic. We may have been eating in Africa, but the food was pure Italian.

Even in Singapore I was treated to a surprise, this one a happy stumble upon a newish Spanish tapas bar in the hip neighborhood of Duxton Hill. Singapore is known to excel in the import of cuisines from around the world but Singaporean food expert Seetoh was the first to admit Spanish cuisine is one area where this famous food city has typically not fared as well.

Sabio immediately impressed with its long, room length bar plated in glass with full view of the cold tapas on offer- a good sign of authenticity even if the black and white chic of the walls and tables suggested more style than substance might be found there. Not every dish was a success- the special of skewered chicken and manchego was still raw in the middle upon cutting into a piece- but the rest succeeded to an extent that even if I didn’t exactly think we were in Barcelona, I could have closed my eyes and would have sworn we were at least somewhere in Western Europe, not Southeast Asia.

The gambas al ajillo came plump and juicy with the sort of wine and garlic sauce that begs more bread in order to wipe clean the dish. The chorizo was spicy and rich and the Iberico jamon tasted of the Spanish highlands. It was not perfect, but it was mostly very good. When I knew there would be no shortage of Asian food to eat during our visit, tapas were a breath of fresh, Espagna air.

After two months of playing Chinese Restaurant, I’m not sure who’s ahead. But if we hadn’t been playing that silly game, we might never have found Cai Tai and we might never have known the pleasure of eating authentic Thai cuisine in Africa. It is always good to eat local, but on occasion its not so bad if that locally prepared food comes under the influence of a country half way around the world.

Eating the Street and The Street Bites Back

I have a rule for eating overseas in developing countries: at some point I will get sick and I when it happens, I won’t think too hard about what food was responsible. If I have been eating well then whether it was dirty water or old eggs that did me in, it just doesn’t matter- when the stomach cramps are gone all I'll remember is that the food was delicious.

It was with that in mind I ate every plate in front of me on a recent afternoon spent with KF Seetoh, the leading expert on Singaporean food. And with the help of that mantra (and some pills) I toughed out the next twenty-four hours of intestinal cramping, aching limbs, and pounding headache. Less than one day after that I was back out on the streets of Indonesia, sitting crossed legged on a plastic mat at a local joint eating a bowl of spicy mie goreng.

One could not have a more expert guide to eating in Singapore than Seetoh. Seetoh and his wife Patricia, supporters of the charity John founded, Room to Read, were equally eager to have lunch with us during our 36 hour stopover in Singapore. Hidden up seven stories in a concrete building we found Red Star, the oldest dim sum restaurant in town, and one of only a few still doing cart service. Over a pot of tea, Seetoh and Patricia filled our table with steamed shrimp dumplings, crisp spring rolls, fried balls of taro with tasty meat and vegetable centers, and some of the best Peking duck I’ve had.

When Seetoh suggested dessert at Old Airport Road hawker center, I could not say no even though my stomach was already beyond capacity. He and Patricia introduced me to Singporean coffee laced with sugar and sweetened condensed milk. An old dessert of sweetened soy bean curd had recently been updated so that the soy milk congealed in a perfect pane cotta texture of silken jellied sweet tofu. The signature salad of the hawker center, rojak, a beautiful mess of cucumber, bean sprouts, and fried dough squares comes smothered in a sweet and tangy sauce heavy on tamarind and covered in crushed peanuts. Picking up pieces with toothpicks I could understand why writer Calvin Trillin could not stop eating this when Seetoh introduced him to it several years. It was a “delicious chaos” of flavors, color, and texture. A bag of battered and fried vegetables and fruit ranging from bananas to red bean paste fairly put me over the edge. However, if it weren’t for the flight we had to catch that afternoon I would have been more than happy to eat myself to death hanging out with Seetoh and Patricia all day, swapping stories and food.

The day that followed, starting with the flight to Jakarta, was one giant aching cramp in my middle. But that is what drugs are for. Rest was difficult with the thumping of the base in the nightclub rattling the walls from five floors below our room at the Swiss-Belhotel. But it passed. And with the passing of illness, the hunger for street food immediately returned.

Luckily some of the main foods of Java- meat long simmered in clear broths- is the sort of food on which I would be happy to be nurse back to health in any country. Soto ayam, a broth of garlic, chicken broth, and glass noodles is the Chicken Noodle Soup of Indonesia. Sop buntut is a heavily spiced clear broth cooked with oxtail, a nourishing balm when eaten rice after several missed meals.

Indonesian food helped return me to health and it was Indonesian food with which I would prove back in the game. A little over one day after my lowest of low points, John and I sat cross-legged in a fluorescent lit room under the shadow of Borobudur, a 8th century Buddhist temple, devouring plates of rice noodles sautéed with chili and garlic, chicken and cabbage- mie goreng- the noodle version of the classic Indonesian fried rice dish, nasi goreng. We ordered lamb in a rich and spicy sauce with several bowls of rice to easy the capsaicin pain and speared chunks of grilled spiced lamb sate with our forks before going in for more mie goreng noodles. The chilies stung our eyes and caused a fit of coughing when they hit the hot pan- we were going back for seconds.

In Yogyakarta the following night our quest for street food continued, this time more out of the realization there were not many food options outside of our hotel that not involve a charcoal fire and raw animal parts hanging from the rack of a street cart. We picked our location with calculation: the cart should look busy indicating the locals eat there and ensuring sufficient turnover of inventory that our chances of food poisoning would likely be diminished. That the meat be fully cooked was a necessity.

Our cart of choice offered birds- chicken and duck- deep fried, ordered by part. The man at the fryer translated the menu to us miming the upper half of his body for chicken breast and pointing to his leg for duck thigh. We ordered a few of each with rice. At our request the owner sent a man out to bring us back two large, warm Bintang beers with mugs of ice (we pushed those aside). The sambal that filled blue mugs on the table was sweet, smoky and spicy. We tore off hunks of fried chicken breast and confit like duck leg burning our finger a bit while we dipped in the sambal and pinched a bit of rice.

Our few days in Indonesia and Singapore were brief but the food seared my mind like the spice of the sambal and burn of mie goreng. I ate the street and the street bit back. It may have won a battle, but as long as there are still hawker stalls to explore and fluorescent lit stalls on the streets of South East Asia I will keep eating, and the war will be mine.