Category Archives: Food

Pizza Brain: First Pizza Museum Serves Unique Slices

Pizza Brain

When we set up a Philadelphia pizza crawl to take place last month, there was one spot that was an absolute necessity to hit up: Pizza Brain.  How could any respectable pizza crawl bypass the world’s first pizza museum?

Pizza Brain is more than just a museum.  While the collection of pizza-related memorabilia – replete with everything from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles items to the album cover for the Fat Boys’ “Jailhouse Rap” single – is impressive, the pizzeria portion is notable in its own right.  The friendly staff, which usually includes memorabilia owner Brian Dwyer, serves up unique pizza topping combinations in either slices or full pies (ranging from $11 to $22).

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Philadelphia Pizza Crawl of December 2012: Mission Accomplished

FrancoLuigi's Display

Native New Yorker Jennifer had enough.  Another serving of mediocre pizza from West Philly was driving her crazy, and she broadcast, via Facebook, her pronouncement: Philly pizza was crap (except she used a more colorful adjective).

I, for one, will not tolerate anyone disparaging Philadelphia’s pizza scene. Immediately, I touted the city’s great pizza tradition and diverse pizzerias.  Other folks piped in that they wanted to try a lot of these places in town, particularly in a group outing.  One thing led to another, and the Philadelphia Pizza Crawl of December 2012 was organized.

  • Basics – Hit up six Philadelphia pizza spots on a Saturday in December.
  • Objective – Convince a native New Yorker that Philly does have good pizza.
  • Specific stops –  FrancoLuigi’s Pizzeria, Santucci’s Original Square Pizza, Nomad Pizzeria, Rustica Pizza, Pizza Brain, Tacconelli’s Pizzeria.  They may or may not be the six best pizza places in town, but they’ve all been recognized for their excellence and also offer a variety of pizza styles and settings.  Pizzeria Stella, Zavino, Slice, Dock Street and Osteria also were strongly considered but were either considered duplicative or too far out of the way to work with the other spots.
  • Logistics – Every food crawl must account for logistics, such as transportation, payment, food ordering.  The plan was to travel from place to place by walking, public transportation and perhaps cabs.  There was discussion of a bus, which would protect us in case of adverse weather, but it would have been too costly.  With 20-30 people expected to attend, we also decided to collect $20 up front for costs of pizza, water and drinks.  Calls were placed well in advance to each location to ensure they could accommodate us and were prepared for our arrival.  At each stop, we’d order enough for about a slice or more per person, cutting full slices into smaller portions with our own pizza cutters to allow participants to try different pies.  Also, to allow for comparison, we were to keep the pizza selections to plain, pepperoni and perhaps one specialty pie.  We’d also budget about an hour for each spot to allow us to be at Tacconelli’s for our reservation at 5 p.m.
  • Scoring – We thought about a scoring sheet to determine the best pizza, but eating pizza is really a subjective experience.  There’s not one right way to make a crust or use a sauce.  People could decide on their own about what slices and spots they liked best. Continue reading →

Where There’s Smoke, There’s a Good Meal: Comparing Three New Barbecue Spots

Barbecue is perhaps the most American of cuisines.  Originating and developed in the South and Midwest, barbecue is big in other parts of the country.  New York, for instance, has tremendous spots such as Dinosaur Bar-B-Que and Hill Country.   

In terms of its barbecue scene, Philly is hard to define.  It’s not about the pulled and chopped pork-centered barbecue with vinegar or tomato-based sauces of North Carolina.  It isn’t, at least until recently, the informal, served-on-paper, Central Texas style of emphasis on the quality of the meat, especially beef, rather than on sauce.  And it most definitely does not feature dry rub ribs like Memphis or slow-smoked and heavily-sauced barbecue of Kansas City.    

Barbecue in Philly, however, has been evolving.  New spots now offer the best features of the traditional styles popular elsewhere.  Just in the past couple of months, three spots – Blue Belly BBQ, Bubba’s Texas BBQ and Fette Sau – opened up and are significant additions to the city’s smoked meat scene.  Sounds like a good time to do a side-by-side taste test and comparison.

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