Great Pizza, Finally
I love Los Angeles. There are so many great things about it: beaches, parks, food. Well, not all food. A great pizza is hard to find out here. No offense to Los Angeles, but I'm a New Yorker. We know our pizza. You can be in pretty much any part of town and you will find a great slice, not a good one, a great slice of pie on any street corner in the five boroughs. After trying various places on this coast, I had resigned myself to the fact that I would have to travel back east whenever I needed that fullness of mozzarella, thin, almost slightly burnt crust, and light tomato fragrance in a greasy bite.
I was running an errand in the valley the day the torrential rains finally stopped in Southern California when I looked to my right. There it was, Brooklyn Pizza. I had stumbled across it by chance a few months earlier and ordered a Fettuccine Alfredo to compare it with the one my neighborhood Italian restaurant serves me. Usually I can save half of it for later and then have the soup. I figure I'm getting two meals for the price of one. Brooklyn Pizza's version, however, was nirvana. I ate the whole thing in one sitting.
And then I lost sight of the place. Couldn't find it anywhere. Yelp, my go-to app, had no record of it. Laguna Niguel and Irvine have places called Brooklyn Pizza but nothing in the valley. I drove out of my way a few times looking for it, like a lost dog. Then last week, driving back from Home Depot, I saw the sign, pulled over and parked. "What would you like?" asked the owner with a big smile as I walked towards the counter.
"Fettuccine Alfredo, please."
"Absolutely," he said.
I looked down at the menu. So many choices. National Pizza Day had just passed. Wish I had found this place sooner.
"How big are your pizzas?"
"We have 14 , 16 and 18 inch pizzas," he said, holding up the different boxes.
"Do you have a smaller size?"
"No, but I give you slice to try" he answered, still smiling. Pasta and pizza? That was a lot of food. i had gone swimming in the morning so I figured, why not? I nodded and he threw a slice in the oven.
"You come next time and I give you two slices with soda. Six dollars. Big slices."
"That's a bargain!" I said. He swiftly pulled the slice out and served it on a paper plate. I took a bite.
O.M.G. The cheese was gooey, the crust was delicately toasted and it wasn't greasy. The perfect slice of New York pizza. I couldn't believe what I was tasting. Yes, the gourmet pizzas out here are very good. But this slice? This was, as my father used to say, the real McCoy.
"So delicious. Are you Italian?" I said.
"Afghanistan. I memorize recipe." His grin got wider, mine did too.
"How do you say thank you in Pashto?"
"Manana," he answered.
"Manana, manana, manana!" I sang as I put the number in Favorites on my phone. I waved goodbye to my new best friend and walked out the door. I had a place to go to order New York style pizza. Finally. 🍕
"You can't make everyone happy. You're not pizza." - Anonymous
The slices are generous The smiling owner
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