Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

I think the whole idea of tipping is ridiculous: do you tip the toll collector for taking your money? Do you tip the gas man for reading your meter? Do you tip your IT guy for fixing your computer? Of course not. Now, obviously, they don't live on tips. GUESS WHAT: NEITHER SHOULD WAITERS! How insane is it that a customer has to pay basically twice: for the food and for the service? Can you imagine if we had to tip UPS person for delivering the package to your house? Here's another tidbit: are the dishes heavier at T.G.I. Fridays than they are in a fancy steakhouse with $100+ dishes? Where do you come off with a sense of entitlement to a $20 tip just because the food was $100, whereas at Fridays a $20 plate would only get a $4 tip? If restaurant you work at charges that much for food, let them pay you! Enough is enough!

Sweet, I'm totally interested in seeing our sopapilla recipe. However, as someone born in New Mexico, I'm probably used to a different style of sopapilla.

for so many years, no one I asked had heard of sopapillas. They were the main attraction at a kitschy Mexican "restaurant" called Casa Bonita in Denver. Thank God for the foodie movement!

You are an excellent writer, looking forward to your contributions! That meat palace dream was hilarious. And, being partially from Hawaii, our family LURVES lychee in all of it's forms.

I'm with laurbelle2 - this is most certainly the most impressive intern interview to date! (Not that we don't love the other interns.) And I'm totally with you on fresh lychees in Taiwan. (And most everything else you wrote. But lychees first and foremost.)

Welcome! I'm also on board with wanting to try the coconut crabs, too!

Interesting, look forward to reading more from your The Nasty Bits section.

I need to add a little bit to my post here. I think Craig Stoll is a terrific chef and I have had much soulful and wonderful food at Delfina. I should have chosen my words more carefully in describing his pizza. And I heard once again tonight which pizza I should have ordered there, as bwng noted earlier in this thread: the Panna pie. Next time.

I have another new Miami winner for you, Sosta on Lincoln Road.
http://thechowfather.blogspot.com/2009/06/pizza-pizza-sosta-delivers.html

@tonecapo. We like to chew the fat about pizza in all kinds of ways on Slice. I don't think it's pretentious at all to talk about pizza in the way it's being talked about on this thread. That's what serious eaters do on Slice. It represents the spirit that in general is a big part of the Serious Eats community.

Gaspars for old school.

I have eaten here as well, just never reviewed it on my site, and I have to say, this is nothing I am dying to come back and try. I don't even crave it like I do some of the other greats.

@krupman
I have been to Picco, and found the pizza pretty meh. On the more pleasing side of meh, but still meh. The caesar salad, though, was incredibly good. Like, the best I've ever had. I'd be willing to roll the dice on the pizza again, just to get another salad.

Apart from the 'name' places in NYC (Totonno's, DiFara), I had a wonderful experience at a place in Queens which my friend took me to (I have no idea what the name is, its anonymity being part of its charm in my memory) which was his Favorite growing up. And it was great. Nothing surprising, but the guy has been there for decades doing the same thing. Not trying to impress anyone, just trying to make a living serving honest working-class food. And, admittedly, that's a personal hang-up. I'm more at home in a place that's unpretentious and unsurprising than I am sitting down at a 'high-end' pizza joint. I like to think that I can look past what I see as pretension and evaluate the food on its own terms, but, who knows.

I saw that you mentioned Apizza Scholl's in Portland and while I haven't been to Mozza in LA, I'm willing to bet that it's currently the best pie you can get on the west coast. I ate there a little over a year ago, and I'm hopefully going back up in August. I think of it almost daily. :')