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Here's a Tip: Mediocre Pizza Is Better When You Order It 'Well-Done'
Re: jakeyd - Pepe's may be the ONE place in the world where this is probably not necessary... "well done" pie at Pepe's is the equivalent of "burned beyond recognition" most other places I would imagine. Pepe's has got char down to a science. You just made me hungry, which I guess is what this is all about anyway.
Here's a Tip: Mediocre Pizza Is Better When You Order It 'Well-Done'
This is absolutely true... even at the best places (Totonno's, Nick's, etc.) we always specify "a little well done" and it makes a difference. There is nothing worse than an under-cooked or gummy crust, or goppy cheese, even at an establishment that knows what it is doing. Granted, these kinds of places are not nearly as likely to disappoint, but Ed you are onto something here... "a little well done" works across the board.
Whole Wheat Pizza Crust Recipe
Adam - We actually have had some good success adding whole wheat flour to Peter Reinhart's classic pizza dough recipe. You can use a sliding scale based on how rustic you want to get. The recipe calls for 4.5 cups of flour... if you use 3 cups white and 1.5 cups whole wheat you will get a nice crust that is very close to the original, a little more "healthy" and still takes well to red sauce.
We've found that higher proportions of wheat flour - while delicious - don't work as well with red sauce pies. On these pizzas we usually go with various "white" toppings like roasted chicken, sauteed spinach/mushrooms, mozzarella, ricotta and even goat cheese (thank you, Ed LaDou).
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I disagreed with this post the moment I saw it, and had some real-world experiences over Memorial Day weekend that only confirmed these feelings. First off, some history - I have been visiting Pepe's for more than 20 years, and while it isn't always "perfect" it is consistently the best pizza I've ever had in my life, bar none. And we eat a lot of pizza... Totonno's was on auto-dial when we lived in the city... Nick's in Forest Hills (and, more recently, Rockville Centre), Mario's on Arthur Avenue (a close second to Pepe's I have to say), Una Pizza Napoletana, we've been all over the place and there is nothing like Pepe's.
We drive between New York and Vermont at least four or five times a year and always hit Pepe's on the way up, and usually on the way back. Sometimes we get lucky and hit it right and there's no line, more often there is a line - and we wait. We tried to get into Sally's one freezing night, probably 15 years ago, just out of curiosity. Stood there for probably an hour and kept watching "regulars" come up behind us and wander in sit down at waiting tables. That's the way they roll, apparently, the tourist schlubs can stand out there until their fingers and toes fall off, Sally's is going to take care of their regulars. Fine for them, we never went back.
We were headed up to Vermont Thursday night and got stuck in terrible traffic south of New Haven, it was clear we weren't going to make Pepe's by the time they closed at 10, but there was another place I'd heard good things about, Modern Apizza... no lines, a full menu including salads, etc., open until 11 p.m. on Thursdays. So we went there instead, hit the place at 10:40 and maybe they stopped feeding the oven at that hour or something but all I can say is the pizzas we got (one regular red sauce/mozz, one red sauce, mozz and mushroom/onions) were both soupy messes. Almost inedible. Literally the first 2/3 of every slice, on both pies, could not be eaten without a fork, you couldn't pick the thing up, the "crust" was the approximate consistency of yogurt. And the flavor of the part of the piece you could actually hold in your hand was a sharp and unpleasant saltiness. In short, it was terrible. I asked the waiter if this was normal and he said yeah, that's the way the pies come out. Found that a little hard to believe for a place that had been in business so long. Needless to say, I heard about my bright dinner idea from my wife and two young daughters all the way up to our destination (until they fell asleep) and over the course of the weekend.
Ride home came Sunday afternoon, and we hit Wooster Street around 7 p.m. Graduation weekend at Yale and one of the longest lines we've seen outside Pepe's in a while. We waited. Took about 45 minutes to get to our table and we ordered a red pie with mozz and our favorite combination at Pepe's, red sauce, spinach/onion and just grated cheese. Both pies were perfect, phenomenal char, even the spinach/onion slices could be picked up and eaten by hand, no soupy mess.
Tastes vary and people have every right to like what they like... but I have to tell you, we know pizza, we eat a lot of pizza, we've been all over the place and we've hit all the bright spots and there is nothing like Pepe's... there's a reason people have been waiting in line outside that door for more than 80 years, and it's going to take a lot more than a 30-second video of someone making chippy comments and banging some crust against a pan to lay a glove on the place.