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interrobang‽ what‽ greatest. punctuation. mark. ever.

I was just in SF this weekend and did a Delfina Vs. Tony's head-to-head. My Delfina margherita easily came out on top, with a perfectly baked crust—crisp, yet pliant with the edge revealing soft spongy innards—sweet and tang-tastic sauce, and a drizzle of fragrant olive oil. Tony's margherita was good, but the sauce lacked the flavorful punch of Delfina's and the cheese was not entirely melted. It did benefit from the added smokiness from wood-burning oven. Extra kudos to Tony's for being open for lunch.

I also tried the clam pie at Delfina and Tony's Cal Italia (Asiago, Mozzarella, Imported Italian Gorgonzola, Sweet Fig preserve from Croatia, Prosciutto di Parma, Parmigiano, Balsamic). Both were delicious. The Cal Italia is baked in a domed, gas oven, and uses a different flour (higher gluten content, it seemed) than their margherita. It was overpowered by the sweet fig to some degree, which was heavy-handedly dolloped into the center of each slice, with a small piece of prosciutto and a couple shavings of the parmigiano stuck on top. The gorgonzola was used sparingly and counterbalanced the sweet figs with its bitterness. It was pretty delicious, but maybe too rich and I had a hard time getting through my third slice.

Delfina's clam pie was fantastic, with toothsome shelled clams scattered about on a sea of spiced tomato sauce. All underscored by a salty pecorino.

I also tried a slice from Arnell's Pizza, which would give most NYC corner slice establishments a run for their money. A thin, crisp crust, topped with your standard greasy, cheesy fair. A good sauce-to-cheese ratio. And served up by a gentleman with a slightly toothless grin.

... I second the motion to hit up the Bi-Rite Creamery after—or before!—hitting up Delfina. I sampled their salted caramel and malted vanilla. A+ in my book. I also had the pleasure of tasting Humphry Slocombe's off-kilter ice cream flavors: secret breakfast (bourbon and cornflakes), peanut butter curry, blue bottle coffee, and balsamic caramel. Victory for the forces of good!

the last time i was at scholls was in march. i had a barfday gathering. we had a reservation, but still ended up waiting for a little over an hour, which given the circumstances wasn't so bad—our group ballooned from 9 people to about 16, which was technically over the limit for a reservation. the servers seemed somewhat nonplussed by the size of the group, especially since the place was already jam-packed with customers. the pizza was great though.

the waits are somewhat prohibitive on the weekends though, and i haven't actually been back since then... which i am ashamed of... this will have to be remedied.

hands-down they are the nicest people in pizza. and their pizza is great too!

fennel! i'd guessed a little bit of anise, but fennel makes more sense for some reason... maybe it's the association of fennel sausage w/pizza.

for those who end up swinging through PDX, ken's is the place to go. scholl's is quality, but ken's crust puts it over the edge. to by-pass the crowds, i generally swing in on a week night and get a margherita and root beer to go and have curb-side feast across the street.

that charring pattern is totally appetizing.

it's a wicked idea. too bad their pizza blows. wouldn't even pass muster as a corner slice.... on the other hand their beer is phenomenal. their root beer is also nothing to scoff at.

they should've hired me. i could've made 'em pizza champions.

"weaving a killer net of blogs"

"hitting homeruns with SEO"

i hate job descriptions that try and make things sound exciting by adding ridiculous qualifiers and metaphors. at least they avoided the dreaded "rock star" label (e.g., "looking for an EXPERIENCED, ROCK STAR LINE COOK"). also—and as someone who isn't punctuating or capitalizing correctly, i understand i'm sitting in a glass house right now—shouldn't "homeruns" be two words?

I generally agree with pretty much everything Bruni wrote in this article concerning the pizzerias I've visited. Kesté turns out a fine pizza, but it's not great. Mine, at least, was too heavily topped with both sauce and cheese. UPN's pizzas are like the freakin' platonic ideal of a neapolitan pie. Yes, they're wet. But they aren't overly topped. They're balanced and remarkably delicious.

i want to go to there.

it so depends on the week. there are some weeks when i don't eat pizza at all and then some weeks when i'll eat it four or five times (especially when i make my own). also, this doesn't really take into account how much pizza one consumes, e.g., someone who has a slice six days a week still eats roughly the same amount of pizza I eat in one sitting.

a couple summers ago i clocked my wait at just under 2 hours and 30 minutes, give or take a couple minutes. a couple of friends and i got there at around 12:30 and we got our pizza around 3pm. i had my order in a few minutes after joining the scrum. somehow our order was forgotten about. these things happen.

di fara's has hands-down the best pepperoni ever.

My oven only has a top element and I set it on the high broil setting (which I'm guessing is about 550-600). So far with the stone, placed in the middle of the oven, I've had some pretty good luck. I've tried placing it higher, but I because of the heating element being above, the tops of my pizzas would cook faster than the bottom and I'd end up with a burnt edge and caramelized cheese and a blonde bottom.

With the stone at mid-level, I used to have a kind of double-bake process where I'd bake the crust with the sauce first, just til it's blonde, then top it with the cheese, etc. As I found that because of the length of time my pizzas were in the oven (5-8 minutes), the cheese would burn before the crust was done. I remedied this by just placing larger, but fewer hunks of mozz.

I also found that by placing some tin foil on my other oven tray and putting it in the slot below my stone, I was able to essentially create a smaller oven space, which seems to help my stone retain or replenish its heat more quickly for quicker bake times and less wait between pies. As it is, I'm able to get a decent pie done in 4-5 minutes when my stone has absorbed its max amount of heat.

You can see the results here: http://egadman.blogspot.com/search?q=pizza

It's certainly not ideal, but i still like to claim status as the 3rd best pizza in PDX.