Review: No. 28
This review comes to us through special arrangement with Ganda Suthivarakom, who eats and complains on her foodblog Eat, Drink, One Woman. It was posted there in late November, after we met at No. 28 for lunch. Ms. Suthivarakom pretty much says all I wanted to say about No. 28, so I asked her to let me re-post her words here. Thanks, Ganda!
WORDS BY GANDA SUTHIVARAKOM .::. PHOTOGRAPHS BY ADAM K. .::. Adam and I hit No. 28 Carmine for lunch today. We split a Margherita (above) and a mushroom with truffle oil. Nice crisp-to-chew ratio, charred bottoms, perhaps a hair thicker than I prefer, but not in an unpleasant way. The Margherita had judiciously thin slices of mozz with delicious squashed San Marzanos in a good cheese-to-tomato ratio, though I could have used a little more basil. The mushroom pizza was a white pie with a fragrant but not overpowering sprinkling of truffle oil, setting off thinly sliced crimini mushrooms and rosemary. The meal was bookended by pizza dough in alternate formats: first as little blackened squares of pizza dough dusted with herbs and anointed with a very fruity olive oil; last in a champagne flute filled with hot, toothsome, cherry-sized zeppole (top right), dusted with powdered sugar and topped with a dollop of Nutella.
They've got a great lunch special—salad, pizza or pasta, and a soda for $9.99. Even better is the happy hour Beat the Clock deal from 5:30 to 7:30pm—arrive at 6 p.m., and your $14 pie is only $6. Arrive at 7:15 p.m., it's still only $7.15.
Chatty pizza maestro Salvatore obviously takes pride in his work. He changes the menu four times a year, so if you loved that zucchini flower pizza, you'll have to wait 'til September comes around again. But there are plenty of choices I'm looking forward to from this season's menu—like arugula and San Daniele prosciutto, or ricotta potato pizza, or anchovy with hot pepper.
Even with our carb-loaded lunch, I still had room to stick my foot in my mouth when I got back to work:
Ganda: I really want to try their lasagne. They've got real lasagne, with bechamel ...
Boss: What? What's bechamel?
Ganda: White sauce.
Boss: My mother is Italian, and I've never heard of lasagne with white sauce!
Co-worker: What white sauce? Sometimes they put ricotta in the mozzarell—
Ganda: [Sheepish] Yeah, but that's Italian-American...um...I'm going to go back to my desk now.
NO. 28
Location: 28 Carmine Street (b/n Bedford and Bleecker streets) [Map]
Getting There:A/C/E/B/D/F/V to West 4th Street
Phone: 212-463-9653
Short Stack: No. 28 Carmine [Eat, Drink, One Woman]
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