Italian Food Festival

This weekend was the San Gennaro Precious Cheese Italian Food Festival.   Quite a name, a bit deceiving though, there wasn't that much cheese there, but I guess precious is a brand of cheese so the focus was not in the cheese but more in the Italian food.  One kind of Italian food is pizza of course.  So I felt obligated to go.

 

There was a ton of food, pizza, pasta, gelato, italian ice, cannolis, and even philly cheese steaks.  Lots of free samples from meat and cheese to biscotti.  The precious cheese stand even had free grilled beef and veggie skewers.  Not bad for a free sample.  

this is kelly eating a meatball sandwich, meatballs were ok - bread wasn't very good though.

There were 3 different pizza stands there.  All major players in the Los Angeles pizza game.  There was the classic Vito's on La Cienega and Rocco's on Wilshire Blvd.  The 3rd stand was Pizzeria Rustica which is a spot on the sunset strip.  I have yet to review this place on my site.  I didn't try it here, I have had it before and wasn't too impressed.  Plus it just didn't look that good and I feel like, to give them a fair shot I should review them under their typical settings.  So I had a slice from Rocco's and Vito's both good when delivered and good here at the fair.

Both were mostly on par with the slices at the actual location.  Rocco's tried to give me a slice that hadn't been warmed up after sitting out for a while, but I made sure that didn't happen.  For the most part though, they tasted really good.  Maybe not cooked quite enough and not quite as fresh tasting.  

Can you tell which slice is which ?  Vito's is on the left.  Rocco's is on the right.  It's amazing how different pizza can be, and when you put them next to each other you can see the differences.  Rocco's is a thicker all around pizza, heavier cheese and sauce.  A doughier crust that wasn't as crispy.  Vito's as you can see is the opposite, thinner, crispier crust, light cheese and a sweeter lighter sauce.  Both good, but I'd have to give the prize to Vito's that day.

  

Here are some more pictures, the lovely Rocco's staff and a pizza being cut also from Rocco's. 

Good times at the festival, top of the line pizza, cannoli's from from Ferrara's in NY, great Italian Ice and gelato.  I even got suckered into a win a goldfish game.  The had little turtles too so I was trying for them.  But I had to get 2 balls in one specific fish bowl.  I got one in amazingly, but those game are pretty much impossible.