Lon's Pizza Adventure

Today a new guest blogger will be speaking his mind on pizza and women, more women than pizza, but anyway,

I bring you Lon Zimmet, and his Manhattan Beach Adventure:

On Sunday night before Memorial Day, I was in Manhattan Beach. After the bars closed, I went to eat pizza because I had had many drinks and I was hungry. Actually, I wasn’t that hungry but there was a smoking hot girl in a red dress from the bar who was going to eat pizza. There was also a smoking hot girl in a green dress that was at the same bar, and my friend and I were amazed to find out that the green dress and the red dress were friends. Anyway there was a long line so I figured this place must be good. Also, any pizza that attractive women like must be delicious because attractive women are the smartest people I know.

Anyway, the thing I remember most about the pizza is waiting in line for it. I remember this so well is because I asked somebody, “Are you on line?” And they said, “Do you mean, ‘in line.’?” And I said no, I’m from NJ and there we say “on line.” In any event, it turns out he wasn’t on line, which was good because that’s one less person keeping me from eating pizza.

Things really took an unexpected turn when a girl heard me say I was from NJ, and it turns out she was from NJ too.  Even crazier was that she went to college in Ithaca which is right near where I went to college.  We laughed and laughed about this for a long time.

But then I saw the red dress girl eating her pizza so I turned my back on NJ girl in the middle of her telling me about her sick aunt or something and I said, ‘hey Red Dress, how’s that pizza treating you?” And it seemed like she liked it.  But it turns out she was a dental student on vacation from Wisconsin so fuck her, what does she know.

So I order two slices of pizza. One for me and one for my friend. It was five dollars and change which seems reasonable.  I remember thinking when I looked at it, ‘wow, that’s what pizza should look like.’  It looked like very good pizza.  And it was.  I can’t remember many of the specifics because I was very drunk and also still high from my conversation about New Jersey, but at the time my friend and I said to each other it was the best pizza we’ve had in Los Angeles.

It had perfect thickness and had a good cheese/dough ratio. I think this is very important.  I hate really thick doughy pizza that only has a thin layer of cheese on top.  But this had a perfect combination.  Plus it was very tasty.

Or it could have seemed that way because I was very drunk.  Everything tastes good when you’re drunk.  For now, I’ll give it five stars.  But I’ll be back in Manhattan Beach on Fourth of July weekend, and I’ll try having a slice then when I’m less drunk.

The Manhattan Pizzeria - 133 Manhattan Beach Blvd, Manhattan Beach

Price: $

Overall:

Editor's note:  Although Lon said he thought it was 5 stars, because of the drunk factor I am bringing it down a half a slice, until he or I go back sober.  I have no doubt the pizza was good, but a 5 ?  Who has been the one eating pizza everyday?  

Pizza Mayven

In the heart of the Jewish community is a place called Pizza Mayven, which serves completely kosher foods.  You can get pizzas, calzones, pastas, and even Mexican food all blessed by the Rabbi. It was a funny looking place, very hidden from the street with plastic chairs and folding tables.  It looked like an indoor concession stand at a high school football game.  They don’t serve any meat on the pizzas, so its only variations of veggie topping.   I got a medium cheese pizza, which was 13 dollars.

  

The pizza looked especially good, but the taste was not on par with the looks. The crust was well cooked and crispy, but was too thick and dense. The cheese was good, it had a lightly browned top but the sauce was a little chunky and dry, and there wasn’t enough of it.  It was a lot better than my expectations however, for some reason I just didn’t like the sound of kosher pizza.  I would like to go back however, because it seems like to me, that they must have something that is really good, maybe it’s the veggie burrito.  But for now I’ll skip the pizza here and move on. 

I actually just found a link that has more than 10 kosher pizza joints.  So I guess I have some work to do.  Jewish Pizza... Oy... 

Pizza Mayven - 140 N. La Brea 90036

Price: $$

Overall:

N.Y.P.D. Pizza

Today I ventured into Burbank to a new place I heard about called N.Y.P.D. Pizza.  I think the full name is NYPD Restaurants Precinct Pizza Delicatessen, or something.  I don't know really, its a lot of words.  I don't even know if an actual N.Y.P.D. owns the place.  It is filled with gimmicky pictures of New York, police cars, police departments signs and badges.  Even down to the names of the food, every item has a section of N.Y. named after it, like the Manhattan Meat Lovers Pizza or the Astoria Greek salad.  Their slogan is "Taste of New York" and like most pizza joints in L.A. they try to mimic the highly raved about N.Y. pizza.  It appears to be a national franchise mostly in Florida, and none in New York.  It has kind of a generic feel to it, like a TGI Fridays, they have T.V.'s playing sports and a large selection of beer.  It actually was kind of comforting in a non offensive franchise way.  I didn't see any cops there so while I waited for the pizza, I had a few beers and drove home.  Ha ha, just kidding mom.

Anyway, none of that really matters.  The pizza is the important part here.  The sizing and prices are a bit confusing.  They have a large for $13, which at first seems pretty good, the thing is that a large is only their third biggest pizza, they also have a XL and a XXL, the XXL is 18'', the size of a most regular large pizza's.  The large I got was 14'' however they gave me a coupon for a $10 large so it wasn't a bad deal after all.

The pizza was a little light on top.  The crust looked like it was going to be a little doughy, there was no natural puff at the end.  Turns out it was very delicious.  The crust had a flour taste rather than the dry corn meal.  It was very crispy and crunchy on the bottom, and the end was chewy and doughy but still with the crispy bottom.  There was just the right amount of cheese.  The sauce was a little too light but good.  There was a strong taste of oregano on the first bite but it mellowed out after you get into it.  There wasn't anything special about the pizza, it didn't taste like a wood oven, or smell of fresh baked crust, it didn't have that charred black bubble on the out side edge, but it did everything right and close to the way it should be.  I haven't yet explored the other places in Burbank, but I could see this as a usual spot for me. 

NYPD Pizza - 150 South San Fernando Blvd. (and all over the country)

Price - $$

Overall: