Took about two more butt numbing hours on the bus before we arrived at New Haven Mecca of pizza in America. Right away even before going to the hotel we drop into Pepe’s Pizzeria, ordered a cheese pizza and some excellent birch beer. (Birch beer is a type of soda made from herbal extracts, the brand we drank was Foxon Park) When the pizza arrived at our table all hot and steamy, my mouth started watering at the sight of it and quickly took a big bite out of a slice. That first bite was just amazing, the full fat low moisture mozzarella cheese, the oh so fresh tasting tomato sauce (with minimal seasoning) and the thin crispy crust that it all sat upon. Everything about Pepe’s was different from The Grand Pizzeria (Restaurant where I used to work at), especially the way that they cook the pizzas. At the grand we use a wood burning oven to cook the pizzas, while Pepe’s uses coal to heat theirs. The dough that they use is very different form The Grands as well, Pepe’s uses more of a wet type of dough (which stretches with less effort but harder to work with if not familiar with working pizza dough) compared to ours which is a bit dryer. (A dryer dough is a bit easier to work with since it takes a bit more effort to stretch, in turn easier to open without easily creating holes) Here I was with my two good friends Jesse and Josh having awesome pizza, pizza that has been made the exact same way for over 3 generations. At that very moment of eating the pizza I realized that butt numbing bus ride was worth it, this was just the beginning of our pizza voyage.
Afterwards we went to check into our hotel and went on to explore the downtown area of New Haven, as a snack we decided to visit Louis Lunch (A place that claims they were the first to make hamburgers). The way they serve burgers is quite unique here, instead of buns (since burger buns weren’t invented yet) we had toast, there is no ketchup or any types of sauces in the place (they believe that one should taste their burgers without having sauce to mask its flavors) , the only toppings they did offer was cheese (which was a cheese whiz/spread type since processed single sliced cheese didn’t exist yet either), tomato and onions. This place like Pepes have stuck to their roots, they to this date still use the original toaster and broiler type device to cook the toast and patty. Eating that burger, I’d have to say that I wasn’t expecting too much since it was just a patty with sliced bread with some veg, but surprisingly it was quite good.
Having that small snack we were ready for the next pizzeria, the next place in my honest opinion had the greatest pizza every even better than all the other ones. The only catch was that it isn’t traditional pizza; instead of the normal tomato sauce and cheese combo they used mashed potatoes and bacon. BAR was the name of this amazing pizzeria, along side of great pizza they also produce their own brand of beer and are host of a nightclub. Our standard pizza of choice to compare all the different pizzeria was the most basic cheese pizza. Using that as our standard we were able to compare the crust, the sauce and the cheese. If I was to strictly judge who had the better cheese pizza, it would have been Pepe’s hands down but BAR was still amazing due to their unique untraditional pizza. (Which I love love love and can’t wait to go back for some more) That night ended with us watching The Town, which I found surprisingly good for a movie I knew almost nothing about.
The following day was a big day for us for it was the day we would make the trek over to Modern Apizza. Modern Apizza as its name suggests uses the most modern type of heating compared to the other pizzerias, instead of using coal or wood they use oil to heat up their ovens. As usual we ordered the standard pizza and birch beer, just as I thought Pepe’s was amazing, Modern Apizza blew me away. With Pepe’s their sauce was amazing, but with Modern’s it wasn’t just the sauce but the combination of everything that made it so good. It was so good that Jesse and I even ordered a second pizza to enjoy, the second one we added meatballs which turned out to be very delicious. To kill some time before we had dinner we did some more sightseeing around the Yale campus, sat on a bench at one of their courtyards, we also visited the Yale art gallery.
Walking around the Yale campus and downtown New Haven we built up a nice appetite and went straight to Pepe’s for a nice dinner. As we arrived we were met by a line that went from the front door all the way to the parking lot. This was the rumored line that we would have to endure in order to eat more delicious pizza. At first it seemed like a long line, but it started moving at a pretty decent pace, it’s also where we met a family from Boston in town for a pizza. I also managed to meet Taiwanese couple that was in town for schooling. Having the Modern Apizza taste fresh in my mind, we were able to compare Pepe’s and Modern’s pizzas, at the end it was a very very close call but Modern won with a higher overall score. We had also tried their famous clam pizza, which the three of us not being clam lovers did not like so much. In our travels we managed to visit the top pizzerias mentioned many times in many pizza books except for one pizzeria which was closed for vacation just when we decided to visit New Haven. This last pizzeria is called Sally’s, said to be Pepe’s long time rival, they as well have been around for nearly 3 generations and as well have not altered the ways they make their sauce or pizza. From what Jesse has been telling me their pizzas aren’t made in a round shape, instead they look more like squares or rectangles, it is definitely a place that I’d loves to visit on my next New Haven Trip.
The final day of the trip we only went to Modern Apizza for dinner since we all slept in and missed lunch. I find us ending up at Modern as the last pizzeria was quite fitting, since it ranked the best by our standards, but I would have killed to have more of the mashed potato pizza. After dinner we had a concert to go to and on the way there it seemed like we were super speed walking the entire way. The walk which took us about 30 to 40 minutes from the hotel, took us only 10 to 15 minutes from Modern to Toad’s place where the concert was held. We watched Broken Social Scene, there was another band that opened for them but Broken Social Scene was so amazing that I don’t recall what the other band was called.
Leaving New Haven was a bit sad, not only did we have to endure the butt numbing bus ride but we also had to say good bye to some delicious pizzas. The one good thing about the ride back home was that we went through the Boston area and drove through Vermont, which was quite beautiful. Overall this trip lived up to the hype that Jesse built us on before we left, the pizzas were way beyond what I was expecting, the city as well had a lot to offer in terms of its people, the scenery and the food we ate. (well mainly pizzas but we did have wings and breakfast at the diner near our hotel) I very much look forward to my next trip to New Haven, hopefully next time I’ll get to eat more mashed potato pizza!
Modern Apizza
Frank Pepe's Pizzeria
BAR
Good stuff! It was an amazing and memorable trip. I can't wait for the next one, we will have FIVE pizzerias to go to.
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