Pizza - Honorable Mentions

As promised, the finale to my pizza week posts is a list of “honorable mentions” that I think have pretty darn good pie. I’ve deferred to some of my favorite bloggers to tell you more about each restaurant in detail – Jason Perlow of Off the Broiler and Tommy of tommyeats (see links below).

Kinchleys (Ramsey) – good thin pie. very cracker like crust. great tavern environment. have had dinners other than pizza here and the food is pretty good! dirt cheap prices – love that. full review here.

A mano (Ridgewood) – delicious traditional Neapolitan-style pizza. almost everything in the restaurant is from Italy (including the ovens) and the place is quite pretty! my husband adores their pizza, probably because he’s actually been to Italy. full review here.

Reservoir Tavern (Boonton) – haven’t been here in years but used to go quite often and it was always good when I did. great pizza with thin crust (are you surprised to hear that? ha). full review here.

Last but not least - these are on my list of must try pizzas:

Ah’Pizz (Montclair) – will be going very soon and reporting back. hey, tommy likes it!

Grimaldi’s (NY) – my brother likes it and he turned me on to Pepe’s.

Sally’s Apizza (New Haven, CT) – just look at the photo at the top of this post and you’ll surely see why I MUST TRY this pizza. remember that famous top 25 pizza list? well Sally’s is at #6 and beat my beloved Pepe’s.

That wraps up pizza week folks and I hope you enjoyed reading about pie as much as I enjoyed writing about it. I'm going to eat my homemade pizza leftovers from Thursday now! Ciao.

Pizza Week (Friday)

My final favorite pizza doesn’t come from a restaurant....it comes from my own kitchen. It’s not that I think I’m a pizza guru that can make it better than most restaurants, I just usually can’t find it THIN enough anywhere.

My uber simple pie can be made at home by gathering up a few ingredients.

Pizza Dough - I’m pretty particular about my pizza dough. It must come from A&S Pork Store in West Paterson or JC’s Italian Bakery in Parsippany:


Sauce – I favor the basic taste of the one below:


Toppings – I’ve previously discussed our love of long hot peppers:


Cheese – I find the mixture of the three cheeses below give me the salty taste I love:



After I roll out the crust as thin as I can get it, I prebake it for five minutes at 500 degrees and let it cool for 10 minutes before topping it with sauce, cheese, etc. Bake for an additional 10 to 15 minutes and viola. Pretty simple for delicious thin crust pizza at home!

This weekend I’ll do one more pizza post with some honorable mentions that I think deserve a shout out for their yummy stuff. Until then....

Pizza Week (Thursday)

There are two main reasons I like the pizza at Lombardi’s in Cedar Grove, NJ:

(1.) It is a total Star Tavern knock off with its super thin crust.
(2.) You can order a pizza at Lombardi’s with long hot Italian peppers on top (which you can’t do at Star).

The restaurant environment is friendly with a small neighborhood sports bar feel. You are guaranteed to see town locals hanging out and plenty of families enjoying their pizza. The pizza doesn’t quite have the flavor and saltiness of Star, but it does have an excellent thin and crispy crust and I always order it well done to ensure coal black edges. Also, long hot peppers on top of pizza never hurt anyone. Crazy good.



Another thing not to be missed here is the Lombardi’s Platter appetizer filled with sautéed garlicky broccoli rabe, broccoli, sausage, longhot peppers, crispy potatoes and chunks of provolone. Indulgent and delicious...and hey, you’re getting some green veggies.

Sadly, I don’t have any photos of Lombardi’s pizza but you can see one here on Flickr because someone else took a picture of it! Thank heavens I’m not the only maniac photographing their food.

(photos courtesy of Restaurantpassion.com)

Pizza Week (Wednesday)

I’m sure you could have guessed that the Palermo Pie at La Sicilia in Belleville, NJ would make my favorite pizza list, right? I mean I’ve posted about the restaurant two times already (here and here).

We always start off with a slice or two of Palermo Pie as an appetizer at this restaurant. I usually don’t get the pizza for dinner because La Sicilia entrees are too delicious to pass up! Yep, you did read that correctly....I pig out and order pizza BEFORE my dinner.

Palermo Pie is the perfect blend of fresh mozzarella under a heavy dose of tomato sauce with garlic and grated cheese. It’s NOT your ordinary neighborhood pizzeria stuff. It is a total balance of flavors and the tomatoey sauce would taste good on just about anything (I swear).

I’m not alone in my love of Palermo Pie. It recently made the list of the Munchmobile’s top 6 pizzas!




Read more about La Sicilia in this article.

(some photos courtesy of NJ.com)

Pizza Week (Tuesday)

Right behind Star Tavern pizza is my second favorite pie of all time – Frank Pepe’s Pizza in Yonkers, New York (the original is in New Haven, CT).

I’ve never been to the location in New Haven which is the only one with coal fired ovens, but my brother has. About a year ago, he saw a photo in GQ Magazine of Pepe’s pizza featured in this article and not shortly after he was on I-95 driving to Connecticut! Lucky for us Pepe’s has since opened a location in Yonkers which is about a 35 minute ride over the GWB and their pizza is beyond worth it.

Let me start by saying Pepe’s is always crowded and that makes a place more fun in my opinion. You can feel the anticipation of the customers ordering their pizza and watch the faces of the eager patrons waiting for their food while you stand in the long line. And once you see one of the pies placed on a table, all you can think about is when it will be your turn to eat!!!

The pizza at Pepe’s is thin and crispy and the tomato sauce has a minimum of spices. They have the traditional pie with mozzarella but my husband’s #1 choice is the Pepe’s Original without the oozy cheese....it’s just perfect crust, crushed tomato and grated cheese. (He ranks this above Star Tavern, but I’m not there yet). The thing that makes me lose my mind at Pepe’s is the White Clam Pie with Bacon. The clams are so fresh they dance in your mouth and the flavors of olive oil, fresh garlic, parsley and bacon just make this entire masterpiece quite irresistible. It is justifiably famous for a reason.



If you haven’t been to Pepe’s you don’t know what you are missing. It is ranked #12 on the list of the top 25 pizzas in the United States! GO.


(photos courtesy of Road Food)

Pizza Week (Monday)

It’s Pizza Week here on The Greedy Palate! I’m talking five straight days (Mon-Fri) of posts about nothing but hot, bubbly, crispy, cheesy goodness.

First up – my all time favvvvvorite pizza. Something this good should be illegal, honestly. Amazingly flavorful, razor thin and crispy with charred edges and cheese that somehow melts into the sauce (just look at the above photo). Ready to hear where you can get it?

STAR TAVERN Orange, NJ. Bam. I’m sure if you live in Jersey, you’ve heard of Star. It’s pretty famous (as evidenced here, here and here). The restaurant itself looks like an old school tavern that you would find near a college....traditional bar, neon signs, big screen TV’s and wooden tables and chairs.

Their plain cheese pie is perfection. It is thin and crisp but still holds up without all that flopping. Be warned that the folks over at Star Tavern aren’t doing anything fancy (no fresh mozzarella, no basil, no drizzles of truffle oil). What they are doing is simple pizza with a good char, nice tangy sauce and perfect cheese distribution.

I’ve been going since I was a child and continue to enjoy it just as much as an adult. I don’t know anyone who hasn’t eaten Star and agreed it is fantastic. For me, it’s 100% pizza love and nothing beats it.
N-O-T-H-I-N-G.




(photos courtesy of Off The Broiler)

Singing Sundaes

They call it “Dessert Theater” and I call it one of the best times I’ve ever had eating ice cream. At The Music Man Singing Ice Cream Shoppe in Lavallette, NJ, a cast of performers (who double as the shop’s wait staff) does a 40-minute musical revue six or seven times a night.

Once everyone is served their ice cream, the performers put on an adorable and very entertaining cabaret type show. They will scoop, squirt, serve, sing and dance until your dish is scraped clean! The talented cast maneuvered around the entire shop encouraging audience participation (for example, if you order the Chubby Checker sundae, you might be called on to get up and do the twist). My niece “J” and brother-in-law had to stand up and sing.... and my nephew “T” was serenaded, probably because he’s cute as a button.

The sweet shop has a lot more going for it than theatrics, including tons of yummy ice cream flavors, several different delicious sundaes, and a gift/fudge shoppe to stop in as you exit. I can’t tell you how much I thoroughly adored this calorie-filled cabaret show!! It was a super sweet ending to a terrific day at the beach.

Enjoy my gazillion photos: