Pizza Quest '09 has continued. Went to D' Allesandro's today with 2 friends. So I know that this place is off St. Phillip's Street and it's a pizza place...so that would lead me to believe it is by the college but wrong! It's at the opposite end, used to be seedy but now undergoing gentrification so it's getting nicer down there. Right when you feel you must have missed it, this little beacon of light shines down on 229 letting you know you are in the right place.
We got there at 7:30 on a Thursday night (tonight actually) and it was packed! I got lucky and snagged the last table. For the next hour, the tables stayed full. It had a great college atmosphere: scruffy (but clean) guys working in the kitchen, local artists' hanging on the wall (their work, not the people themselves), cafeteria style table/bench combos. I think it maybe would fit about 35 people in there. The wait staff was super nice and super informative. When I asked about a beer they had on tap, he offered to bring me a sample.
While waiting for our third friend, the feasting began. We started things off with some cheesy garlic bread - definitely my weakness! There were big, tasty chunks of garlic with just melted cheese on toasty bread, served with a side of tomato sauce. YUMMM! The menu had a wide variety of pizzas but we settled on the Margherita and a Big Cheesy (a delicious blend of Mozzarella, ricotta, provolone, feta, parmesan, garlic, and oregano - but unimportant now since the judging is only on the Margherita). The crust was nice and crispy after being cooked in their rotating oven. The fresh mozzarella was melted to perfection and there was a plethora of basil. The one thing I did not like was that the tomato was cut into big hunks. Something about them just didn't taste right.
Despite being so crowded, the wait staff did not try to rush us off after eating. The pizza was very inexpensive, at a measly $12 for a 12" pizza. The beer was also reasonably priced at only $3.25. Also a plus: lots of cute guys there! Interestingly enough, the scene changed at about 9:15 from a mostly college kids crowd to a...hmmm...politically correct way to put this?....locals from before all the rich people moved into the neighborhood crowd. Not bad, but nice to know!
So far, I rank D'Allesandro's at #2 on my list.
2 comments:
That pizza they call the Big Cheesy is also known as a white pizza. (Because the lack of tomato sauce and all the cheese makes it appear white, not because white people especially like it. I don't really know much about race and pizza preferences.)
But wouldn't cultural pizza preferences make a great food anthropological study?!x
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