Adam Kuban: Kublog

31st Avenue near 32nd Street.

Oh, Astoria. Someone just had to have something a little different. But, you know, I kinda like it.

To me, “college town pizza” (University of Kansas — Rock Chalk Jayhawk!) will always be Pizza Shuttle, Gumby’s (since closed), Papa Keno’s, and Rudy’s. (Pyramid was for folks in the Greek system.)

Rudy’s was as close to what J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, writing on Slice, describes as “college town pizza,” which he defines as pizza being over-topped and over-cheesed. Except that kids at KU tended to not overtop it — at least not those who I knew. Not because we were enlightened pizza purists looking to avoid a “garbage pie” but because it cost more. We were cheap bastards. Like most college kids. Hell, we’d rather spend our money on beer. (In my case, beer and pinball.)

Pizza Shuttle and Gumby’s were delivery and take-out only. I don’t know anyone who ever went to pick it up. If you owned a car, by the time you were in a state to actually crave Pizza Shuttle or Gumby’s, you had no business behind the wheel. Read the rest of this entry »

The ‘Matthew’ on white bread (Sullivan Street Bakery’s ‘stirato’ bread).

There are so many great sandwiches in New York City that I want to eat my way through, and yet I find myself at Alidoro again and again.

But there’s a reason this longtime NYC favorite calls to me. Owner and sandwich virtuoso Walter Momente slices impeccable ingredients to order onto each sandwich, and each one is so carefully balanced in terms of flavor and proportions that you almost can’t go wrong ordering any of the 40 on the menu (each one is named).

The Matthew ($11.25) is a crowd favorite, to judge by online reviews and observations made while waiting in line (which is often out the door of this tiny shop around lunchtime). Paper-thin slices of prosciutto join pencil-thick slices of mozzarella along with a fistful of peppery arugula on the bread of your choice. Just enough oil-and-vinegar dressing lends a spicy bite and additional moistness to the assemblage.

It’s enough to fill you up without leaving you feeling bloated—the right amount of sandwich to prompt contemplation of which name you’ll call out next visit.

Alidoro
105 Sullivan Street, New York NY 10012 (map)
212-334-5179; alidoronyc.com

Patisserie Pistache opened this morning in Astoria, Queens. It’s just north of Ditmars Boulevard on 35th Street—behind the yet-to-open Francis Cafe.

The croissants are pretty legit. Comparable to those I’ve had in Paris.

They also serve almond croissants and little tarts and such. Not a huge selection this morning, but maybe they’re starting slowly.

It also sells baguettes from Pain d’Avignon, and they’re great. Totally on par with everyday baguettes in France. I can see myself grabbing one in the morning and making simple jambon-fromage sandwiches for the day ahead. Update (11/7/2012): Pistache has recently changed baguette suppliers and is getting them from Tom Cat now. I don’t think they’re nearly as good as Pain d’Avignon’s. I hope Pistache reverses this decision.

Update: After seeing a tweet about a possible Cannelle Patisserie connection, I called Cannelle to follow up. Turns out that Pistache is not necessarily backed by Cannelle but is carrying its pastries. So, pastries from Cannelle and baguettes from Pain d’Avignon.

Patisserie Pistache: 21-75 35th Street, Astoria NY 11105 (map)

A rendering of the shelves we're ordering

Ever since I moved in to my wife’s apartment shortly after our engagement (she owned, I was renting, it was a no-brainer where we’d live) we’ve been slowly moving toward some semblance of organization. Today we took a big step toward finally putting everything in its place—we ordered a custom shelving system from ISS Designs. Read the rest of this entry »

'The Famous Original A': mozzarella, pizza sauce, Italian fennel sausage, shaved red onions, and a post-bake drizzle of Mike's Hot Honey.

Pizza Night tonight. It’s been a while. Tried a naturally leavened dough this time. That is, a dough made with starter only — no instant dry yeast, no cake yeast, nothing. Just my super starter, Cavanagh.

Made the poolish last night and mixed up the dough this morning. All based on the Tartine Bread cookbook that I’ve been working from lately. It’s basically just the Basic Country Bread dough shaped into six ~300-gram balls instead of two 900-gram boules. It’s a 75% hydration dough. I used 100% all-purpose white flour, since that’s whatI had on hand. I didn’t do the 10% whole wheat that the bread recipe calls for, because I am not a fan of whole wheat pizza dough.

The dough, after two hours bulk rise.

Working with 75% hydration dough is a bitch. I’ve only recently gotten OK at working with it to shape the boules for the book’s Basic Country Bread. At least with the big dough, I can quickly rotate it between cupped hands and along the countertop to help develop surface tension and seal the sphere. But this trick is difficult with the small 300-gram dough balls. Trying to create surface tension by picking up the dough and turning it in upon itself is near impossible, because it sticks to my fingers something fierce.

I managed with a fair amount of bench flour, my bench scraper, and some fast tuck and folds. The dough balls weren’t perfect, but they worked OK.

The first couple of pies out of the oven were a little pale, but by the time the temperature ramped up, I got some decent color along the edge.

After balling the dough, I put it in individual Gladware bowls and threw it in the fridge. I was afraid letting it rise at room temperature would allow it to get too sour.

I was also afraid the coldness of the fridge would make it hard to stretch the dough, but the rounds were as extensible as ever. Not as much as they would have been warm, but for a cold dough, they stretched as easily as my usual 65–67% hydration dough that I normally have to work with at room temp.

In fact, it almost stretched too much. I was worried it was going to break at a couple points.

On 'Slice,' we moved away from the term 'upskirt' for this kind of shot, but here I can use that term with impunity. Ha ha.

I think the bottom looks pretty nice. The end crust, though, probably had a little too much bench flour on it.

Hole structure was only OK. It didn’t get as much oven spring as I would have hoped. I’m chalking it up to the coldness of the dough. In the future I’m going to try some of this formulation at room temperature.

I’m also going to let it do a 3-day cold ferment. The wife said she didn’t think the crust had much flavor to it.

I would agree. But it still had enough flavor to register, and it didn’t offend with blandness.

Homemade Italian fennel sausage, according to the recipe given me by Mark Bello at Pizza a Casa.

The first two pies were simple plain pies. Jarred pizza sauce (yeah, I was lazy), Polly-O whole milk mozzarella, fresh-grated Parmesan cheese, and a little olive oil and salt.

For my third and final I did the Famous Original A — mozzarella, sauce, Parmesan, homemade sausage, and shaved red onion — with a post-bake drizzle of Mike’s Hot Honey. I love the pizza sausage recipe from Pizza a Casa‘s Mark Bello. And now I’ve got half three-quarters of a pound of it sitting in the freezer. It’ll go on my next round of naturally leavened pies.

Hasta la pizza,
Adam

Some quick observations on upcoming and outgoing food options near Ditmars Boulevard–31st Street in Astoria …

From Mezzo Mezzo to … Michael Psilakis?

Construction at the former Mezzo Mezzo started in earnest last week.

That’s the word on Astorians, where the speculation is that the defunct Mezzo Mezzo will become a second location of Michael Psilakis’s MP Taverna (the original is in Roslyn, a short way away on Long Island).

This makes some sense. The bilevel space is enormous, stretching all the way back to where the blue plywood ends. Seems like it would take someone with a proven track record and a name to hit the ground running here and do the kind of business that would cover the rent.

UPDATE: And now it’s confirmed. Psilakis is opening in this space.

31-29 Ditmars Boulevard, Astoria NY 11105

Hinomaru Ramen

It’s moving into the old St. Honore bakery space near the corner of 35th Street. Grub Street brought word earlier this year that it was set to open February 15. Well, obvs, that’s come and gone. Peeking through the plywood, I can see the interior looks most of the way there. There’s a long bank of counter seating on the left of the space and plenty of room for tables on the right.  Read the rest of this entry »

My first loaf of Tartine Bread's "basic country loaf."

Haven’t updated on Tartine bread because, well, it was pretty damn successful the first time I made it. Figured, hell, what do I need to say besides, “It works!”

But you know with gambling — and this is what I’ve only heard — is that if during your first time gambling you win big, you just assume you’re always gonna win big. Similar thing here.

My first batch of bread was pretty damn good. Seriously, better than anything I’ve had from the bakeries in my neighborhood. But … Read the rest of this entry »