Pizza Town: Elmwood Park, NJ
September 14, 2009
At that point, I should note, I was head-over-heals for Neapolitan style pizza (still am), and the standard Jersey slice was interesting me less and less. I very likely ate that slice just knowing it wasn't going to be special, and that no doubt colored my assessment.
But it's a new day, and Jimmyeats, t:e field researcher, told me that the place rocks, so I gave it another chance. This time, I got a whole pie to bring home. This time, with a new perspective.
Third, which damned near floored me, was the cooking time: the pizza was out of the oven in under 3 minutes (contrasted with your average pizza joint, which cooks pizza for 10 minutes or more). And, and, they pull this off using just regular gas-fired deck ovens, not coal- or wood-burning ovens (which generally run much hotter than gas-fired ovens). Three minutes is incredibly fast for this type of oven. The advantage to this fast cooking is that the dough doesn't have time to dry out and turn into cardboard. Cardboard, I'm afraid, isn't very good, and it's what most pizza shops seem to use to hold their sauce and cheese.
Fourthly, on the subject of cardboard, cardboard, Pizza Town gets props not only for making exceptional pizza, but for also using a non-generic pizza box. You know, that generic box that says "From your favorite local pizza shop," or, "Hot and Tasty," or some such nonsense. They use the same box they've likely been using for years, and one that has a glowing review from 1958 from the Paterson Morning Call (now defunct). The reviewer said something that, amazingly, and sadly, holds true to this day. I say "sadly" because of the comments on the state of pizza in general:
- Picnic table seating in an enclosure that's hardly temperature controlled.
- Open until 2 am on weekends. How great is that.
- Order slices from the middle window when you walk in. Whole pies are ordered at the left window. I'd imagine that confusing the two might be unpleasant. And I'm not even sure what the third window is for, but I suspect zeppole.