5 Boro Pizza Tour: Astoria and Beyond

Do you like pizza? Are you adventurous? Are you free on Sunday, July 26th? Jeffrey over at iwantmorefood.com is organizing a 5 boro pizza tour, and he's starting things off in the borough of Queens, and at Rose & Joes in Astoria at that! Here's his intro:

The 5-Boro Pizza Tour starts Sunday, July 26th. It will continue for 4 Sundays this summer, each Sunday touring a different borough.

We will sample a slice or 2 from each shop, ordering by the pie. Extensive research, networking and legwork has been done to find some of best and most intriguing pizza in NYC. Each tour will have a variety of styles and will last at least a few hours. Expect to make some new friends.

This is an ambitious tour, one not for the general public. But I am sure we can find enough freaks in this city of 10 million to satisfy a proper pizza eating group. This is not meant to be a feat of strength, we leave that to AYCE and IFOCE. This is a tour de pizza. Many of the places I haven’t been to (Staten Island), and I would be surprised if anyone has eaten at all of the pizzerias mentioned, even all the pizzas for one of the boroughs.

Contact him (do not contact us!) for more info and to reserve your spot.

Rose and Joe's and Rizzo's.

Over on Grub Street, they've noticed my penchant for Rose and Joe's Sicilian slices. So much so, that they wanted to know if they are really that amazing. Well, they got some responses! The result:

There was a bit of volatile reaction from our readers to the quality of Rose & Joe's Sicilian pies: “Any self-respecting pizza eater in Astoria will know that going anywhere but Rizzo’s for a square pie/slice is absolutely maniacal.”

I have to say, even though I love Rose and Joe's, I do love me some Rizzo's. Whenever I'm in that part of town and I'm hungry for a snack, Rizzo's tops my list. I love their slice with ricotta and tomatoes. Square slices are tasty, too. I think Rizzo's has some of the best pizza in Astoria. Oh, they are one of the few places around that sells RC cola "on tap".

Joey likes Rizzo's too! So does flooz, I believe.

FYI, though, I had a Sicilian slice from Rose and Joe's this weekend, this time topped with pepperoni, and it was crazy delicious!

Around Town

Boy is it a hot day! It's been steamy all morning, and I've been outside, so it's nice to be home in the a/c before I have to head out in a bit. One way I've found to beat the heat is to drink lots of liquids, preferably cold ones. I've got the water on to heat up for tea, which I prepare in a very large mason jar. Three tea bags seems to be enough, I let it steep then put it in the fridge. Keeps me hydrated with some variety, as drinking just plain water gets a little boring for me all the time. I'm going to brew some "Thai Delight", an herbal tea I discovered via my housemate. It tastes a bit like thai iced tea when you put milk/soy in it.

While walking home, I discovered that Alba's Pizza (37th Street and Ditmars) serves pizza with a whole wheat crust by request. The other place in town that does that is Pizza Palace (31st and Ditmars), but there's been chatter that their pizza has really gone downhill. Plus they are truly annoying with that whole "freedom fries" crap. WTF???

Oleput (Ditmars and 32nd) is a fantastic new sweet shop in town. It's the brainchild of the guys behind Sparrow, my favorite bar in town. They sell Mary's Dairy ice cream, and make it into wonderful shakes ($4.50). They have the most magical pies in NY, Briermere pies, as well as baked goods from Tomcat bakery. They also have some homemade stuff. More delicious offerings of the savory sort are coming as well. Sooz and I checked it out last week and we both said thumbs up! Stay tuned for more talk about it, plus more pictures!

Stamatis has been working on their new building across the street from their current one (23rd Ave between 31st and 29th streets) for many months, and it's finally looking like an actual restaurant! I've peeked in while walking by and it looks really nice. Am looking forward to checking it out when it opens.

More to come!