Saturday, May 30, 2009

Grubby: Denino's Pizza

This post is five weeks coming. Way back in April, our 5th Food Adventure took us to the supposedly delicious pizza haunts of Staten Island. Not so great. A beautiful ferry ride and a stop in a very "arousing " cavern of a bar redeemed our trip. Let me elaborate:

Sietsema obviously leads me to many spots described here. He likes Denino's. There are entire Chowhound postings on Staten Island pizza. So I thought we had to do it. Long story short - pretty good pie, but not nearly worth the ferry and bus I dragged folks on. If this was in your neighborhood, you'd probably get it regularly. But it's not worth a trip across Manhattan, let alone to Shaolin. Maybe if you had a car or something and were doing a big pizza tour. Anyways, I digress.

It's a soccer party pizza place. In fact, there were several tables of uniformed children chowing down. It could probably be transplanted to most anywhere in the country and would fit.

The pie: like I said, pretty good. I was expecting amazing, so maybe I'm being rash, but no one in our ten person troop was overwhelmed. I liked it - in fact I feel like I liked it more than everyone else. We got three pies: Buffalo chicken, the MOR (meatballs, onions and ricotta) and the Garbage (Pepperoni, Meatballs, Sausage, Mushrooms and Onions).
M.O.R :

Skeptic:

The M.O.R. was my fave - ricotta was the standout flavor here. Most others preferred the Garbage. The Buffalo Chicken would have benefited from a little crumbled Blue Cheese. Regular old thin crust, regular old sauce. What is with the hype? It's a serviceable, nay, pretty good spot. But superb? The "superior pie on the island"? Yeesh - I'll yank my collar there.

I think I'm just embarassed to have taken 10 people on a 90 min trip to the place.
Three slices:

Thank God, right down the street was the most excellent G-Spot bar. Child labor pouring drinks from handles of Captain Morgan. A pool table slanted towards one corner pocket - anywhere the ball was struck, it rolled back to the corner right! Gorgeous velvet Aztec landscapes. Good shit and cold Tecate.




Though it brings a vurp to my mouth, I will begrudgingly mention that I did take everyone to a second pizza spot, "Brother's", at the recommendation of Chowhound forums. Upon first bite, I deemed it "gas station pizza" and was ashamed. The crust came pre-made in plastic bags! I spent the rest of the time gratuitously apologizing to all and sundry. Here is sad Carina with something claimed to be "Cheese sticks" and Stan sucking on "part-skim cheese food":



As I mentioned, the ferry can be divine on a beautiful day:


Info: Way the fuck out on Staten Island. Get a car.

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