Papalino's New York Pizzeria

http://papalinosnypizzeria.com/Home.html


This past weekend my family decided to try out Papalinos NY Pizzeria, located on Baxter Avenue in the Highlands. The location for this restaurant is interesting as it's only a few doors down from Wick's Pizza, a well-established restaurant that I frequent every Tuesday for its trivia nights. The choice of setting up another pizza restaurant on the same block as Wick's was clearly intentional and, I suspect, will provide a great deal of competition for Wick's.

Papalinos offers dine-in and carry out, and my family opted for the latter; this was probably a good idea, since the restaurant is very small and only has a handful of tables, both inside and out. When I picked up the pizza, the outside tables were completely full (not surprising, given the wonderfully warm and sunny weather we had that day), but no one was seated at the indoor tables. To be honest, I was less than impressed with the indoor seating; the eating area seemed dark and reminded me of grimy McDonald's I have been to over the years.

Picking up the pizza was also an adventure, though not unexpected. I was there a little after 7 on a Friday evening, so naturally all of Baxter was packed with people and cars. I ended up having to park at the Walgreens two blocks down (where I usually park for trivia at Wick's anyway), but I felt a little foolish carrying a large box of pizza down the street.

For five people, we got an 18" pizza to split between four people, while my mom opted for a single slice of pizza - which turned out to be about the size of a personal pan pizza. Even the slices on our pizza were massive, but I was so hungry that I downed two of them without thinking. I can't even remember what our toppings were besides sausage and cheese, though I'm sure we had something along the lines of onions, olives, and green peppers. Yes, I was that hungry.

Papalinos' claim to fame is that it's New York-style pizza, which prompted a discussion amongst us as to what, exactly, a New York pizza is. So off to Wikipedia I went in search of an answer. According to wiki, New York pizza "is large, wide, thin and foldable... It is traditionally hand-tossed and light on sauce. The slices are often eaten as a 'street snack' while folded in half, as it's [sic] size and flexibility sometimes makes it unwieldy to eat flat." And that's exactly what we had. In fact, my mom unknowingly ate her pizza in the traditional New York manner - folded over in the style of a calzone.

If you find yourself in the area craving a pizza and want something that doesn't have much sauce, you'll want to try out Papalinos. I prefer my pizza this way, and would therefore choose Papalinos over Wick's any day (Wick's tends to be sauce-heavy). But we debated for a while over whether or not Papalinos is better than Boom Bozz, my family's go-to pizza place. We concluded that although Papalinos was excellent, Boom Bozz is far easier to get to, and just as tasty. Still, Papalinos is not to be ignored, and I'm sure I'll find myself back there on some warm weekend after a night of drinks at O'Shea's (which is right across the street from Papalinos).

- Guest blogger, Hannah S.
http://primachocolate.blogspot.com/

Red Star Tavern

http://www.restaurants-america.com/ra/restaurants/red-star-tavern

Last night a group of coworkers descended upon the Red Star Tavern for an evening of drinks, fun, and cheap food. This is precisely what we found. 5 dollar wines, 3 dollar beers, 5 dollar mixed drinks, and half price appetizers. We ordered several of the house cabernets, some Samuel Adams Oktoberfests, and white Russians and commenced the evening. The service was prompt and nice – they accomidated us and served us these happy hour specials at a table inside, even though they reported that they usually just reserve them for those who sit at the bar or outside (to make it look busy, perhaps?).

We ordered a lot of food! Some of the ahi tuna bites, which were simply scrumptious and char-grilled on the outside and raw on the other. Those were just fabulous in terms of taste. Calamari could have been skipped – it tasted like “friend nothing,” as my friend said. The sweet potato fries were delectable. We also got a less-than-great order of spinach dip. I liked it sufficiently, but my coworkers were not impressed by it (it tasted canned, I’ll admit). The whole reason I chose to come to the Red Star Tavern was to grab some of its fabulous corn bread. My best friend first introduced me to the cornbread back in 2005 and I’ve been heading back to only this restaurant every time I’ve been on fourth street (i.e., next to never) ever since. The bread comes out with a honking knife, a grand dollop of butter on top, and is served in a black metal circular skillet of the good stuff. Little chili peppers fill in the inside to make the bread just that much more southern, rich, and wonderful. The taste is neither too sweet nor salty, but I could always use a little more butter.

I embarked on a new food adventure and ordered the nachos, which were good but a little too filled with saucy bean stuff. The accompanying salsa tasted like cool refrigerator-inside (yum yum!) and I opted not to use it as a condiment.

Our waitress got our checks wrong and gave us incorrect change, warranting me to leave no tip since she already took out 50% (my bill was 2.50, mind you). Overall the experience was downright fabulous and I wouldn’t hesitate to go back there with coworkers for an evening of inexpensive, post-work fun. The icing on our cake was stepping out into the street to see some sort of mixed martial arts fight in session (and to people watch the awesome spectators all evening long). If I had to recommend another venue for a post-work get together that wasn’t downtown (getting people out to holiday manor would never happen after work, though) I would suggest stopping at Mojito’s tapas restaurant and bar!