Santucci's Original Square Pizza

Santucci's is a hole in the wall. A delicious, delicious, hole in the wall. The pizza is unlike any I've ever had, it's square pizza with the sauce on top. Really, there's no point in writing a review, because Santucci's is something you must taste to understand.

The sauce is perfectly sweet, the crust is tasty, and even with the sauce on top its surprisingly not messy. I know down the road I'm going to have cravings for the unique pie. I recommend sticking with the cheese pie; no toppings needed.

City Tap House

Not wanting to squander a rare lunch break in West Philly, Dan and I ventured in search of the best bar in the area. We ended up at City Tap House. This huge new space is beautiful, if weird. Located in the heart of University City, it has the potential to attract an annoying crowd. But we didn’t deal with any of that on our visit. The staff here is great, and our bartender was knowledgeable about his beer. He was willing to pour samples and offered carefully thought suggestions.

The space is beautiful. The bar is probably the largest in the city, and City Tap house also boasts a sizable dining room with an open kitchen. To top it off, there’s an great outdoor area complete with faux fire pits. Overall, the space is impressive and well used. even the bathrooms leave a good impression.

Let’s move on to the important part: Beer. The first time I visited City Tap House I was part of a record setting night: Most taps by a brewery in a single place at once. Ever. The brewery was Bell’s and there were some great beers available. Still, on a normal day, the Tap House boast a quite respectable list. With the sixty taps available, they offer something for everyone and are simultaneously able to have more than a few rare and impressive drinks on tap. I had a black IPA, Hop in the Dark, from Deschutes Brewery, and, at the moment, City Tap House is the only place in the state that has beer from Deschutes. I cannot imagine the person (other than those who do not like beer at all) that is unable to find something enjoyable.

The menu here is impressive. While ordering, I was wrestling between several different choices, and there is a dinner menu available that I didn’t even see. Because I believe the cheeseburger is the standard to which all other food at an establishment can be benchmarked, I ordered one medium rare with mushrooms and bleu. It came out quickly and well cooked. It was a huge burger, and in reality, I should have only ate half of it. Everything on the burger was high quality, with the bleu cheese as an incredible standout. While not my favorite burger I’ve ever had, I have no hesitation putting this on the highest echelon of burgers in the city. The thin, crispy fries perfectly round out the dish.

Dan ordered a pizza, and it came out perfectly cooked. The pizza is cooked in a brick oven, and the result is a crispy, thin pizza that, like the burger, is excellently crafted. Also like the burger, one pizza is more than enough food for one person. City Tap House offers several mouth watering combinations of toppings for the pies.

Bottom Line: Prices are on par with everything else in this area. The space is beautiful and huge, just like the tap list. The food rounds out this contender for the best bar in West Philadelphia.

Pizzeria Stella

Pizzeria Stella has been calling to me since it opened. I love a good pie, and my friend Quinn lives around the block. I was (an still am) thrown off by Starr's comments that good pizza isn't available in Philly. Tacconelli's has always been a special treat for me, and it's widely considered some of the best pizza in the country, not just Philadelphia. Is Starr just pimping up his new place? Or does he really believe that if it's not under his watch, it's not that good? I may never know.

For an appetizer, Quinn and I split arancini. It's a creamy, buttery, mushroom risotto rolled into a ball, lightly breaded and deep fried. The outside has the texture of hushpuppy. The contrast of the fried outside and the delicious pasta inside truly makes a great dish. I don't remember having arancini before, so I don't have anything else to compare it to, but this was a great way to start our meal.

Stella is likely the fanciest pizza you will find in Philadelphia, and truth be told, it is some of the best. My mouth is watering a bit just thinking about it. They are small, at 12 inches in diameter. Much has been made of the pistachio pizza, and I was quite happy with our decision to split it. It is a white pizza topped with chopped pistachios, red onion, fontina, and olive oil. The combination and ratio of these toppings was great, and having nuts on a pizza tasted completely natural.

Our second pie was the Piccante: capicola (prosciutto-like spied and cured ham), provolone, crushed red pepper, and tomato sauce. The sauce is great; sweet and tangy, but still only a compliment to the other toppings. This pie was good, but the capicola was much too salty, and seemed to dominate the whole pie. Quinn disagreed with me though. The Piccante was her favorite, while I preferred the pistachio.

Sadly, the beer list here is weak. The beers are either not very good, overpriced, and in some cases, both. I'm interested in how Starr's beer garden shapes up. The rest of the menu is rounded out with twelve pies in total, and there should be one that would please any palate. Menu can be seen here. The service and atmosphere are right in line with Starr's other locations. The open kitchen where the pies are made and the prominent oven are gimmicky. But they're cool gimmicks nonetheless.

Bottom Line: Pizzas are small and expensive, but delicious. The outdoor seating here makes this a great summer or spring dinner. You'll drop around $50 for two without drinks, but it is worth it. The pies are really great, and the medley of toppings is a real treat.

Essentials:

420 S 2nd St (2nd and Lombard)

215-320-8000

Hours: M-T 11:30-10, F 11:30-11, Sat 11-11, Sun 11-10

Pies: 10-17

Cash Only: No

Reservations: Not accepted. They take a cell phone number when you show up and let you walk around until your table is ready

NYPD Pizza

On my way home a few nights back, I had a sudden urge for a great slice of pizza. I'm a huge fan of Lorenzo's on South, but it was out of my way and I was feeling some toppings. I stopped by the NYPD pizza shop on the outskirts of the Gayborhood to try their slices.

I walked in an met face to face with a schizophrenic pizza shop. The name should have tipped me off. There was Italian music playing and other "motherland" decorations. So you're trying to be a pizza shop with an Italian identity named after NYC located in Philly? What's the deal? Further, this is just a stop-by joint. Sure, there are a few tables in the back, but no one is hanging out here. It's a grab and go. There's no problem with that, it's just not charming.

Despite the atmosphere, I was impressed with the shop. There were several different types of pizzas half cooked and sliced, just waiting for a hungry patron to say the word have have the slices whisked into the oven for the final minutes of baking.

I opted to go with the veggie slice, which was covered with diced tomatoes, green peppers and garlic. The ratios of the toppings, cheese, crust, and sauce were impeccable. The crust was perfectly thick and crispy. There are so many pizza shops in town that just don't have this kind of skill. Everything tasted great. Honestly, the taste of the pizza was enough to make up for any of the short fallings of NYPD Pizza.

Bottom Line: I generally don't expect to shell out $3.24 per slice. I also don't generally expect stop and go joints to have excellent pizza. Although I may not stop by again anytime soon, this is surely the best bet for Center City area pizza.

Essentials:

140 S 11th St (11th and Walnut)

(215) 733-0651

Avg slice: $3

Cash only: No

Reservations: No

Dock Street

I've been to Dock Street several times, but haven't had a chance to write about it. I stopped by last night with a few friends. We waited a while for an outdoor table, which was worthwhile because it was so nice. Dock street was pretty busy, inside and out, so it was pretty weird that they weren't taking names for tables. The whole place seemed to be understaffed, and possibly suffers from poor management.

On my other trips to Dock St the service was good, but last night it was terrible. The table we had been waiting for was sitting uncleared for quite a while, so we just decided to sit down before someone else took "our" table. After waiting about twenty minutes without our server stopping by, I headed into the bar to buy drinks. The food order took about an hour to come out, and wasn't brought over to our table until we tracked down the server and asked about it. I have had great service here in the past, so it's safe to say the service is hit or miss.

For food, Dock St excels at pizza. They have several different specialty pizzas that are great thin crust guys made in an open wood-burning stove. There are also sandwiches and appetizers on the menu, but I recommend sticking to the pies. Dock St is a respectable micro brewery that serves up pints, pitchers, and growlers of their own beers. In fact, they only tap their own beer. They usually have a selection of about five brews that rotate with some regularity. Last night I had the summer session, a light wheat beer with a lemon grass flavor, and the hoppy Bohemian pilsner. Both were good beers. I've always been able to find something on their tap list that suits my mood and palate.

Dock St has a great open atmosphere with a long bar and lots of seating. It was great to sit outside on such a nice day, too.

Bottom Line: Despite my negative experience last night, overall I think Dock St is a good stop. They make great beers that aren't widely found in other places across the city. They change beers and have enough variety to make regular stops dynamic enough. The pizza is good, especially for sharing with three or four people. It's one of the better stops in the neighborhood.

Essentials:

701 S 50th St (50th and Baltimore)

(215) 726-2337

Avg Ent: 5-9, Large pie: 12-18

Cash only: No

Reservations: No

Fiore Pizza: Move over Key!

The only new place I tried out this week was Fiore Pizza. It's a new spot on the corner of Kensington and Huntington. It is as good, if not better than your average corner pizza shops. The pizza is pretty good; I will order again at some point in the future. The prices are great ($7 large cheese) and the staff is nice. They have some other good specials. I like this place because it's within walking distance, too.

It's better than Key Pizza, which for some reason has established itself as the best pizza place in Kensington and Fishtown, at least in the minds on my friends. Fiore is here to challenge that claim. I like promoting new spots, and I think this place is definitely worth a try if you're in the nieghborhood.

(215) 739-6800

Earth Bread and Brewery

Last weekend, Saturday was a perfect day. I joined Jesse's Beer by Bike (photo credits) ride to do a 25 mile-ish bike ride out to Earth Bread and Brewery in Mt. Airy. As the name states , Earth only really serves up flat bread pizza and beer. They are a microbrewery, and only had two of their own beers available. Despite that, they have a decent selection.

For lunch, I had the seed flatbread. The pizza was topped with pine nuts, pumpkin and sunflower seeds, and roasted garlic. It was delicious, and a great deal at $6. The rest of the group ordered all different kinds of flatbread, and with the exception of the traditional (which just looked like a tomato pie with a small pile of basil in the middle) everything looked great. I followed up my pizza with a cheese plate appetizer. It was mediocre, and at $9, I was wishing I has ordered more pizza instead.

For beer, I tried both of Earth's brews. They serve up two sizes of everything; 13 oz for $3.75 and 20oz for $5. For the beers on tap, these are decent prices. Monkey Brain Tonic (terrible name) was my first beer, which is a light Belgian ale at 2.8%. Since we had just taken the huge bike ride, this beer was so refreshing. I had their barley wine also, which was fine. It was nothing remarkable, but I was impressed since it was made in house.

Earth has a small bar and a few tables. There is also an upstairs dining area, but it wasn't open while I was there. There is an open brewing and kitchen area, complete with the brick oven right out in the open. It has a very cool atmosphere, and would be a great place to take kids. Jesse's kids, Jane and Maruke, watched the cook making pizza for quite some time. The one thing that I loved is that they are really working with the Earth theme. There were a few full cool maps covering the walls and some globes in strategic locations around the restaurant. The theme is right up my alley.

The bartender was cool, pretty diligent for how many people he was serving, and did a great job keeping all of the checks separate. For some reason, however, I have the feeling (and have heard) that Earth doesn't have very good service.

Bottom Line: I was pleased with Earth, but with the lack of variety, it will be a long time before I visit again. Earth is fine, and if it was around the corner I'd stop by every now and again. It's definitely good enough to check out at least once.

Essentials:
7136 Germantown Ave (Germantown and Durham)
215.242.MOON (6666)
Avg Ent: 6-15
Cash Only: No
Reservations: No

$2 Tacconelli's pizza..

Maybe you don't know this, but Lana loves scratch tickets.  I bought one for her last night and she/we won $14.  I don't play the lottery often; therefore, I win even less.  So I was pretty excited.  Instead of wasting the winnings on more tickets, as I'm sure many people do, I proposed the idea that we should use the winnings for a trip to Tacconelli's next week.  In case you didn't know, this place is legendary.  You have to call a day a head of time and reserver your dough.  One guy makes all of the pizzas.  They are only open five days a week because they want to take a break.  It's pretty cool, and a total adventure, and some of the most delicious pizza you will ever have.  Want to join us?

Also, it's BYO, which is awesome.  There are often families drinking wine out of plastic cups (which is possibly the definition of kitsch).  Still, it makes for a good trip, and I'm sure I could find a good pairing for the pizza with one of the 14 different kinds of beer in the fridge at my house right now.