Pizza Worth the Walk-Grimaldi's

Last weekend, the family was in town, and we took a stroll across the Brooklyn Bridge. Though the day was a bit drizzly and gray, we gawked at the Statue of Liberty, picked out the Empire State Building through the fog, and experienced the Bernoulli effect. Our willingness to endure a few sprinkles was rewarded with a short line at famed Brooklyn pizza joint Grimaldi's, our final destination, nearly smack dab under the bridge.

Home to a coal-fired brick pizza oven, Grimaldi's churns out the bubbling pizzas like clockwork--they need just a few minutes in the toasty oven to bake. The pizzas are all topped with fresh mozzarella, which blisters a delightful brown in the heat. The smell of garlic and basil permeates the small dining room, and it's hard to wait your turn. Our party of six made short work of two larges, one with pepperoni and sausage, the other with peppers, mushrooms and extra garlic (which ensured family togetherness for the rest of the afternoon).

For an extra treat, I suggest a stop at the nearby Jacques Torres chocolate shop for dessert.

Grimaldi's
19 Old Fulton St. under the Brooklyn Bridge
718.858.4300
cash only

From East to Ouest

Fresh lychees in Chinatown, after dim sum at Jing Fong.

So grad school may not prevent me from eating (as my disturbingly regular afternoon chocolate chip cookie break can attest), but it certainly prevents me from writing about it. In between chapters of the U.S. military's Counterinsurgency Manual and afternoons spent deriving the consumer and producer surplus, I've savored barstool dinners at Franny's and Bar Stuzzichini, both purveyors of rustic, nibbly Italian food and home to well-made aperitifs. I've also discovered 50-cent Ukrainian-grandmother-made varenyky in the East Village, sampled Jing Fong's dim sum, and found time to whip up a nutmeg-laced apple crisp. And of course, $3 pizza slices have found their way into my mouth on more than one late night walk home from the library.

Dinner at Bar Stuzzichini--arancini (risotto balls stuffed with cheese), meatballs and eggplant involtini

My dining highlight of the past week, however, was a pre-econ midterm dinner at Ouest. Dinner at this proper spot helped remind me of my adult self, not the cramming in the library with vending machine snacks and drinking $2 Coors Light grad school self (to clarify, the beers are not consumed in the library, though that might help). J and I slipped into the bar, among the well-coiffed ladies and blue-blazered gents of the Upper West Side, and ordered comforting, fork-tender game dishes--pan roasted squab for him, roasted rabbit for me. In both dishes, the sides nearly outshone the meats, not a small feat. For every bite I snatched of his earthy duck liver risotto, he paid me back with a fork in my garlicky capellini studded with wild mushrooms.

The prices at Ouest aren't grad student friendly, but on the day before a big exam, I decided a treat was in order. Besides, all that vending machine food saves me plenty.

Ouest
2315 Broadway
New York, NY 10024
between 83rd and 84th