Brooklyn's Finest

Now That's Buffalo Chicken

Brooklyn this, Brooklyn that. Want the best sandwich? Go to Brooklyn. Want the best bagel? Go to Brooklyn. Want the best pizza? Go to Brooklyn. What to do when you're not in Brooklyn but want the best? Do not be tempted to go to the places that reference Brooklyn in their store name. It's not just a New York phenomenon because you can go to most any state to find New York style something, and sometimes more specifically, Brooklyn style.

Now that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's actually somewhat flattering and definitely a sound business plan. All that aside, there's a new contender for your pizza buying dollars on Staten Island and the theme is Brooklyn Dodgers based. The restaurant? Brooklyn's Finest. Why Brooklyn's Finest is on Staten Island is curious. Why there's no Richard Gere photos is beyond me too. The restaurant has sandwiches themed for the various neighborhoods of the best borough. BF is relatively new (opened April 2011) and is located really close to the Bridge but being so close to the bridge that separates SI and BK, you better be really good to want to entice me not to cross the bridge.

Grandma's Boy

The pizza offerings were vast, so vast that three needed to be sampled because I was my usual slovenly self and I was also feeling rather indecisive. That all being said, the buffalo chicken pizza really was an eye opener. This was like one of my most favoritest buffalo chicken pizzas ever. EVER! Two things made it great: 1) the buffalo chicken was actually spicy 2) the pizza dough was thick, no sauce (pizza sauce that is), and the perfect amount of cheese.

Hmmm. You look familiar.

The other sampled pieces were a grandma slice (good taste, GREAT sauce, but lacked the crunch at the bottom) and an L&B style square that delivered with the same great sauce, overall good flavor, but very thin in comparison. Thickness was about double that of the grandma square but still too thin to replicate the L&B square. Not that I am saying the goal was to replicate said square but they went through great lengths to make it look like that square.

Rating - 3.25/5 Lots of stuff to try and the specialty pies really seemed to be the way to go. There was cheesesteak, buffalo, marsala, ziti, etc. The buffalo was really good and I think the rest looked to be worthy of a second look.

Brooklyn's Finest is located at 1250 Hylan Blvd in the same shopping plaza as Bocelli's.

Their site - http://brooklynspizzany.com/

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L and B Spumoni Gardens

L & B Still Going Strong

I left Brooklyn so many years ago it's getting too hard to keep track. The one place that I absolutely always needed to return to was Spumoni Gardens. Long before there were countless TV shows with random hosts coming and drooling over the pizza served at L&B, this family owned establishment has always had a lot full of cars coupled with cars being double and triple parked out front. Go there on any warm day in the summer and you'll see that same scene. Go there in the winter and the lot's still full and there may be some double parked cars. Pizza is cooked and served equally as fast.

I have so many stories and memories of visits to this place it can fill a book. As a kid growing up in BK, I knew good pizza and I also knew that L&B was the pinnacle - for two reasons:

1. When we were moving to SI, my uncle stopped with my brother and I, double parked our moving truck out front, and we grabbed some squares because he said, "you'll never eat pizza like this out there." While I wasn't sure he'd ever been to Staten Island to back up his statement, I believed him. He also said "you'll never see girls like these outside of Brooklyn." On a mid-August day, that's a VERY hard claim to refute.

And, more importantly

2. I do not eat squares. EVER. Except from here. That is a fairly large statement.

Revisiting an earlier post, I do not like thick, doughy pizza. The squares at Spumoni Gardens are not too thick and have a signature crunch that is out of this world. For me the secret to the success of their squares is in the cooking. The dough receives a healthy drizzle of olive oil, followed by a generous coating of sliced mozzarella, and then covered in a sweet, delicious, thick pizza sauce. Ultimately, the squares shine because this sauce is amazing. Yes, the crust is typically crunchy and perfect. Yes the cheese is melted in nicely, forming a nice, gooey layer on top of the dough. But at the end of the day, it's love at first bite because the sauce is just that damn good.

When living in SI, before gas prices were insane and the toll on the VZ bridge was somewhat tolerable, I would make 2-3 trips a week to the Gardens for squares and spumoni. Why? Because the squares are that good and the spumoni is the perfect finish after knocking off a couple of squares.

Rating - 5/5. This is the absolute best square your money can buy and the homemade spumoni is peerless.

Their site - http://www.spumonigardens.com/

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