Fornino: Williamsburg

Fornino, Margherita Classica
Originally uploaded by Slice

We really love pizza. We’ve been known to go on long pizza binges, sometimes so desperate we'd fry a pizza slice to reheat it out of necessity. We've also been known to anger others with our intense pizza cravings. Luckily for us, we found heaven at Fornino’s in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Fornino’s is artisan pizza at its very best. As far as we know from reading the menu, everything is made in house, including the mozzarella. They also have their own garden space to grow herbs and tomatoes. The wood fired oven gives the crust a nice, crispy, slightly charred flavor. This is the only way too cook a pizza; we’re thinking of starting a petition to have the government mandate this.

We actually visited Fornino on two consecutive nights. On our first visit we ordered (and engulfed) a pie called the Al Roker. This was ordered partly due to the hilarious nature of the name, being the only celebrity pie on the menu. More so because we were craving caramelized onions on our pie. In addition to the caramelized onions, the Al Roker included sopressata, garlic, rosemary and fresh mozzarella. A winning combination, the rosemary really accents the sweet smokey tomato sauce while the sopressata is just salty enough to make you crave more.

The next night we truly tried to find a new joint to check out but we had to face the facts, we wanted another slice of Fornino. We order the Margherita classic as pictured. So simple, so good. Some great olive oil drizzled on at the end was a nice touch.

We’re already craving more; maybe we’ll hit up Emmas in Cambridge this week…

Homemade Pizza Pies!

Much to the surprise of The Salted Cod, we have finally made a good pizza at home. The crust was basic supermarket pizza dough which was first oiled and grilled on the barbie to give it a nice crunch (and those burnt edges we love so much.) We then topped this pie with fire roasted eggplant & sweet potato chunks along with caramelized onions and crumbled goat cheese. A few sprinklings of dried rosemary really brought this to a higher level. The topped pizza then went under the broiler for a few minutes to melt the cheese.

Even the roommates were impressed by this pie, "looks better than Mama Celeste!"

Worst Slice

There's no question that the Salted Cod has a weakness for pizza, and as a new contributor I felt obligated to blog this slice. If you didn't know already, Regina is Boston's best. Unfortunately, this is only true when you visit the original Thatcher Street location in the North End. I was on my way to a concert on Lansdowne and opted for the food court in the Pru, and made the worst pizza decision of my life. Their first mistake was choosing to not re-heat my slice and instead throwing it in one of those lame cardboard slice-shaped boxes. Lame. Second mistake, ordering two slices. I know good pizza when I see it, and I definitely was not seeing it. But my hunger got the best of me and there I was, sitting in the filthiest food court of one of the bougiest malls with two soggy, under-cooked slices in two hideous (and rather wasteful) boxes. As I was picking at the remains of my room temperature cheese, I realized I actually had a better slice of Regina at the Holyoke Mall. Man. The obvious moral of this pizza tale of woe is always stick with the original. And, for your own amusement here is a collection of me suffering through this poor meal choice.

Slice

This is Boston's 2nd best slice.

Cheaper than McDonald's

Came across Galleria Umberto on Hanover street today while riding my bike around town. Awesome Sicilian pizza and highly recommended arancini's. Some old guy told me "just try one" when I asked him what's in them. Turns out to be an oversize corn fritter stuffed with rice, cheese, meat and peas. Good stuff. No disappointments today, lunch was $3.45