Nicky D's Wood-Fired Pizza

Been driving by this place almost every single day so I put it on the short list. It's gotten good reviews online and they claimed there was a hot dude who worked there so I thought, even if the pizza's no good at least I'll have that. I recruited Audrey and Alissa to go with me the other night and I was HUNGRY.

It's got this cute log-cabin feel, from the outside at least - it seemed like it could belong somewhere in Upstate NY and I'd go there if there were motorcycles parked out front. The inside...

From their website

Was happy when we saw there was also an outdoor area, even though it was pretty chilly.


The only problem with the outdoor area besides the spiders were the people smoking next to us while we were eating. But whatever.

We ordered a large pie - half plain and half House Vegetarian (black olives, artichokes, green peppers, mushrooms). $18, I think. It came out looking like this but with two more slices.....




First up - a veggie slice. I'm into that combo of veggies, it looked good, it smelled good...but it was just okay. It reminded me of the Ben's pizza I had on my birthday in that the crust was just too thick and doughy, plus undercooked, and there was too much topping - I couldn't fold that shit. No fucking way. Knife and fork. Ugh. Overall it was nothing special, just pizza. The veggies weren't fresh and it made a huge difference.



The plain slice was slightly better. Same issue with the crust but I could fold it if I tried hard. It was pretty greasy, a pool formed in the middle of my slice immediately. I don't care, just saying. There was a heckofa lot of cheese and probably not a proportional amount of sauce. I definitely preferred this slice to the veggie slice, but this one wasn't that great either. I think when we left I said I really didn't like it. And no hot dude worked that from what I could tell. I wouldn't recommend this place.

Nicky D's Wood-Fired Pizza
2764 Rowena Ave (btwn Rokeby Ave and Glendale Blvd)
Los Angeles, CA 90039

Two Boots

There's a Two Boots a couple blocks away from where I live in Echo Park. Walkable Pizza. Folks, this could be dangerous...



I didn't hate Two Boots the last few times I had it in New York and I was curious to see if this version would be different. They have Pepsi here, not Coke. Is that different? I don't even know.



The setup is exactly the same as it is in NY, in terms of the menu and specialty pies. It's got an over the top interior with this huge mural on one wall that's like...of what?



There's plenty of seating inside and also outdoor seating if you wanna eat there and at least it's above street level.



Alissa and I each got a plain slice and then shared the Verde e Bianco (spinach, ricotta, garlic - no red sauce).

Hello!



We asked the girl working behind the counter to cut this slice in half for us...it's like she started out okay and then got distracted.

Ok, let's go. The plain slice... you got the typical Two Boots style cornmeal dusted crust which is too much cornmeal in my opinion, but that's their signature. I can handle it, I know what I'm getting into there. But the crust was tough to chew - I couldn't even eat the fat end crust because it felt like too much exercise for my jaw. And there was no sauce. None. There was red stuff, but I couldn't find any sauce. I lifted the cheese to look at what was underneath -- it wasn't there. Where was it? Usually I'll lift the cheese and dip my finger in the sauce so I know what it tastes like on it's own, and I couldn't do that. Seriously, this was a shitty slice, I gotta be honest. Then I regretted getting the white slice since I was already sauce deprived. It was dry and had the same issue with the tough crust. Totally edible, but not "good" pizza in any way.

**Update **
I went back last night and had some of Alissa's plain slice that was sauce heavy and goooood. (The beer I drank before I had it possibly contributed to making this bite exceptional). And while there was too much sauce for Alissa, I thought it was the right amount - and it was tangy and spicy, just how it is at home. Definitely not my favorite style of sauce but consistent with the Two Boots style. So I'm confused now, honestly, about how I feel. Like, I guess I need to go there one more time and make that slice the deciding factor? I really just think there needs to be consistency in the quality otherwise, I'll go somewhere else.

Two Boots
1818 W. Sunset Blvd (btwn Glendale and Lemoyne)
Los Angeles, CA 90026

Tomato Pie Pizza Joint

I don't know how to take pictures at night

Oh my. First of all I have to say I love this place for calling itself a "pizza joint."
Lauren came to visit and we got PIIIIIIIIZZA!!! Farnosh and Alissa went to this place a couple of day earlier and recommended it. Let me tell you why...IT"S AWESOME! yumma yumma. It's good they knew about it because it's a little off the main road and what you do see from the street makes it look like it's closed. But it's not - just park in their lot on Tracy Street if you go and you'll see.


It's cute because you can sit outside on patio furniture away from the street.


...Which is good because the inside is seriously tiny.


Lauren and I split a plain slice and a Mediterranean slice (spinach, roma tomato, zucchini, corn, kalamata and black olives, feta). They cut them in half for us so I didnt get to take a pic of the whole slice. OK. FYI When you get two slices you get a small soda for $0.50...good deal.

I'm not so much into the idea of corn on pizza, but honestly I didn't think about it, and I didn't taste it either. It was so good. The plain slice was great as well. A slightly sweet sauce but not in an overpowering way and everything just seemed really fresh. We then went on to also share the Grandma slice (crushed marinated tomatoes instead of sauce, basically - rated the 7th best pizza in the world by GQ - debatable) and the eponymous tomato pie (no mozzarella but grated Romano on a Sicilian slice). Was too into the pizza go remember to take pics. Sorry.
So I don't think I can even get into it as much as I'm supposed to, but I loved all the slices I tried. The crust was just right on all of them, not too thin, not too doughy, a good amount of salt, not undercooked! Pretty crispy. I went into this LA pizza blogging with the intention of not comparing LA pizza to NY pizza, rather just to itself, but for the sake of full discretion still need to mention that this is the closest to NY pizza that I've had. And maybe that's what I'm into, and maybe you're into it too. I don't know.
The ingredients were all really fresh, the pies were right out of the oven, the owner Garrett was really nice and even offered me pizza making lessons which I was of course too shy to take him up on. Another time, perhaps.
Oh, so when you order here at the counter, you don't wait around at the counter for your shit to be ready, you go sit down and they bring it to you. They thought we were weirdos.

Tomato Pie Pizza Joint
2457 Hyperion Ave (at Tracy St)
Los Angeles, CA 90027

Brownstone Pizzeria

So I was walking around Eagle Rock last week with nothing to do and 45 minutes left on the meter after a disappointing attempt at vintage shopping. I had heard it was a cute neighborhood, but there was petty much nothing going on besides a couple of coffee shops, a book store, and this place. I wasn't necessarily hungry, but since this place was on my pizza list and I was right there, I decided to pop in because California Joanna is flexible like that.



So as you can see, I was the only patron in there at around 12pm and when I started taking pictures the woman who worked there started chatting me up. She was super friendly, I told her about my pizza blog and she was pretty excited about being up on it.

They have flat screen TVs if you're into that. A football game was on that I couldn't pay attention to.



I got a plain slice $2.50?


This was a fresh out of the oven slice. So hot. So cheesy. I was getting pretty into it, it smelled great. I was like whoa...what if there is good pizza in LA and everyone is just talking shit for no reason? And my first bite was pretty good. But THEN when i wanted to fold it, it just droopity drooped and went limp. Crust was too thin/couldn't hold the weight of the cheese. It wasn't even cheese overload, it was a normal amount of cheese and it was good. The sauce was also good - a little spicy. But you know when the crust is so thin that one bite = half the slice? That's what this was. I didn't really get a satisfying bite until I got to the bottom 1/4 of it where there's more surface area or something. And I'll say the part of the pizza between halfway down and the fat end crust was pretty delicious. But then the end crust didn't have enough salt and was just totally bland. It was almost like flatbread in consistency because it was so thin. Too bad because I really wanted it to be better.

The view outside the pizza place is pretty sweet, but I personally wouldn't want to sit outside because a lot of cars drive by, even in the middle of the day.


Brownstone Pizzeria
2108 Colorado Blvd (near Eagle Rock Blvd)
Los Angeles, CA 90041

Dodgers vs. Braves

It actually wasn't that bad, but very doughy. $8.75

Dodger Stadium
1000 Elysian Park Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90012

Garage Pizza

First installment of LA Pizza! Can you handle this???! I'm STOKED


Farnosh took me to Garage Pizza the other night when this other non-pizza place we tried to go to was closed.
It was a good introduction to pizza here and I'm happy to say that you CAN get a decent slice in LA.



So this place is in an unassuming little strip mall thing in über -hip Silverlake. They have a jukebox and a counter where you can sit.





There are tons of specialty pies/slices and I know I always review the plain slice but I was feeling wild and I got the "Treehugger" - it has olives, onions, peppers, mushrooms, and roma tomato. I don't remember what it cost, but it wasn't cheap.


Farnosh got artichokes and olives


So this is definitely not "NY Pizza" but it was still good. It's a pretty big slice and the crust, which I assume is one of the major differences between NY style and other pizzas, was good - just a different consistency. Whatever, it was delicious. Sharkey, the guy behind the counter, was a friendly guy and introduced himself and even made some other pizza recommendations for my blog, but I'll definitely be going back here (especially since it's open until 2am and you can come here after the bar).

Pizza lovers unite!

Garage Pizza
4339 W. Sunset Blvd (near Fountain Ave)
Los Angeles, CA 90029

Two Boots

My last day of work - my last pizza survey.

Someone else will have to carry on the tradition.
I'm feeling a little lazy with the reviewing so I'm just gonna say this pizza was "eh".
Deal with it.

Two Boots

74 Bleecker Street (@ Broadway)

New York, NY 10012