2010 NYC Pizza Conquest Part 2

Our initial itinerary had us going to Motorino East Village next and then finishing the trip with a final stop at Keste. We hadn't included a stop to Paulie Gee's simply due to the fact that his establishment didn't open until 6pm and we needed to be at Penn Station for our return bus trip no later than 7pm. But Paulie being the very gracious man that he is, opened early and had us all over for a private pizza tasting. How was the pie? I'll be honest, for me it was very hit or miss, but the hits were definitely homers. The full breakdown of Paulie Gee's and our final stop at Motorino East Village after the jump.

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2010 New York City Pizza Conquest: Part 1

When I recieved an email from my fellow Baltimore-based food blogger pizzablogger I couldnt've been more surprised. I was already in the thick of planning a pizza tour for when I visit my friend in East Harlem this week. But this email sidelined that idea. He wanted to do a weekday pizza eating tour of NYC and you know I love food tours. It was all I needed to hear, a quick trip to the megabus website to secure a bus ticket and I was set.

The itinerary? DiFara, which I'd already had a less than pleasant experience at, Totonno's of Coney Island, Motorino East Village, with a final stop at Keste. Little did we know a wholly pleasant and unexpected wrench would be thrown into the spokes of our trip resulting in one of the most unique and pleasant food experiences I've had to date. April 15th, 2010 would forever be remembered as the 2010 NYC Pizza Conquest. That title may have to be changed slightly as we've already got plans for another trip in the works. Yep, that's how we roll. Keep reading to find all the cheesy details.

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Matchbox and Caps with a bunch of Donks

While I don't really publicize it that much, I've always been a hockey fan. When I was growing up my favorite player was Pavel Bure so naturally I was a Vancouver Canucks fan. After he retired I really enjoyed watching the amazing lineup of the Detriot Redwings, so I followed them for a number of years. After all of my favorite players on Detroit retired or went to other teams I was kind of in a rut as most of my hockey-watching buddies grew out of the sport, largely due to the 2004-05 Lockout. So I was in the market for a new team and luckily our home team (since Baltimore doesn't have a hockey team) the Washington Capitals had acquired a lot of new young talent and I met a bunch of guys at my new job who were fanatic Caps fans. So we jumped on the first opportunity to go to a game together. I, of course, looked into a place we could pre-game and landed on Matchbox, which was a few short blocks from the Verizon Center. We had some nosebleed seats for the last game of the season hosting the Boston Bruins. But before I get ahead of myself, we must first discuss the food!

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This Dark Horse should be put down

As soon as I caught wind about the Carolina barbecue/tex-mex themed menu of the Dark Horse Saloon (originally titled the Stranger's Pub) I caught wood. I'd been counting the days until it's grand opening in early-March. Barbecue and Nuevo-Tex-Mex fusion is most certainly a type of cuisine I'm very passionate about, and I was uber-excited to try a local chef's take. I was able to find a few more details about the chef's crudentials on the great local blog Bel Air News and Views and was also excited to see that the food was positively reviewed there. So I invited a few friends out to try as much of their menu as we could for lunch a few Sundays ago.

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Feast your eyes on my meat

Sorry I haven't been updating this like a good blogger, but with the change in weather we've been trying to get things done around the house, plus the warm weather social life is starting to kick in.

I've also been busy planning two food-centric trips to NYC (one of which is a pizza tour with my fellow blogger friend pizzablogger) and one to Chicago as well as our first anniversary road-trip which will include Montreal, Quebec City, Portland, ME, and Boston. Yes, lots of planning and food research is involved. Suggestions welcome. I'm leaving the non-food-related stuff to the Mrs. although I did manage to score front row center tickets to Cirque de Soleil in Quebec. I'm pretty stoked about that.

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