Your Pizza Slice of the Summer Is...
Roberta's has a stunner of a slice shop in Bushwick and Penn Station. Plus: Chatting about warm oysters with Farhan Mustafa, Din Tai Fung's opening, and how to get into Sushi Sho
Scroll past the paywall for a review of the stellar clam pizza at R Slice, and the amazing soft serve at Kettl. Subscriptions are discounted for a few more days!
One thing to eat today: fire & ice pizza at R Slice
My favorite food right now is cold food.
Cold shellfish. Cold gazpacho. Cold seafood spaghetti.
I’ll take frozen blueberries and plop them into a small glass of cold vodka, for a very adult dessert. I’ll throw a mini Snickers bar into the freezer, for a hearty chew (Snickers Ice Cream, which melts too quickly, is to be avoided).
I have a little theory: If Sephora set up after-hours dining areas in its hypothermic stores, it would be a tougher reservation than Torrisi, because New York is hotter than Mount Saint Helens this week.
I’m still eating pizza — who isn’t — but my pie of choice these days feels particularly apt for the season. It’s called fire & ice, and it involves a layer of faintly cool straciatella over a warm pie, with splotches of brick-red ‘nduja scattered about.
The novel snack comes courtesy of R Slice, a casual spinoff to one of our edgiest and most innovative pizzerias: Roberta’s. There are two locations of the young slice shop: One in Bushwick (it opened in January), and another in the pedestrian mall above Penn Station (it opened last week).
Both serve one of the city’s best clam slices — more on that below the paywall — but right now, I’m craving that fire & ice.
The name should be familiar to anyone who’s a regular at Roberta’s, where Fire & Ice is a famous little appetizer for in-the-know patrons. Ask for it, and a server will send out a plate of stracciatella with Calabrian spreadable sausage — all meant to be smeared on bread. The dish has even snuck its way onto the menu at sister spot Foul Witch, that quirky composed plates place by Carlo Mirarchi.
Now, the spectacular combo found has way onto a slice of pizza.
Here’s what happens after you place an order at the Midtown location: a staffer retrieves a (very thin) cheese slice from the oven, then lies long strands of stracciatella over it as it rests. The milky curds warm up quickly, melting into luscious puddles. And the porky ‘nduja infuses the dairy with smoke and oil. I like to think of it as extra fancy kin to a slice of pepperoni.
It’s brilliant — but what’s even more brilliant is what I experienced at the Bushwick location a few weeks ago. The straciatella was firmer and fatter. It retained its lower temperature, which is to say it acted a refreshing counterpoint to the wood-fired pizza — a bit of chaud-froid action, if you will, not unlike the burrata slice at L’Industrie. And then the ‘nduja took over with its rich spices. All told, the slice was more of a gentle ceiling fan than a high-powered air conditioner.
And honestly, on a super sweaty day, especially after spending too much time in an office where the A.C. can require sweatshirts, a mild breeze of a dish can feel a lot nicer than, say, a frozen marg. Is this the slice of the summer? It might be. Cost: $6. 257 Moore Street, Bushwick, or Penn Plaza, near Seventh Avenue, Midtown
A little vacation…
It’s Thursday, 11 July 2024. Our city is still a swamp. Joe Biden is still the presumed Democratic nominee. “Volcano” with Tommy Lee Jones is still on Hulu. Ruth Negga drinking martinis on “Presumed Innocent” makes me want to drink more martinis. And the white cherries that I’m getting these days are some the best I’ve ever had.
I’ll be taking my annual trip to Denver next week. The plan is to spend some time cycling in the high mountains, eating Venezuelan golfeados, munching on chorizo tacos near Coors Field, hanging with some artist friends, and pairing clam pies with mezcal margaritas under starry skies. So you likely won’t see a column from me next week. It’s time to relax and recharge after my first year on Substack.
Obsession Session | Warm oysters, and Jollibee!
Farhan Mustafa “is just getting started,” writes Half-Light Magazine’s Haniya Khalid. Indeed, he is! The Seattle-based writer — a former Al Jazeera investigative journalist who’s also a tech product guy — won this year’s James Beard personal essay award for his “Immigrant Spaghetti” piece in The Bitter Southerner. You should read that column, as it’s a fine inquiry into Dominican empaguetadas, Nigerian joloff spaghetti, and other internationally-minded adaptations of Italian noodles.
I first met Mustafa — somewhat randomly — at my buddy’s Arizona wedding in 2023; we shared a few beers and talked about restaurants. And then, not quite a year later, I was scrolling through Twitter when I saw a clip of him accepting a (much deserved) Beard award! He graciously agreed to appear on Obsession Session, and so yesterday, we DM-ed about about warm oysters, fried chicken, and Filipino spaghetti.
Here you go:
Sutton: You were telling me yesterday that you’re pretty excited about some super big Washington state oysters you just tried. Let’s hear about them!
Mustafa: Oooh…I had these incredibly meaty, custardy, roasted oysters, 5-6 in long and almost an inch high. That’s just the meat part. At a restaurant called Orchard Kitchen on Whidbey Island. Turns out they’re a species called Pacific oysters lol (Crassostrea gigas — only including the scientific name so it doesn’t sound like I’m making this up). Grown by the Swinomish Tribe in Similk Bay.
The trick is they grow them bigger than normal, and the texture just…changes. You don’t get as much fresh salinity and ocean water in your mouth but in return you get oyster meat that you can cut with a fork & knife and linger over. And when I say custardy, I mean like a pudding or a flan. Firm on your fork yet melts on your tongue after a first bite.
Sutton: Ugh that sounds so good. I’m usually a smaller oyster guy — Island Creeks, about the size of a silver dollar or so, are probably my favorites — but on more than one occasion I’ve wished a roasted oyster were bigger! Sometimes they shrink a touch with the heat, but when you get a nice warm oyster that’s still super plump — like at Penny in New York — that’s truly a thing of beauty
Mustafa: I’m with you — never have been a real fan of roasted oysters until, well, now.
Sutton: And I understand you’ve been digging Jollibee recently too? I’m embarrassed to say I’ve not been but tons of people I know are fans!
Mustafa: Jollibee is a movement my friend, not just a chain lol. They finally opened one up in the Seattle city limits. Granted there’s been one 20 min south near the airport but this is a game changer with hours long waits. I mean I’ve been to the one in Queens and then near Port Authority, but the zeal here is incredible.
The chicken itself is “pretty good for a chain” — I’d still take Bojangle’s or Popeye’s but Jollibee has a strong crispy skin game. The taste is similar to KFC in a lot of ways, but at Jollibee they go ahead and give you a cup of gravy on the side. Also, it’s the novelty of having fried chicken with ultra-sweet spaghetti. Filipino spaghetti is sweet enough for me but the fast food version tastes like the version that Will Ferrell makes in Elf — as if they pour maple syrup into the banana ketchup.
It’s a big cultural event….it opened near my brother’s place so just watching the line action is entertainment too.
Sutton; I’m surprised there aren’t more folks writing their PhDs about the dynamics of food lines, especially when they connote not scarcity, as they have in the past, but abundance and objects of desire (A.O. Scott of the New York Times had smart things to say about this subject a while back)
Mustafa: Ha — yeah, it has the energy of those Supreme lines in LES back in the day but with more parents, families, 1st/2nd/3rd gen vibes. It is absolutely an object of desire. Much like a Dave’s Hot Chicken line but with better, more culturally consequential bragging rights.
Sutton: I need to try it! I really dig all the different fast food fried chicken chains you have in NYC right now; from the Korean ones like Bonchon (which I enjoy) to the Guatemalan Pollo Campero, which is literally about to open in Penn Station
Mustafa: WHAT!! Pollo Campero is amazing. I remember that place from my DC days and even held a birthday there once. It tastes like crispy maggi seasoning, how do you beat that? Those trains are about to smell amazing (to some).
Sutton: Lol they will smell amazing! So much better than the aroma of McDonalds from days of Penn Station past!
Mustafa: One more thing! I did forget to mention one thing because they deserve the shoutout — yes, Jollibee is great but a Filipino place called the Chicken Supply is the best fried chicken in Seattle right now….One of the best things about the PNW is how widespread & mashed-up the Filipino, Vietnamese, Laotian, Cambodian food scenes are here.
This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity
Price drop!
The Chef’s Table at Brooklyn Fare, a seafood-focused counter spot in Hell’s Kitchen, has lowered the price of its only tasting from $430 to $345, a massive drop. The discount comes a little less than a year after chefs Max Natmessnig and Marco Prins took over the kitchen. Dinner is roughly 14 courses. Tax and service are extra.
Who wants some soup dumplings?
Does New York City already have wonderful xiaolong bao? Of course it does. But one of the world’s most famous purveyors of soup dumplings — filled with chicken, pork and crab — is debuting in Manhattan this week. And reservations — available via Yelp — are already booked up for the next month.
Din Tai Fung, based out of Taipei, has 16 locations across California, Oregon, Washington, and Nevada. The seventeenth outpost opens in Times Square today, but the grand opening is on 18 July, when the restaurant will start taking “limited” walk-ins, according to the Yelp page. It will be the largest Din Tai Fung to date, Eater NY’s Luke Fortney reports, with room for 450 diners — and 500 staffers — at full capacity. And the space will sprawl out over 25,000 square feet, per that same report. Just to put that into perspective: the massive Buddakan is just 16,000 square feet. A literal stadium for dumplings!
Behind the paywall: More Awesomeness
Why the clam pie at R Slice is so great
Assessing the (very good) onion and cheese slices at R Slice
Review: the amazing soft serve at Kettl Greenpoint
Reservation Alert: How to get into Sushi Sho!!!