Best thing about your city

[skitch]

Re: Best thing about your city

Stop being so insecure...

I'm not insecure at all, I was joking. It's gonna be alright, buddy.

Anyway...

Clubs in downtown Raleigh aren't the greatest, but I guess I'll have to make due for the next few years.

[SC3BBall]

Re: Best thing about your city

Stop being so insecure...

LOL @ this dude

[Vince]

Re: Best thing about your city

Not really.

I'm 100% sure you know nothing about Montreal and just assume whatever you want so puh-lease don't comment.

[Vince]

Re: Best thing about your city

I can vouch for the strippers in Montreal.

Damn straight man.

[Crucial Mike]

Re: Best thing about your city

I'm not insecure at all, I was joking. It's gonna be alright, buddy.

Anyway...

Clubs in downtown Raleigh aren't the greatest, but I guess I'll have to make due for the next few years.

Hey man, I was joking right back at you.

[jmood88]

Re: Best thing about your city

I'm 100% sure you know nothing about Montreal and just assume whatever you want so puh-lease don't comment.

Well you are 100% wrong. I have been to montreal and I disagree. Calm down and know what you're talking about before you make assumptions. How are you 100% percent sure that I haven't been there but you know that kredit has been?

Oh and before you ask, I have no idea where I was in montreal all I know is that I was at some huge radisson.

[TarHeelMan]

Re: Best thing about your city

The triangle has to have the record for most malls in one area. I only lived there for two years but during those two years there were about 5 malls being built lol.

Let me see... Raleigh has Triangle Town Center and Crabtree Valley, which is down the road from me. Durham has Streets at Southpoint, and Cary has Cary Towne Center, which I haven't been to yet... Maybe I'll remedy that today, after the Met game... I think there's another mall in Durham, but I've been told it's unbelievably ghetto, and shouldn't even be rated among the other malls in the Triangle. I like Triangle Town Center and Southpoint... I don't go to Crabtree too much, although it is a nice mall...

[jmood88]

Re: Best thing about your city

Let me see... Raleigh has Triangle Town Center and Crabtree Valley, which is down the road from me. Durham has Streets at Southpoint, and Cary has Cary Towne Center, which I haven't been to yet... Maybe I'll remedy that today, after the Met game... I think there's another mall in Durham, but I've been told it's unbelievably ghetto, and shouldn't even be rated among the other malls in the Triangle. I like Triangle Town Center and Southpoint... I don't go to Crabtree too much, although it is a nice mall...

It seemed like they were building a new mall every other day when I was there. I never got the chance to go to the streets at southpoint but I heard it was nice. I lived right next to crabtree so that was one of the few that I got to go to.

[Vince]

Re: Best thing about your city

Well you are 100% wrong. I have been to montreal and I disagree. Calm down and know what you're talking about before you make assumptions. How are you 100% percent sure that I haven't been there but you know that kredit has been?

Oh and before you ask, I have no idea where I was in montreal all I know is that I was at some huge radisson.

Where did I say Kredit was there????

[jmood88]

Re: Best thing about your city

Where did I say Kredit was there????

Excuse me, Acid was the first one who responded to you but you picked me out and said something to me and didn't say anything to him at all.

[3rdAnswer]

Re: Best thing about your city

Let me see... Raleigh has Triangle Town Center and Crabtree Valley, which is down the road from me. Durham has Streets at Southpoint, and Cary has Cary Towne Center, which I haven't been to yet... Maybe I'll remedy that today, after the Met game... I think there's another mall in Durham, but I've been told it's unbelievably ghetto, and shouldn't even be rated among the other malls in the Triangle. I like Triangle Town Center and Southpoint... I don't go to Crabtree too much, although it is a nice mall...

The MalL in Durham that is real ghetto that you're talking about is Northgate Mall, and yes it is. I went there to buy Marvel vs. Capcom 2 (rare game) for the PS2 from EB Games, and I could just tell a lot about the mall when I sat down to eat. I really didnt do much else in the mall except for go to FYE. I just went for that video game.

[Dealin Rams]

Re: Best thing about your city

Let me see... Raleigh has Triangle Town Center and Crabtree Valley, which is down the road from me. Durham has Streets at Southpoint, and Cary has Cary Towne Center, which I haven't been to yet... Maybe I'll remedy that today, after the Met game... I think there's another mall in Durham, but I've been told it's unbelievably ghetto, and shouldn't even be rated among the other malls in the Triangle. I like Triangle Town Center and Southpoint... I don't go to Crabtree too much, although it is a nice mall...

The "other" mall you're thinking of in Durham is North Gate Mall, all the way up near where 15-501 meets I-85. And yeah, it's pretty terrible. I live right near Streets at Southpointe, haven't been to Cary Towne Center or Triangle Town Center yet. There also was the South Square Mall in Durham, but I think that got knocked down back around 2000-2001 (before I had moved to Durham) - there's a SuperTarger and Sam's Club there now. Anyway, the point is.....yeah, there are a ton of big malls in the triangle.

[bad_philanthropy]

Re: Best thing about your city

Vince was right, I love Toronto and being from Toronto and I hate the Habs, but I've also traveled extensively through North America and without a doubt Montreal has the best women.

[ehh]

Re: Best thing about your city

A few things for lil old New Haven, CT

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Haven%2C_Connecticut

From a distance, having Yale downtown and the real-life location of Amistad (the slave movie) are prolly the two most well-known things.

Although credit for creation of the hamburger sandwich is disputed, New Haven boosters accept the claim that it was first served in the United States in 1895 by Louis Lassen, operator of Louis' Lunch, which is still in operation. Burgers are cooked in the original 1895 setup, which holds them vertically instead of flat, between two grills; they are served between two slices of white bread, and the only condiments available are slices of tomato and onions. The restaurant is one of eight featured in "Hamburger America"[3], a documentary film which premiered on Sundance cable television network on the Fourth of July, 2005.

And most importantly, the pizza!!

<center>You say Sally's, I say Pepe's
Wooster street legends deliver to die-hard crowds</center>

Story by Jim Shelton, Register Staff
07/21/02

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NEW HAVEN — Imagine the Yankees and the Red Sox playing home games in the same town, on the same street.

Imagine Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe signing autographs, side by side.


Imagine Hercules challenging Superman to an arm wrestling match — every day.

OK. Now you're ready to comprehend the significance of Sally's and Pepe's.

For three generations, Sally's Apizza and Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana have made New Haven a bastion of "ah-beets." Perched on opposite ends of Wooster Street, they preside over a decades-old ritual of brick-oven artistry.

<table align="left" border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td><script language="JavaScript1.1" src="http://bannerads.zwire.com/bannerads/bannerad.asp?ADLOCATION=4000&PAG=461&BRD=1281&LOCA LPCT=100&AREA=490&VERT=349&NAREA=471&AT=JS&barnd=7 238"> </script> <script language="JavaScript"> <!-- if (parseFloat(navigator.appVersion) == 0) { document.write('<IFRAME width="" MARGINWIDTH=0 MARGINHEIGHT=0 HSPACE=0 VSPACE=0 FRAMEBORDER=0 SCROLLING=no BORDER="0" BORDERCOLOR="#000000" SRC="http://bannerads.zwire.com/bannerads/bannerad.asp?ADLOCATION=4000&PAG=461&BRD=1281&LOCA LPCT=100&AREA=490&VERT=349&NAREA=471&AT=IF&barnd=9 685"></iframe>'); } //--> </script> <noscript> http://bannerads.zwire.com/bannerads...=471&barnd=947 </noscript> </td></tr></tbody></table>"They're legendary pizzas," says Albert Grande, founder of Pizzatherapy.com, a Hawaii-based Web site devoted to the virtues of vegetables, meat and cheese on a thin slab of baked dough.

"It's head and shoulders above any other pizza in the world," explains Grande, who made a pilgrimage to Wooster Street earlier this month. "I had an e-mail from the Philippines recently, and another one from Canada, asking me if I knew any of their recipes."

Both places make pies shaped like amoebas, rather than perfect circles. They boast thin, pliable crusts, served in rectangular metal pans.

"I didn't have a bad pizza until I left New Haven," says Erica Marcus, a food writer for Newsday who grew up in North Haven. "For special occasions when I was a kid, we'd go to either Pepe's or Sally's. We generally ate a red pizza at Sally's and a clam pizza at Pepe's."

Sally's and Pepe's have attracted thousands of pie-loving locals over the years, along with a dizzying list of VIP politicians, musicians, actors and athletes. Tourists flock to these cozy booths and brag later to friends about the experience as though they'd been to pizza's promised land.

Each place has its diehard advocates.

"Pepe's has the best white clam pizza in the country," says renowned Boston chef and restaurateur Todd English, who had his first Pepe's pie in 1977, after a Yes concert.

"I love that it's chewy, but still light and crunchy," English says. "It has the essence of the ocean, the perfect amount of garlic. Something magical happens in the big brick oven at Pepe's."

Then you have New York food critic Steven A. Shaw, point man for the Web site Fat-Guy.com. He's a Sally's fan.

"Nothing I had tasted in a lifetime of eating New York pizza could compete with what was being produced at Sally's Apizza," Shaw writes in his online review. "Sally's pizza was and is simply better than anything New York has to offer."

Together, Pepe's and Sally's have built an astonishing following for New Haven pizza. They're joined in that effort by a legion of other local pizzerias as well, including Modern Apizza on State Street, Bimonte's Pizza Castle in Hamden, DePalma's Apizza and Tolli's in East Haven, Mike's and Zuppardi's in West Haven and dozens more.

"You're fortunate," notes Grande. "You have the best pizza on the whole planet."

WAIT FOR IT

Even so, before anything of a gourmet nature happens, customers must prove their worthiness by standing in line.

This is a fundamental part of the Sally's/Pepe's experience, as bedrock as the coal-fired ovens that make it all possible. People queue up before the pizzerias open, creating a human chain that's broken only by a screaming child or sudden downpour. Sometimes not even then.

"It never ceases to amaze me," says Flo Consiglio, matriarch of Sally's and wife of the late Sal Consiglio. "When it rains, all you see is a sea of umbrellas out there."

Yes, they wait in line at all times of year and in all kinds of weather — exchanging life stories, rhapsodizing about past pies and ruminating about the wait.

"This is nothing," says one animated Sally's patron from Hartford, standing near the door on a recent evening. "I've seen this line go all the way to the corner."

Over in the Pepe's line, a woman from Miami Beach asks, "What happens in winter? Do people stand out here in the snow?"

"Yep," answers a stoic teen-ager nearby.

Pepe's manager and co-owner Gary Bimonte, grandson of founder Frank Pepe, says he's seen friendships develop out on the sidewalk.

"We've had people meet in line and end up wanting to sit together," Bimonte says. "I've even had friends of mine tell me they'd rather wait in line."

PIZZA'S BIG BANG

There were no lines when Frank Pepe first put New Haven pizza on the map.

Pepe, the smiling chef whose picture lines the walls at 157 Wooster St., came to the U.S. from Italy in 1919. He tried his hand briefly as a factory worker, then as an employee for a local breadmaker, before opening his own bread business.

Pepe used a horse-drawn cart to deliver his bread as well as a new item which he termed, "the poor man's answer to hunger," according to family lore.

It was bread dough, rolled into a flat circle and topped with tomato sauce, grated cheese and anchovies. Pepe sold enough of these pizzas that he decided to set up a pizzeria in a small brick building on Wooster Street in 1925.

Whether it was the start of pizza in America or not, as some fans contend, it certainly gave birth to a pizza-making technique.

"It was the 'Big Bang' of pizza," says grandson Bimonte, sitting at a booth near the window on a weekday afternoon. "Frank Pepe came up with a concept and hit the ball out of the park."

Like its competitor down the street, Pepe's uses a coal-fired, brick oven to bake its thin-crusted creations. Oven men in white aprons use long-handled paddles, called peels, to move the pies around the oven.

"You get into a rhythm with it," Bimonte, who has worked here 27 years, explains. "It's very difficult, but it comes to you after a while."

Frank Pepe moved his operation to its current location in the mid-1930s. It's a big, brightly-lit restaurant with an open kitchen area where the oven men do their work in full view of patrons.

The original Pepe's, next door, is now a pizzeria called The Spot and is owned by the family. But unlike the old days, customers can't drop by at 2 a.m. and throw pebbles at the upstairs apartment, hoping to coax Pepe into baking one more pie.

Pepe ran the business with his wife, his two daughters and a close circle of relatives and friends, until his death in 1969.

Today, Pepe's grandchildren run the show.

"I began to realize as a kid how well-known our pizza is," Bimonte says. "I've watched people grow up here."

They've kept things much the same as "Gramp" had them: no reservations, no credit cards, no entrees other than pizza. In fact, the last time they changed the menu was about 10 years ago, when they added a broccoli and spinach pie.

The restaurant celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2000 with a party and a proclamation by Mayor John DeStefano Jr.

And the people keep coming.

"Blizzards, hurricanes, we still get lines out the door," Bimonte says. "Remember that tornado in Hamden? We were mobbed."

THE PERSONAL TOUCH

Another force of nature in the pizza world is at the other end of Wooster Street.

In 1938, Sal Consiglio, a nephew of Frank Pepe, started his own pizzeria, Sally's, in a bakery building at 237 Wooster St. Consiglio had learned the business from his uncle, going back to the age of 8.

He served pies topped with grated cheese, mozzarella, tomato sauce and sometimes anchovies.

"He did all kinds of hours," says Flo Consiglio, who married Sally in the mid-1940s after a three-year courtship. "When we were first married, it was nothing for him to get home at 5 or 6 in the morning and get up at 10 a.m. to start again."

The abundance of factory workers in the Wooster Square neighborhood during and after World War II kept Sally's in business. The Consiglios bought their coal-fired oven, the last one ever made by the Middlebee Co., in 1942.

"No two spots in this oven are ever the same," explains son Bob Consiglio, as he shovels more coal into the furnace. "Some people end up fighting the oven. My father would say, 'Let the oven work for you, not against you.'"

On this night, Bob is unveiling something rare and wonderful on Wooster Street: a new variety of pizza. It's a potato and onion pizza with mozzarella and rosemary.

"It's excellent," Flo assures.

In 1988, Sally and Flo celebrated the 50th anniversary of Sally's with a soiree at Toad's Place. Sal Consiglio died the following year after a lengthy illness.

His restaurant remains a family venture with Bob, brother Richard and sister Ruth all working here. Flo continues to handle the books, just as always.

As regular visitors often say, the place feels like someone's living room. It's small with wood paneling and a narrow aisle separating two rows of booths. On the walls are dozens of photos and framed testimonials.

One framed reminiscence refers to Sally as the "Pied Piper of Wooster Street" because of the way he and Flo used to take in kids from the neighborhood and give them jobs.

"He loved kids. He loved seeing the people who came in," Flo says of her husband. "I came to love it as much as he did."

Maybe that's why she's rebuffed all attempts in recent years to expand the business.

"We had an offer to open up out of state," Flo says, staring over her glasses. "I said, 'Stop where you are, bud. Sal left this to my kids and that's how it's going to stay.' When you expand, you lose the personal touch."

PIZZA OF THE STARS

That personal touch includes a wealth of celebrity sightings.

"A guy pulled up not long ago and said, 'I have Robin Williams in the car. Do you think you can take care of him?'" Bimonte says. "He was great — very open, signed autographs. We put him at table 10."

That's the Presidential Table at Pepe's, so-called because it's near the framed photos of Bill Clinton in an apron, making a Pepe's pizza in 1992. Ronald Reagan also stopped by Pepe's during his 1980 presidential campaign.

"We've had Bill Murray in here, Danny DeVito, Rhea Perlman," Bimonte says. "I've shipped pizzas to the Fonz."

Meanwhile, the late Frank Sinatra was a devotee of Sally's, where several pictures of Ol' Blue Eyes hang in places of honor.

Michael Bolton, a local boy made good, still comes in for pizza as does Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman's son, Matt.

"They're no different than you and me," Flo Consiglio says. "When (Al) Gore came in here, he was actually much better in person than he came across on TV."

The cavalcade of stars is quite lengthy. Glenn Miller and Jodie Foster have sampled Sally's; Tony Bennett and Broderick Crawford have partaken of Pepe's. Garry Trudeau did a "Doonesbury" cartoon for Sally's; Gene Siskel did a TV interview with Meryl Streep at Pepe's.

"You know who I'd love to get in here?" Bimonte says. "Emeril! We'd have a blast."

CHOOSE WISELY

Famous or no, pizza aficionados may never settle the debate over which is better, Sally's or Pepe's. Some people tread an uneasy, middle ground, while others avoid the argument and the lines entirely and swear allegiance elsewhere.

But many people take a stand.

"It seems to me, the Pepe's fans favor the crust," Grande says. "The crust is king for them. The Sally's fans say it's the sauce, the tomato sauce.

"The big thing I've noticed is their undying loyalty to one place or the other," he says.

Yet interestingly, over time the Pepe's/Sally's sensibility has filtered out to pizza parlors far and wide.

"Over the last few years, there's been this vogue for brick-oven pizza around the country," notes Marcus. "But that's what pizza in New Haven always was."

I've had pizza in NY a million times, twice in Chicago, and New Haven still = the best I've ever had.

Also, the Green downtown is awesome. Boyz II Men is playing tonight, The Four Tops was last night and The Temptations are next week. All for free.

Packed Green for the concert series last summer...

[skitch]

Re: Best thing about your city

Cliffnotes, anyone?