Guess what? Nancy Silverton--co-founder of the perennially awesome Campanille and owner of enough cooking awards to make you think she INVENTED food--is now making pizzas.

Conspicuously wonderful pizzas.

I had the great pleasure to make another trip to Pizzeria Mozza last night with the wife and friends, and the Mozz' did not disappoint. In fact, this is my 4th trip and, unlike a LOT of restaurants that gallop gracefully out of the gate only to stumble and be put out for glue, this place has definitely NOT lost its stride.

But let's cut to the chase and talk about the food. First courses: the best caprese salad not in Italy (creamy dollops of baby mozzarella, fresh basil micro-leaves, citrusy-sweet/acidy-bitter cherry tomatoes and a slight coat of so-light-it's-almost-vapor pesto) and white beans alla Toscana bruschette with some kind of miraculous carmelized green or onion (couldn't tell--and didn't care, because it was wonderful). We shared a bottle of wine my friends brought for first course--I bring this up only to note the $20 corkage (a bit steep).

OK, clear them plates and bring on the pizzas. Here we go. Wifey got the white anchovy with crazy hot red peppers. Friend-Lizzy opted for the "Pizza alla benno" (speck, pineapple, jalapeno, mozzarella & tomato). However, because she is due in a couple of months, she wanted a variation of bacon instead of speck. The waitress--admittedly a bit of a bummer, as she had all the charm of a possum on vicodin--glowered at the suggestion of a substitution (they're PIZZAs, for God's sake), but assented to have them swap the speck for bacon. (Frankly, I don't really know what the hell "speck" actually is without rooting through Wikipedia, but I'm pretty sure it's pig-based, and will venture to guess that anything related to hogs and called "speck" is probably not good for an embryo as sweet as Lizzy's is at ANY trimester.) Friend-Franco went with the simple margherita pizza. We all sampled slices of each-others', but our table's top-vote-getter for "good choice, dude" was mine--get this: "Ipswich clams, garlic, oregano, pecorino & parmigiano!" Are you out of your mind? This was the best combo of flavors of the lot, especially given the subtle sprinkling of hot crushed red pepper added in the kitchen (there's no parmesean cheese or pepper on the tables here). All four pizzas shared these magnificent characteristics:
a.) where cheese was involved, it was applied thinly enough to not wad up into the too-frequent mud-bath that comes off in one bite
b.) all ingredients were rationed according to balancing their distinction with due harmony (the tomato sauce on the margherita was perfect)
c.) the light crust was abesnt of any fatty encumbering oil, yet the top of each was basted with enough moisture to create a crisp and hearty architecture of glorious chowgasm.

If Gandalf were here and even slightly hungry, he'd say: "these pizzas WANT to be eaten!"

Once our corkaged wine drained itself, we grabbed a bottle of Nebiolo off the Italy-only (+1 from Slovenia) wine list and proceeded to fumigate ourselves through the last course. Oh, glad you brought up dolci, since the desserts were so good that they had entitlement issues, rudely making everyone at the table fight for their attention. We shared the butterscotch budino and caramel copetta, and let me tell you, they were totally arresting jerks of decadence.

So that was our meal. Yes, service is spotty (though the bussers were Johnny-on-the-spot with water refills and plate clearances, there was a a certain aire of fussiness to the staff as a whole, and a couple of other troubling things to be aware of: you MUST make a reservation far in advance and the valet parking costs 10 smackers). But not all customer-care is bad: though they wanted to turn and burn our table, the manager arranged to find us seats at the packed bar next door at joint-venture Osteria Mozza when we indicated we maybe wanted an extra glass of wine.

Essentially, this is an A+ restaurant that I've had to downgrade to a "modest" A, thanks to the minor user-experience frustrations. But look, I'm a persnickety dick because I love food and the experience of going to these places. I love talking about them and having an arrogant opinion about them. When I am confronted with a restaurant that exacts a bit of Soup-Nazi bending-to, I demand that it makes my dollars worthy of coping with this kind of wonderful, ribaldly-elitest dining event.

Otherwise it's friggin' Shakey's yo.

Attention, fellow ignorant crackers: Korean BBQs give you WAY TOO MUCH FOOD! I went there with 3 other honkies--totally uninitiated to what K-Town BBQ joints magnanimously have to offer--and was sinfully delighted at the array of side dishes that just happen to come with the main dish you request. Now, for the lazy, be warned that Korean BBQ implies that you HAVE TO COOK THE MAIN COURSE YOURSELF OVER A DANGEROUS BLAZING FIRE. However, if you can get past that small stumbling block, you and your hayseed friends are in for a real treat. Uninformed as to what we'd be getting, we ordered gobs of chopped meat and fish as our main courses. What we didn't know was there would be about 15 small (nay, "tapas"-sized) dishes of various eats. Again, we weren't familiar with the custom or cuisine at all (I'll have you believe), but were instead pleasantly astonished to discover that our meaty meal also came automatically with such small plates as: kimchee, pickled things (broccoli, sprouts, radishes--i think--and other items), small fish dishes, a salty-but-good soup, potato salad (I kid you not!) and...oh yeah: salad! Add to this the pork cutlets, spicy fish, prawns, beef ribs, and some lean cow steaky-kinda-thing and we got a ton of awesome food for the price. Never mind that we were the only idiot Occidentals in the place (not the college, the culture), and that the regular diners kept looking over their shoulders at us, incredulously pondering if we could possibly stuff ourselves any more. We were so satisfied with our copious grub that we didn't care. One other thing: Hite is now one of my 3 or 4 favorite kinds of beer*, and we kept the large bottles coming! Essentially, this place is what I imagine the definitive Los Angeles Korea-Town BBQ place SHOULD be.

* [NOTE: Russell's favorite kind of beer changes frequently, as he is a drunk.
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