Wahoo, spring break!

[danaeris]

I celebrated spring break by failing to acquire a replacement USB cord at the Apple Store, and with a large ice cream cone of ben & jerry's chocolate chip cookie dough. On my way home I was accosted by teenage idealists and entertained by a fabulous tap dancer.

I also was interested to discover a bookstore cafe on 6th between Howard and Mission; you're welcome to browse the library and they also sell books.

A craving for pizza came over me. I hear there's this neat pizza place in Berkeley called Zachary's. Anyone want to do dinner or lunch there sometime this week?

Comments

[kineticphoenix.livejournal.com]

Ooooo, Zachary's! Let me check my schedule; I could definitely see that as part of my next week...with you!

[princeofwands.livejournal.com]

FYI: There is like an hour+ wait for a table all the time at the location on College. The store on Solano is less busy, but also pretty much always packed. My preference is to grab one of their half-baked pizzas, bring it home, finish the cooking, and then enjoy the beauty that is oven-fresh Zachary's from the comfort of my own home.

[murdoch.livejournal.com]

I go to the College one at odder hours - like 4pm on a Sunday - and rarely have a wait.

[princeofwands.livejournal.com]

Freaky - they were already deep into super crowded when I showed up last sunday around 5pm - the line for pick-up was even out the door.

Anyway - to questioner - it's totally worth it. Even with the outrageous demand.

[fyfer.livejournal.com]

Sure, I'd be interested (depending on schedule) - it would be great to see people without needing to leave town! By the way, both locations are extremely easy to reach by bus from BART: the 43 goes to the Solano one, and 51 goes down College.

mmm, pizza.

[auros]

The safest thing to do with Zach's is either get a half-baked, or, if you know somebody who lives in the area, order for pickup. Waits are ridiculous. Also, Zach's isn't pizza. It's cheese pie with tomato topping. Tasty, but not pizza.

The Cheese Board (Shattuck at Vine) is also worth checking out. They have actual thin-crust pizza, done with a somewhat sourdough-y crust. They only do one thing every day (i.e. you don't get any choice, they have what they have), and it's always sort of funky Cali-pizza. (My fav is the one that has asiago, sliced romas, fresh herbs, and lemon zest.) Depending on the time of day, there can be a bit of a line there, but it never took me more than ten minutes to wait through it. They officially close at 7:30pm, but depending on the day, and how popular the particular pie is, they sometimes sell out earlier.

There's also some pretty tasty pizza available down this way -- Amici's, on Castro in Mountain View, is particularly good.

The best serious New York style pizza in the region, though, is Arinell's, which has two locations, both hole-in-the-wall places that are easy to miss. One's on the east side of Valencia just south of 16th, the other's on the east side of Shattuck Square just north of the Downtown Berkeley BART. I've heard rumblings that one or both may be temporarily closed for renovations, but that was a while ago, and I never was clear on which one was involved with that...

Re: mmm, pizza.

[fyfer.livejournal.com]

mmmmmm, Cheeseboard.

Arinell's on Shattuck was closed for much of 2003, but it reopened this fall. It's much less hole-in-the wall now - it actually has two tables you can sit at, even - but the pizza hasn't changed. I like it because it reminds me of home, but it's not that wonderful for its own sake, though I stop in for a slice pretty often.

Re: mmm, pizza.

[auros]

Yeah, Arinell's is sort of comfort food. It's akin to the stuff you can get at the random corner places in Nyawk -- the kind that you suspect of being primarily money-laundering operations, since they don't seem to get nearly enough traffic to support their use of decent-quality ingredients.

It also was the first such place I found after moving out here; I'd hit Cheese Board because I lived a couple blocks from it, but sometimes one is not in the mood for funky California toppings. I was greatly mystified by the fact that people out here seemed to have no clue as to the meanings of New York style and Chicago style -- e.g. Greg's, on Telegraph, claims to be Chicago style, but is actually almost passable NY style, whereas a couple of places down the block from it claim to be NY style and are actually horrible thick-crust monstrosities.

Re: mmm, pizza.

[unseelie23.livejournal.com]

Zach's is, indeed, pizza. Not New York style, of course, but it is pizza. It's the best Chicago style deep dish/stuffed that I've found west of the Mississippi. It doesn't hurt that it's close to Dark Carnival either. :)

A large stuffed, for the record, will generally feed four. I've never been able to eat more than two slices at one sitting.

Re: mmm, pizza.

[auros]

Heretic. "Chicago style pizza" is a contradiction. There is no pizza but Neapolitan.

Re: mmm, pizza.

[unseelie23.livejournal.com]

I'm okay with that, it leaves more for me. :p

Re: mmm, pizza.

[auros]

I didn't say I wouldn't eat it. I just said it ain't pizza. *g*

Re: mmm, pizza.

[emmett-the-sane.livejournal.com]

Hey, at least it's got the right ingredients to be pizza! Not like that vile cream-smothered stuff they call "white pizza," as if it were some sort of racial difference. That's what *I* think doesn't pass the "is it pizza" test. :)

Re: mmm, pizza.

[auros]

Actually, the original pizza, from Napoli, has no red sauce. It has sliced or diced tomatos, but as far as sauce, it's just brushed with olive oil, maybe with some garlic crushed or infused into it.

Re: mmm, pizza.

[emmett-the-sane.livejournal.com]

Correct. But, as you say, tomatoes are a necessary part of the deal, whether they're sliced, diced, crushed, pureed, or pasted. Take away the tomato, and you've got some other bread and cheese concoction than pizza.

Re: mmm, pizza.

[auros]

Well, if you go back far enough, there are some pizza predecessors that have no tomato -- after all, you have to recall that the tomato was an import from the new world.

Still, I'm inclined to agree that without some kind of tomato-ness, it's not really pizza. Or at the very least, not very good pizza. *g*

Re: mmm, pizza.

[emmett-the-sane.livejournal.com]

There's disagreement as to whether the pre-tomato prototypes were really pizza or just novel bread foods. Those who purport that they were pizza, of course, are wrong. =-)

Re: mmm, pizza.

[auros]

Those who purport that they were pizza, of course, are wrong.

Precisely. *g*

[murdoch.livejournal.com]

As a displaced Chicagoan, this is the best Chicago-style stuffed pizza that I've found in CA. The spinach and mushroom comes very highly recommended from people who eat it... I mostly stick to meats, but found that edible (note: I'm a carnivore. An edible spinach *anything* is quite a feat).