Restaurant Roundup: Keste Pizza & Vino

It's a double dose of the restaurant roundup this week as I've just been dining out a lot over the last couple of weeks. Last week, Lauren and I visited Keste Pizza & Vino, a tiny Village pizzeria dishing up traditional Neapolitan pizza. If you recall, Lauren and I had our very first date at Otto Enoteca, where outstanding pizza, creamy cheese, truffle honey and marinated cherries reigned supreme. Since we had such a fun time and went on to speak of Otto and pizza for weeks following that fateful night, we decided it only fitting that our next dinner outing should involve cheesy, crusty goodness. And so began a veritable borough-wide pizza tour, fueled by our mutual love for pizza coupled with a virtually endless supply of pizza joints across the city. But Keste is no ordinary pizza joint. With a laundry list of options that cook in mere minutes in their signature brick oven, Keste prides itself on its thick-crusted, authentic Neapolitan pizza. Let's get down to the details...

We started the meal with a salad...the only healthy item that would be consumed all evening. Fresh slices of parmigiano reggiano topped off these fresh, salty greens.

Moving onto the main attraction, L and I picked two pizzas to sample (for research purposes of course). The first was the special of the night; a signature crusted (read: thick, salty and perfectly cooked in a brick oven that took up half the restaurant) pizza starring buffalo mozzerella, stracciatella cheese (a creamy mozzerella), fresh basil, grape tomatoes and prosciutto di parma (a thinly sliced, cured ham featured only on my side of the pizza, as L is meat-free). There really just aren't words for this one. I had never knowingly had stracciatella cheese and I've decided that it needs to be explored (and more importantly, consumed) further. The grape tomatoes and prosciutto gave it the salty, tanginess that really made the whole dish sing. The second photo below was also featured in my January Favorites (as we actually visited Keste during the last week of January).

In addition to the pizza special, we also ordered a funghi pizza; mushroom, fresh basil, tomatoes, and mozzerella. Again, the crust was absolute perfection.

 This time, we got to sample the true test of Italian cooking - "the sauce" (and if you grew up with an Italian mother, you already know that this is the almighty barometer of all things food). Since the special did not have sauce, the funghi pizza was the only test. The result? It passed my test with flying colors. Unlike the extreme heat behind Mario Batali's marinara pizza, this sauce was sweet...the only way to do "the sauce" in my opinion.

Lauren enjoying the funghi pizza

...and me chowing down on the salty crust

The bottom line? A fantastic pizza joint that I will certainly be revisiting, not only for more of the standard fare, but apparently we seriously missed out on the Nutella pizza and that's just not really acceptable in my book. What can I say? There was less than zero amount of stomach space left. After all, by the end, our plates looked like this:

Though I am typically not, I repeat not, a fan of thick-crusted pizza, the Keste kind worked for me. Though it was thick, it was crispy on the outside and had just the right hint of salt. Delish.

What I really want to know from you is, where is your favorite pizza joint? Is it in New York? New Jersey? Standard delivery? Gourmet? Send some recommendations and tips in the comments!

Psst...L & I already moved onto pizza joint #3, and this time with another guest joining the table. This time we're moving to the outer boroughs for a slice of the famous Grimaldi's. The question remains...is it the best pizza in New York? In the universe? You'll have to check back to find out.

The Misadventures Part: Top 5 Kitchen Mishaps

I write about a lot of fabulous things on this blog...how to do breakfast in Aruba, feasting on first-class sushi during Restaurant Week, making decadent cakes and cupcakes...but what I neglect to mention most of the time are the mishaps that go on during my culinary endeavors...forcing me to rethink the whole 'in the kitchen' thing and relegate myself to this at all times:

Sushi Lounge in Hoboken, Spring 2009

Not too shabby. But, I love to cook. Do I know a whole lot about it? Nope. But I like to pretend like I do and try to pick up a few tricks along the way. So, in the spirit of inspiring others like myself (that whole if I can do it, you can do it too thing), I'm listing my top five kitchen mishaps (or as Shaun said when I told him about the article, "you mean top five of the last three days?") ...yeah.

1. Slicing my middle finger on a can of dog food. My refusal to use an electric can opener at my parent's house (I'm in the Alton Brown school of thought to not keep excessive gadgets on hand. This goes against all my mother stands for, as she has every kitchen gadget you could possibly think of) lead to this dastardly finger wound and one that I hope never rears it's ugly head again. Putting my middle finger out of commission not only lead to extreme bandaging and underuse, but the constant feeling that I was giving people the unholiest of finger gestures. 

2. Opening a pull can and splattering chipotle pepper sauce all over the wall. Yup it was this past weekend as I made a slow cooker full of black bean soup and it's exactly as it sounds. Did I mention that Shaun had just given this very wall a good scrubbing following my last splatter incident?

3. Burning my thumb on a hot stove grate. Shaun had just used the grate in heating the tea kettle. Rachel thinks she's so smart and getting ahead of the game by cleaning the entire kitchen as things are used (what can I say? Random bits of food just jump out of pans and under the grate). One swift move to lift the grate and I'm left with a skinless thumb.

4. Inadvertently pouring half a can of tomato sauce on my shirt. As I opened the can and pushed up the lid (this was pre-finger slicing as mentioned in number 1 when I carelessly opened cans using bare fingers at any whim), the lid flicked a huge droplet-turned-saucy stain on my fancy shirt. This did, however, lead to my purchasing of a truly fab Anthropologie apron, which ultimately became the color inspiration for my new blog.

5. Sharp knife sticking out of dishwasher decides to slice my palm. I reach into the lower half of the dishwasher, and out of nowhere, a knife sticking out of the utensil basket just does its thing on my hand. Though not enough to warrant a full hand bandage, I have to tell you candidly...it did not feel good.

So it's not all fun in the Humiston kitchen, though even despite my many recent mishaps and Shaun's teasing of said wounds, it still hasn't deterred my desire to learn the culinary arts. And I guess after looking at the above, you'd think I be more interested in reviewing restaurants than cooking food myself, but I guess that's part of the fun - learning as you go along, just like anything else in life. Just make sure you have plenty of bandages, first aid cream, and ibuprofen on hand as a quick cure kit to many kitchen mishaps. Oh, and probably a fire extinguisher, though luckily none of my missteps have warranted this...yet.

But what about you? Am I the only one who's had kitchen malfunctions, causing bodily harm? Please tell me that I'm not alone in my culinary misadventures. Have you ever had a major, yet kinda funny in hindsight, mishap in the kitchen?

Restaurant Roundup: Aozora at Montclair Restaurant Week

It's Restaurant Week all over the place - from New York to Jersey City to Montclair, NJ, the latter of which I partook in this past Saturday evening with Shaun and four of our friends for a long-awaited group dinner. The place? Aozora, a restaurant of the Japanese-European variety. And there's no better way to enjoy a meal with friends at a sleek restaurant that offers a real prix fixe tasting menu. Up front, I will say that I really, really appreciated the Restaurant Week menu at Aozora. Unlike its Manhattan counterpart, Aozora used this opportunity to showcase the best that they've got on the menu by condensing it into a three course feast that really gave me a sense of what this restaurant is all about. This is quite unlike my experience at Fig & Olive (check back for that review soon) last week, in which we fell into the trap of ordering additional items beyond the Restaurant Week menu since it didn't feature the crostini-heard-round-the-world that everyone has raved about. That's where they get ya. Anyhow, let's get down to the deets, shall we?

First up, we ordered some sushi for the table. Since the one appetizer offered didn't include a piece of sushi (don't worry, the main course did), and we were at a sushi restaurant, we felt it only necessary to partake in the signature cuisine and what a mistake it would have been to overlook it. Eel and avocado roll, spicy tuna roll and rainbow roll graced the table, and my palette has never been so thrilled with the results (this assessment does not take into account dining at Nobu). Fresh, delicate and delicious:

Next up was "the appetizer" - yup, quotes are necessary since there was only one option, but a tasting plate at that. Uni with jalapeno, seared tuna with avocado, marinated filet mignon comprised this mini-tasting plate. And isn't it fun to have an appetizer all to yourself? This one was delicious and pretty to boot:

For the main course, there were three options: angus skirt steak, wild sea bass, and a chef's sushi tasting menu. I had angus skirt steak with kalbi sauce, mashed potatoes and asparagus. Though I had no idea what kalbi marinade was, I'm so happy I jumped right in with both feet, so to speak, as the sweet yet savory marinade (my favorite flavor combo) had all the right moves for my perfectly cooked, medium steak.

Who orders steak at a Japanese restaurant, you ask? This girl. What can I say? I'm just a meat and potatoes kind of gal. That's not to say, however, that I wasn't green with envy when this gorgeous plate of sushi came rolling over to the table...

I mean, really, isn't she pretty? And as I've mentioned previously, you can always find me stealing bits of deliciousness off the plates of my co-dinner goers, and this evening was no different. Luckily, my co-dinner goers were oh so generous, and I reaped the palette-pleasing benefits. From the sushi plate, with a closer look:

 

to the wild sea bass... 

...these dishes were all of equal fabulousness, in taste and presentation. Is there anything better than your food arriving, and you almost don't want to disturb it since it's so pretty? That was the feeling with all of the Aozora items. The only disappointment of the night? Dessert. Six plates of caramel cream, aka flan, that had little to no taste whatsoever let alone any sweetness that I so crave post-dinner. I only wish that the little rock sugar lattice-looking creation could have taken over the plate because that was the only part that I found to be enjoyable. I mean, really, where's the mochi?

The bottom line? The menu was overall fantastic, if you put dessert out of your mind, and inspired me to dine at Japanese restaurants more often. If you can get it, make a reservation at Aozora right now. Unfortunately, you'll have to go on my photos above as your RW menu guide since it was nowhere to be found online. Sadly, their website is a doozy. I'm sure it cost a fortune, and yes, it is sleek and chic and all of those things. But when I just wanted to find the menu, it took 10 minutes of searching through the super-Flashed site to find it, and they didn't even have the Restaurant Week menu up (a seriously un-ok practice in my book, and one that many Manhattan digs tend to follow). Even beyond Restaurant Week, Aozora is one that I will surely revisit - and that's the whole point of Restaurant Week, isn't it?

So what do you think? Have you ever dined at Aozora? Have you been trying any new restaurants with Restaurant Week menus?