Arts & Entertainment

The perfect slice?

Friday night family pizza tradition got rude awakening outside the Big Apple

Published

12 years ago

October 18, 2012

Growing up in New York, every Friday night was pizza night with my family.

Each week, a perfect New York-style pizza pie made its way to the kitchen table. Pizza that had the perfect crust; not too thin and not to thick; the right sauce-to-cheese ratio and not swimming in oil. I loved those Friday nights with my family and I still love pizza.

I thought all pizza was perfect, just like the ones that sat in front of me in my youth. The rude awakening arrived when I moved to Boston. My first Friday night alone I called the local pizza parlor and ordered a large pie.

“We don’t sell pie,” said the man on the other end of the line with a chuckle, “We sell pizza.” Before the man could hang up I asked for a large cheese pizza pie, but what eventually arrived at my dorm room didn’t even come close to the perfection I was used to. That’s where my quest for the perfect pizza began, and after 10 years in Boston I never found pizza that met my snobby New York pizza standards.

Now my quest continues in Washington and the perfect pie is still eluding me. Not a single jumbo slice comes close, but they aren’t supposed to; they fill a different pizza niche. Manny and Olga’s on 14th Street serves up a solid pizza, but not perfection. Places like Pi, Pizza No. 17, Pizzeria Paradiso and Matchbox all offer great gourmet pizza options but none are New York-style pizza. So when a coworker said he had some of the best pizza of his life at Menomale Pizza Napoletana (2711 12 Street N.E.), I assembled a group of people and we descended on the Brookland pizza spot on a Friday evening.

Menomale, which means “thank goodness” in Italian, opened this past May and is owned by Italian-born pizza-master Ettore Rusciano and self-proclaimed beer nerd Leland Estes. These guys put together a menu that consists of pizza, calzones and sandwiches made completely with ingredients sourced from the Campania region of Italy. The beer list is clever and constantly rotating with both bottles and drafts available for patrons.

The accommodating staff offered us a couple of seating options upon our arrival, since seven of us had arrived and the adorable 38-seat restaurant can sit a party of six maximum. However, a cozy option in the back corner allowed us all to enjoy our meal together. We started with the Formaggi Della Casa that had three artisan cheeses, dried fruit, nuts, honey and delicious pizza crust to serve it all on. I devoured the cheeses in minutes leaving very little for the rest of the table, including a “moldy” blue cheese that was exquisite, and I don’t generally like “moldy” cheese.

For the meal I had the Buongustaio Pannuozzo wood fired sandwich with sausage, prosciutto de parma and buffalo mozzarella. The name means tasty sandwich and it was exactly that. The pizzas we tried included the margherita (sometimes the best way to judge a place is with its simplest dish); the Diavola, which has spicy salami and red peppers on top of the buffalo mozzarella and tomatoes; and the Capricciosa, which is mozzarella, San Marzano tomatoes, fresh garlic, salami, artichokes and black olives. We also tried the interesting Patata, which is cream of potato, sausage, black olives, mozzarella and fresh basil. All of these items are cooked in the wood burning pizza oven that Rusciano brought to the U.S. This oven cooks the pizzas at 900 degrees and is one of the largest on the East Coast. It also kind of looks like a cool spaceship, at least to me.

Each of these pizzas is made with high quality, fresh ingredients. The flavor profiles are all interesting and the pies all come to the table piping hot and delicious. Menomale makes gourmet pizzas that are on an equal playing field, if not better than some of the establishments mentioned earlier. Sure, I will still be looking for my perfect New York-style pizza (and bagels, and black and white cookies, and deli sandwiches), but I will still return to Menomale for some gourmet pies every now and again.

Related Topics:Dining Menomale Pizza Napoletana Out & About

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FUND LGBTQ JOURNALISM

Nightlife

Ed Bailey brings Secret Garden to Project GLOW festival

An LGBTQ-inclusive dance space at RFK this weekend

Published

36 mins ago

April 26, 2024

Evan Caplan

Ed Bailey's set at last year's Project Glow. (Photo courtesy Bailey)

When does a garden GLOW? When it’s run by famed local gay DJ Ed Bailey.

This weekend, music festival Project GLOW at RFK Festival Grounds will feature Bailey’s brainchild the Secret Garden, a unique space just for the LGBTQ community that he launched in 2023.

While Project GLOW, running April 27-28, is a stage for massive electronic DJ sets in a large outdoor space, Secret Garden is more intimate, though no less adrenaline-forward. He’s bringing the nightclub to the festival. The garden is a dance area that complements the larger stages, but also stands on its own as a draw for festival-goers. Its focus is on DJs that have a presence and following in the LGBTQ audience world.

“The Secret Garden is a showcase for what LGBTQ nightlife, and nightclubs in general, are all about,” he says. “True club DJs playing club music for people that want to dance in a fun environment that is high energy and low stress. It’s the cool party inside the bigger party.”

Project GLOW launched in 2022. Bailey connected with the operators after the first event, and they discussed Bailey curating his own space for 2023. “They were very clear that they wanted me to lean into the vibrant LGBTQ nightlife of D.C. and allow that community to be very visibly a part of this area.”

Last year, club icon Kevin Aviance headlined the Secret Garden. The GLOW festival organizers loved the its energy from last year, and so asked Bailey to bring it back again, with an entire year to plan.

This year, Bailey says, he is “bringing in more D.C. nightlife legends.” Among those are DJ Sedrick, “a DJ and entertainer legend. He was a pivotal part of Tracks nightclub and is such a dynamic force of entertainment,” says Bailey. “I am excited for a whole new audience to be able to experience his very special brand of DJing!”

Also, this year brings in Illustrious Blacks, a worldwide DJ duo with roots in D.C.; and “house music legends” DJs Derrick Carter and DJ Spen.

Bailey is focusing on D.C.’s local talent, with a lineup including Diyanna Monet, Strikestone!, Dvonne, Baronhawk Poitier, THABLACKGOD, Get Face, Franxx, Baby Weight, and Flower Factory DJs KS, Joann Fabrixx, and PWRPUFF.

Secret Garden also brings in performers who meld music with dance, theater, and audience interactions for a multi-sensory experience.

Bailey is an owner of Trade and Number Nine, and was previously an owner of Town Danceboutique. Over the last 35 years, Bailey owned and operated more than 10 bars and clubs in D.C. He has an impressive resume, too. Since starting in 1987, he’s DJ’d across the world for parties and nightclubs large and intimate. He says that he opened “in concert for Kylie Minogue, DJed with Junior Vasquez, played giant 10,000-person events, and small underground parties.” He’s also held residencies at clubs in Atlanta, Miami, and here in D.C. at Tracks, Nation, and Town.

With Secret Garden, Bailey and GLOW aim to bring queer performers into the space not just for LGBTQ audiences, but for the entire music community to meet, learn about, and enjoy. While they might enjoy fandom among queer nightlife, this Garden is a platform for them to meet the entirety of GLOW festival goers.

Weekend-long Project GLOW brings in headliners and artists from EDM and electronic music, with big names like ILLENIUM, Zedd, and Rezz. In all, more than 50 artists will take the three stages at the third edition of Project GLOW, presented by Insomniac (Electric Daisy Carnival) and Club Glow (Echostage, Soundcheck).

Out & About

Washington Improv Theatre hosts ‘The Queeries’

Event to celebrate queer DMV talent and pop culture camp

Published

2 hours ago

April 26, 2024

Tinashe Chingarande

The Washington Improv Theatre, along with the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs and the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington DC, will team up to host “The Queeries!” on Friday, April 26 at 9:30 p.m. at Studio Theatre.

The event will celebrate Queer DMV talent and pop culture camp. With a mixture of audience-submitted nominations and blatantly undemocratically declared winners, “The Queeries!” mimics LGBTQ life itself: unfair, but far more fun than the alternative.

The event will be co-hosted by Birdie and Butchie, who have invited some of their favorite bent winos, D.C. “D-listers,” former Senate staffers, and other stars to sashay down the lavender carpet for the selfie-strewn party of the year.

Tickets are just $15 and can be purchased on WITV’s website.