Best Vegas (and Brooklyn) Pizza

Back in 2002, Homer and I traveled to the Big Apple as a part of the post 9-11 tourism recovery campaign, While we were strolling about the Statue of Liberty (which was on lockdown due to security issues), we wrangled a park ranger into giving us her recommendation for good cheap eats in the city. She was quick to recommend Grimaldi’s – a great mom and pop place with coal-fired ovens underneath the Brooklyn Bridge (on the Brooklyn side – not in the water, silly).

A few days later, we made our way over there and had a great lunch with Mayor Bloomberg (he was actually a few tables away with his full security detail). The pizza was fabulous – homemade sauces, great crust and fresh ingredients. We’ve been talking about it for years since.

A few months ago, one of Homer’s colleagues alerted us to the fact the Grimaldi family was opening up a shop in the Vegas area. We couldn’t believe it. Could it be the same place? Why in the world would they come here?

The answer to that question is still a bit of a mystery, but we’re awfully glad they did. We met some friends there last week for a date night and we were thrilled that this was the same great pizza we had years ago.

The R-J’s Heidi Knapp Rinella wrote a review in today’s edition sharing our love for the taste. Apparently the service left her with a bad taste in her mouth.

We had a great waiter on our visit. George recommended the pesto pizza with sausage, roasted peppers, ricotta, and mozzarella. I took him up on it – only in a personal size. We each ordered custom creations and none of us were disappointed and, after tasting each other’s pies, George’s special won.

I highly recommend Grimaldi’s for a casual date night, or even a night out with the kids. Boo and Doodle would be enthralled by watching the kitchen crew toss dough back and forth. Fortunately, we live across town, otherwise I’d double my body mass in a month!

Open Sesame

I grew up on Sesame Street. In those days (when dinosaurs roamed the earth), nearly all daytime children’s programming existed on our local PBS affiliate. My world from ages 3-7 revolved around the plot crisses on an imaginary New York street. I lost sleep over whether Big Bird was delusional over the existence of a brown furry elephant named Snuffy. I questioned the relationship of two male puppet roommates. When I look back on it, it was pretty amazing, groundbreaking stuff.

Much to my disappointment, Boo is not a SS fan. She used to like Elmo, but she’s been scarred ever since I took her to her second live stage show. I guess there’s something about a 6-foot blue carpet with arms and giant googly eyes coming at you that’s frightening to a two-year-old girl. Who knew? Maybe I was enthralled as a child because I only saw them on a 20-inch screen.

Babble put together a great post on the top 50 Sesame Street moments. My favorites are #48 (Ralph Nader), #29 (DeNiro teaches Elmo menthod acting) and #20 (Ladybug picnic). The top ten are not exactly shockers. I sing a version of #2 to Boo and she thinks that’s the original tune and argues with my ipod every time CM starts singing it.

This is my favorite all-time Sesame moment