For a pizzaholic, the trip out to Di Fara in Midwood on the Q feels almost like a pilgrimage. Located deep in Brooklyn, just after the subway creeps above ground into a strangely suburban landscape, this unassuming corner pizza parlor churns out some of the most celebrated pizza in the city. Pizza zen-master Dom DeMarco, who’s over 70 and has operated Di Fara for 40 years, makes each one himself (all day, seven days a week), from shaping the dough and spreading the sauce, to snipping fresh basil and swirling olive oil over the finished pie. Considering all the hype, I didn’t doubt it would be good; but would it meet my ridiculously high expectations?

It exceeded them. This is one of the rare slices where there’s just the right amount of everything, and it all tastes incredibly fresh–crisp, chewy crust, bright, tangy sauce, and slightly salty cheese melted over it all. Di Fara uses a mixture of fresh mozzarella or mozzerella di bufala with processed mozzarella, and a generous sprinkling of grana padana parmesean, that layers over every inch of sauce and is never too much. I ate two slices transfixed on the quiet sidewalk and then I wanted more.

But the wait is daunting. The line at Di Fara defies logic and patience; your order is written down and promptly forgotten, you ask for four slices and you get three. Regulars sidle in front of you, shouting “another pie!” and meanwhile you watch Dom, unhurriedly working away on another blob of dough, and wonder desparately, “is that mine?” You do this over and over again for maybe half and hour. The slices are expensive ($4) and if you’re looking to eat in, the interior is less from spotless.

Maybe I just really love pizza, but that’s all background noise to one of the best slices you can have. Granted, January may not be the ideal time to visit but one day soon the thermometer is bound to crack 50 degrees. Go early–wear a scarf, bring a book, and wander up the pretty rows of Victorian houses off Avenue J with a hot slice folded in your hands.

This just in from Slice: Di Fara is closed because Dom DeMarco broke his kneecap in a car accident and needs surgery. Word is he’ll recuperate at work, and reopen on or before February 1st. Here’s wishing Dom a speedy recovery.

DiFara on Slice
Dom DeMarco interview in the New York Times

Di Fara 1424 Ave. J at E. 15th St. Brooklyn
Daily 11am-10pm

Last night I tuned into Food Network’sThrowdown With Bobby Flay to watch chef Flay challenge Dessert Truck to a bread pudding bakeoff, and I sorta expected to see the truck vanquished. I’ve dissed Dessert Truck’s chocolate bread pudding with bacon anglaise in the past, for while it is definitely smooth and chocolatey, and its charms have grown on me, real bread pudding is NOT about smooth. Bread pudding is about spongy layers soaking up egg and butter, like having your favorite french toast for crumbled up dessert. The version chef Flay made (or rather, that his two assistants made while he yammered in the background), was a chocolate-coconut bread pudding with passion-fruit sauce. It looked fantastic, if a bit busy (I wonder if you could taste the bread pudding under all those flavors), next to the relatively homespun pudding cups from the truck. The crowd taste-tasting on the street seemed split, but the two gals they plucked from the audience to judge the winner went with Dessert Truck! One of them had never had bread pudding before though, so there you are. Maybe Dessert Truck is really great, unless bread pudding happens to be your favorite dessert.

Interestingly, this episode showed the Truck’s chef making the bacon anglaise with real chunks of bacon that are subsequently strained out. I could not taste the bacon at all when I tried it, but the crowd claimed they tasted… something. All I can say is, if you promise me bacon, there better be bacon in there!

While we’re on the subject of bread pudding, Whole Foods on the Bowery sells a classic, plain bread pudding by the pound at their dessert bar. Although I usually stretch my arm muscles reaching for the unbroken bits in the back and cringe when I have to skim the skin off the neighboring caramel sauce, this is a decently delicious bread pudding when I can’t find it anywhere else.

Dessert Truck
Day - Park Ave and 52nd St. Monday - Friday: 12:00PM - 4PM
Night - St. Marks Place and 3rd Ave. Monday - Sunday: 6PM until about midnight

Let me ask you this–could you contentedly quaff the thickest, darkest, highest-alcohol beers in equatorial climes? Hell, no. To enjoy a beverage like this, it has to be COLD out there–so cold that touching your face feels like being uncomfortably close to a stranger. So cold that your glasses fog up when you go indoors anywhere, leaving you in a dorky little cloud, helplessly smearing water vapor around your lenses. You certainly couldn’t enjoy Brooklyn Brewery’s Black Chocolate Stout, unless you’re well-versed in January’s indignities.

Dark, slightly bitter chocolate, malt, and alcoholic warmth predominate this pitch-black brew, which only gets better upon sipping. Despite the high ABV (10%), the chocolate flavor masks the alcohol fairly well, and considering the beyond-Belgian bang you get from 12oz, it’s also a good deal ($11.99 for a sixpack at Whole Foods Beer Room). Treat yourself to a bottle and then try to remember why you hated this time of year in the first place.

A- on Beer Advocate

Whole Foods Bowery Beer Room
95 Houston Street near Second Ave/Chrystie St. 8am-11pm

It’s a good time to be a pork-lover in NYC; not only do we have Momofuku Ssam’s famed steamed pork buns and a smattering of good barbecue joints (here’s looking at you, Fette Sau and Hill Country), but now there’s a new shop in the East Village specializing in the traditional Italian dish, porchetta.

Porchetta (pronounced pork-ET-ta) is a boneless hunk of meat and fat, rolled together with rosemary, fennel, and garlic, and slow-roasted in their crisp outer skins. At Porchetta, the meat is sliced and served with greens and beans ($12) or on a ciabatta roll ($9). The minimalist menu also offers sides: chicory salad with garlic dressing ($6), beans ($5) and “crispy potatoes” mixed with odds and ends of crunchy pork skin and savory meat ($5).

The porchetta itself is tender and well-seasoned and the sandwich travels well–it even tastes good at room temperature. But, despite a glowing review in NYmag, I was a little underwhelmed. First of all, in addition to some hard bits of skin, there were good-sized chunks of chewy fat throughout, which I ended up removing. Perhaps, not being raised on porchetta, I am a bit sensitive to gristle. Second, (agreeing with nycfoodguy on this) $10 doesn’t get you a lot of grub. I noticed that they’d recently switched from puffy ciabatta rolls to flatter bread, which serves the sandwich well. But the portions are small, consist only of bread and meat, and considering you’d spend half as much on similar-sized bhan mi at Nicky’s, it seems a tad expensive despite the obvious quality of the two ingredients.

The shop was a little claustrophobia-inducing on a Friday night, with seven or eight people jockeying for space on the black-and-white checked floor, waiting ten minutes or so for their orders. During less frantic times it’s a cozy space, with six seats and decor as basic as the menu–a swine stencil on the wall, and a tiny smiling crocheted pig dangling from the ceiling. For vegetarians, there’s a somewhat dry mozzarella sandwich ($7) as well as the beans and greens, but this is really carnivores’ turf.

Aside from a couple of complaints, if you love pork, Prochetta is worth a try. If arriving late, you may want to call ahead since, at least on the night I visited, they were running out of porchetta before closing.

Porchetta 110 East 7th St. between First Avenue and Avenue A
Sun-Thurs 11:30am-10pm, Fri&Sat, 11:30am-11pm
(212) 777-2151

I’ve been a hell-or-high-water morning coffee drinker every day for eight years. I drank it from deli-carts, from Starbucks, from the best coffee joints in the city, and from freeze-dried Flavia packs at work. I drank it black, no sugar, while working, from paper cups I wouldn’t chip my teeth on in buzzed distraction. Lately I noticed I’d been sipping less, but I still wanted that daily cup, like a bitter benediction for another ordinary day.

This week, when I walked past my usual morning coffee spot three days in a row without stopping, my abstention wasn’t planned. I’d long suspected that maybe I didn’t really love coffee, but this new realization–maybe I don’t have to drink this today–was surprising. I could have predicted the next thought though, because it’s the same one I had when I first stopped smoking: so now what do I do instead?

Luckily I had picked up some artisanal teas from Harney & Sons during a recent visit upstate, and this was my answer. Founder John Harney has been a master tea blender for 25 years, and his company is the high church for gourmet tea. Harney & Sons crafts over 100 varieties, many of them kosher and organic, available in looseleaf tins, teabags, or gorgeous nylon sachets. They even sell art-teas, tea-spiked flowers that bloom when steeped in hot water.

All of Harney & Sons Teas are available to be taste-tested in their serene tasting room and tea shop in Millerton, New York. Millerton, a village of cute shops and ramshackle outskirts just under cityslicker radar  is located about two hours north of NYC and sprinting distance from the Connecticut border. If you’re nowhere near the tasting room I might suggest ordering their premium teabag sampler cube (20 bags/$7.50) online.  I’ve been digging the Tropical Green blend. This pineapple-flavored green tea smells like a citrus flower when it brews, and it’s a welcome break from the morning cup of joe. As a bonus, the tea is beautifully packaged and lovely to display in a box or tin.

(Mat.Vox.com reports that their Earl Gray makes him want to mainline bergamot. That’s love.)

Harney and Sons
1 Railroad Plaza Millerton, NY
Also available online at www.harney.com