Avanti - let's go!
The perfect year-end (and year-start) pizzas
By Erica Wayne 01/05/2006
As you peruse this column, gentle readers, we will have finally said goodbye to 2005. Frankly, I thought it would never end. From start (tsunami) to finish ("rain threatens Rose Parade"), it's been a slog through natural and political disasters. The Year 2K worries seem trivial by comparison.
To top it all off, our household has been quarantined with the flu. We came down with it on the 17th and, as I write this on the evening of the 31st, we're still hacking and wheezing, although the fevers have broken. So bad was it that our relatives threatened to paint a large black X on the door to warn away the vulnerable. Gifts were left on our porch, with the caveat that we were not to pick them up until the donor had safely departed.
The steamed pudding I made is still in the fridge; ditto the eggnog, smoked salmon, brie and all the other assorted goodies I bought for the open house we'd planned for the 23rd. Sweetmeats and savories, as yet unwrapped (as are our presents), are a forlorn reminder of a holiday gone awry. The cats got the paté, the goose, the ham. It was easier on all of us than opening cans and watching them reject mere petfood.
But, having gotten to the very end of 2005 (honestly, I thought there was a good chance we wouldn't), we had to decide on a last meal. For much of the day, I figured it would be Chinese delivery, but round about five-ish, we decided to actually go out to get some pizza. We could have had one brought in, but - after two weeks of houseboundedness - we thought we might just want to launder our jammies and see some Xmas lights before they came down.
So, I got on the phone to Avanti Cafe (voted best gourmet pizza over and over by Weekly readers). I have to confess that I haven't been to Avanti since the late '80s, but I figured now was the time. After all, not only our readers but Elmer Dills, local critic extraordinaire, swear by its expertise - nay, artistry. And who, if not us, deserved the very best?
So, instead of Tarantino's or Casa Bianca (my two favorites for carry-out), we chilled some champagne and ordered Avanti's medium "wood-burned delight" - dressed with tomato sauce, ricotta cheese, pepperoni, black olives, green and red peppers and onion ($14.25) and a medium three-section ($15.95) which had two pieces topped with bacon, basil, Gorgonzola and red onion; two of tomato and basil and two of a four-cheese mix with tomatoes or olives. We chose tomatoes.
We were a bit surprised when we picked up the boxes. I'd expected some heft, but these were far lighter than I'd prepared for. And, when we got them home, we could see why. The pie shells were among the thinnest we'd seen, and the toppings were downright dainty. No gloppy cheese or tomato sauce. No chunky toppings. The pepperoni and tomato slices were almost diaphanous, the other vegetables mere tendrils.
The disparities of the three-section pie were intriguing. The Gorgonzola was more pronounced on some pieces, more subtle on others. The bacon was smoky and its saltiness set up the sweetness of the Roma tomatoes. The red onions spiked the flavor nicely. The other pizza was a little less satisfying. The black olives were the usual tasteless ones (kalamata cost more at Avanti) and we never discerned any ricotta.
Even with diminished appetites, $32 worth of gourmet pizza disappeared in record time, washed down with bubbly and leaving room for a generous slab of figgy pudding. As we finished, my husband commented that he would have preferred a bit more pepperoni to fresh basil strips on his pizza. This, to paraphrase T.S. Eliot, is the way the year ends, not with a bang but a whimper.
When I re-read Avanti's online menu a little later, I realized that my husband's disappointment with our meal was my fault. In my debilitated condition, I'd missed a key phrase: under the "traditional pizzas" section, they'd written "For our pizza lovers with a traditional appetite ...." Although I'd assumed they meant appetite for traditional toppings, it was obvious upon re-reading that they were talking about size since their "gourmet pizzas" only come in small and medium, but a large not-so-gourmet pizza with "the works" is $19.50.
So, in retrospect, I figure the best deal for take-out (once we're completely over our year-end malaise) is Avanti's large traditional pizza with pepperoni, eggplant, sausage and anchovy (if I can get my partner to acquiesce) or fresh mushroom (if I can't) for $19.50. As a matter of fact, we'll probably be ordering one this weekend. With the money we save, we're going to add a caprese salad ($6.50) with fresh buffalo mozzarella and a spring salad ($6.50) with kalamata olives and lime-herb dressing. And we're going to order cannoli for two ($4.95) as a festive finale.
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