A Slice of Heaven: Tosca Café

Posted by Ed Levine, April 24, 2007 at 9:51 AM

At Tosca, the servers wear polo shirts that say "Coal oven pizza since 1922." I was skeptical, because neither my Bronx-born relatives nor my Bronx pizza mavens can recall having a pizza here until a couple of years ago. No matter. I ordered my pizza with fresh mozzarella and sausage on half and went back to check out the coal oven. Sure enough, there it was, a white- and black-tiled beauty that looked as if it had been there for a long time. I wandered back to my outdoor table and waited for my pizza. It arrived in a few minutes, and as soon as I took a look, I knew it was a serious pie.

The snow-white mozzarella had little brown blisters, and the crust had charred brown and black spots. I wished the crust had a little more salt in it, and it was a little too crisp for my taste, but this was a fine pie, nonetheless. I'd been living in New York for thirty years as an adult, and somehow Tosca (or whatever it had been called before this) had escaped my attention. My loss.

Tosca Cafe
Address: 4038 East Tremont Avenue (at the corner of Miles Avenue), Bronx NY 10465
Phone: 718-239-3300
Rating:
Related: Tosca review (1/3/2006)

This entry is an excerpt from Ed Levine's book Pizza: A Slice of Heaven. To read more, visit the Slice of Heaven archives here on Slice or buy the book from Amazon.

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Tags: NYC, Pizza: A Slice of Heaven, Reviews, Slice Reviews, The Bronx, Throgs Neck, Tosca Café

2 Comments:

Note the name of the NJ Lottery spokesman in paragraph two. Is this the self-same DaVinci of the Avenue J slice? 1010 WINS - On-Air, Online, On Demand Posted: Wednesday, 25 April 2007 4:46PM No One Claims $19M Pick 6 Jackpot TRENTON, N.J. (AP) -- A $19 million New Jersey Lottery prize has gone unclaimed, making it the largest jackpot to be returned to the state in recent memory, officials said. The owner of a Pick 6 Lotto ticket had a year from last year's April 24 drawing to claim the prize. Since no one has come forward, the money will go back to the state, said NJ Lottery spokesman Dominick DeMarco. The state will receive the cash value of the ticket -- a little more than $10 million. Nearly all of the money will be used for education and other state programs, DeMarco said, with the remainder going to support special Lottery prize offerings. "It's always a positive when you've got another Pick 6 winner and their lives change,'' DeMarco said, but, "whenever there is an unclaimed prize, there's still a lot of good that comes out of it.'' The Pick 6 Lotto ticket, with winning numbers 05-24-27-28-33-37, was sold at a 24 Seven convenience store in Newark. The store received $2,000 for selling the winning ticket.

Slice Matt at 1:35AM on 04/26/07

What a crazy coincidence. Dom (Ave. J Dom) should try playing the NJ lottery.

Adam Kuban at 4:01AM on 04/26/07

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