A Slice of Heaven: Patricia's
It makes my heart sing when I walk into a pizzeria and see the glow of burning wood logs in a brick oven. Patricia's serves pizza made either in the aforementioned wood-burning oven or a gas oven. The pizza is the same price, so why anyone would order a pie made in the gas oven is beyond me. My Margherita had the most tender pizza crust I've had east of Phoenix. It had virtually no crunch, but it had the texture and consistency of fresh-backed bread. The mozzarella was fresh, as was the basil, and the tomato sauce wasn't gummed up by too many spices. The sausage, oblong strips cut lengthwise from what must have been a fat link, had a clean porky flavor. The menu here proclaims, "the Best Sicilian Pizza in New York City!" Though I appreciated both the fresh mozzarella and the smoky taste the wood-burning oven imparts to the thick Sicilian crust, this claim could not be substantiated by the half pie I had. I though the crust would have used a bit more olive oil. The menu at Patricia's has a zillion items on it, everything from Rigatoni PavarottiPavarotti to T-bone steak, but I've never had anything except the pizza—from the wood-burning brick oven, not the gas oven.
