Catzie: Our next reviews features that other classic American dish that many immigrant families like mine have come to rely on Friday nights when your mom is working a double shift: pizza. Say what you want about the its roots in Italy, but my family didn’t discover pizza while visiting Rome during our escape from communist Laos. Besides they had to figure how they were gonna raised their first-born child in a foreign country — that country being Philadelphia. Which brings us to Pizzeria Stella’s, owned by Philly restaurant lord, Steven Starr. Nicely sized, and family friendly too, plus they have a bar in the back so you can sneak away pretending you’re washing your hands at the bathroom only to come back smelling like a Long Island or whiskey shot, or whatever it is you crazy kids are drinking these days.
Fawn: Even though Catzie pulled my hair, pushed me and threatened me with blunt objects to get me to publish the photos accompanying this post, this was an otherwise fantastic experience.
Fawn: I love a place where little men in cute uniforms scurry around making my dinner.
Fawn: I do not know a ton about wine, but I’m pretty sure I’m not getting any floral notes or whatever in this 8 oz rocks glass (it is a rocks glass, right?).
Catzie: Forreal dude. I don’t consider myself to be one of dem fancypants wine sniffers, but this looks like my toddler’s grape juice cup.
Fawn: Rosemary Flatbread with Ricotta. Sounds good in theory, no? It tasted like creamy floor cleaner. I take issue with rosemary lately so I may not be the best source of critique on this dish.
Catzie: It wasn’t thaaaat bad. It just didn’t taste like anything, prolly bc we had just stuffed our faces full of flavory savory pizza goodness right before. Side note: these pizzas come out really fast, you know because of the brick oven, so don’t order any apps unless you really, really feel you can’t have pizza without olives and bread and shit, first.
Fawn: If I had to live life as a silly vegetarian, life would not be so bad. This spinach… what else?
Catzie: That would be sun dried tomato, mozzarella, and pine nuts. God I love pine nuts, they’re kinda like sunflower seeds except they went to college. Abroad. Also I think they sauteed the spinach before putting it on the pie which is genius since steamed spinach is not on my list of favorite foods. You other pizzerias take notice, ya heard?
Fawn: I was far too busy drooling/fantasizing about this pizza to colour correct any of these images. I stand by that perfectly reasonable explanation. Now, on with the truffle egg pizza show. I am not a big fan of truffles (just because it is expensive does not make it delicious) but this shit right here??
Catzie: I’m still annoyed that our waitress didn’t wait for us to flick the egg yolk while it was still intact. I mean do you not see us with waving our big-ass camera around taking close-ups of our dinner plates. Sheesh what’s a bitch gotta do to get restaurant waitstaff to comply with the orchestration of food photo blogging? I’m so mad, I might write Steven Starr… wait what were we talking about here? Oh yeah the Tartufo pizza. What’s not to like –truffle, melted fontina, oozy egg yolk on charred bread sprinkled with parmesan. Makes me forget how much I used to dislike pizza that didn’t have any tomatoes on it and still dared to call itself pizza.
Fawn: Oooh it was fontina, I was wondering what confusing yet delicious cheese was in my mouth.
Fawn: A sort of underwhelming sausage pizza. I remember it having a nice spicy kick but on an all star menu it sort of hangs out on the bench. The ultra thin crust did not stand up well to the toppings on this one either. (I could just be so enamoured with that truffle egg pizza that I can’t even look at another slice without feeling a pang of guilt, like I had betrayed my one true pizza love.)
Catzie: What are you talking ’bout Fawn? This pizza was goooooood. In fact it was my second time having it. Yes the main crust of the pizza (not the edges, but the underlaying base that holds all the toppings) was a bit wimpy and needed the assistance of knife and fork at one point, however the spicy long hot pesto made up for taste what it did not have in texture. Long hots would be the go-to pepper for Italian food, and it was a refreshing kind of a sizzle for my taste buds, the kind you can’t get from pouring on the dried red pepper flakes. Since sausage is a pretty standard meat topping for pizza I would recommend this choice for that person at your table who does not frequently dine with an adventurous appetite. Seriously it’ll work with any adolescent/hermit/old hood friend/in-law/family member.
Final Review:
Catzie: This is the part where you’re supposed to see some closing photo that summons up our post, but since Fawn’s not feeling worthy of any of the pics she took, I will just have to let my words paint the image — Pizzeria Stella is a great place for pizza, whether it’s plain old cheese, standard reliables like sausage or gourmet varieties like truffle, egg and fontina. The only caveat is that it is kinda pricey ($12-18) for a medium sized pie, so if your eating partner is a hungry hippo you might wanna verbally contract them into going dutch on the bill.
Fawn: I know you did not just call me a hungry hippo…
gluttonsluts 