Cafe Porta Alba= LIKEY

PART I

This fanned the flames of my food inspired rage today. Come on Cap Times! My favorite line from this review, I humbly reproduce for you:

"Now, this may be true pizza as it was crafted in Naples in 1830 but, in 2007 Wisconsin, I'll take a Glass Nickel Cheesasaurus any day."

CHEESASAURUS: A dinosaur from the paleolithic era thought to be extinct but found greasily floating on top of a lake in Wisconsin, 2007. Locals quickly slaughtered the beast and put it on their version of the pizza.

Now people, those of you who know me know I have a deep connection to the Glass Nickel. They are amazing people, and run a tight ship. I also know, however, that the average 16" Cheesasaurus has about a pound of cheese on it. A pound. What does a pound of cheese look like? Roughly like this!!! Keep that image in your mind the next time you sit down to stuff your face with a gooey, large cheese pizza, cap times reviewer.

But then again, I wouldn't take the word of anyone who thinks "the pan-Asian Firefly is among my favorite restaurants that serve Chinese food." May I be so bold as to suggest that what passes for Chinese food in this town would warrant execution in the capital- punishment-happy land of China.

My review of Cafe Porta Alba to coming soon...

PART II

When you go to a Chinese restaurant, and the menu has approximately 329 items on it, they provide you with a secret code to the left of each menu item, like 1a, 1b, 46d, 134x, etc. You can try to order spring rolls, but what you've really ordered is 6b. It works because who really wants to say, "I'll have the Stir-fried mussels, shrimp, bay scallops and calamari with snowpeas, mushrooms, napa cabbage, spicy garlic sauce and dried silky pork." Nobody.

Cafe Porta Alba's menu could fit inside the appetizer list of your typical Chinese place. It's small, and simple. To some people, (greedy, hungry people), the simple menu is a limitation. We live in a democracy god damnit! We need choices, a wide field of candidates to choose from! Well let's face it, America, when given a choice, you tend to make the wrong one. Cafe Porta Alba strips the menu down to the essentials--salad, pizza, desserts, drinks. No pasta, no french fries, no fried mushrooms or cheese curds. Your average American pizza restaurant generally fails because instead of making its pizza better, it just keeps adding things to the menu in hopes that you'll feel like eating a panini, or a plate of lasagna, or a gyro. Well I don't want a fucking gyro!!!

When I want pizza, I want it the way Cafe Porta Alba makes it--simple and fresh. Their tomato sauce actually tastes like fresh tomatoes, you know, those red round things that sit in pyramids at the grocery store. While some people would rather their tomato sauce taste like that jar of "pizza seasoning" that came with some spice rack your mother-in-law gave you, I prefer Cafe Porta Alba's balanced, slightly sweet and slightly acidic tomato sauce. Top that with a few slices of fresh mozzarella, and a dash of fresh basil, and you have a near perfect Pizza Margherita.

I'm sorry, what? A few slices of mozzarella? But with that small of an amount of cheese, how can I properly inundate my intestines with its nightly grease-bath? How can you call that pizza?

I'm guessing somewhere across the Atlantic, the world's tiniest violin is being played by a full-blooded Italian who wishes somebody would firebomb Pizza Hut for adding the tagline "Italian Bistro" to their signage.

Bottomline: Evacuate your mind of pizza preconceptions, novice, and follow the path to true enlightenment. Buddha was a fatty but it wasn't because he ate a lot of cheese.